This is a French legend originally told by the master storyteller Anatole France. This is a story of a mother and fatherless child whose name was Giovanni. Roaming throughout the countryside, he learned to juggle. Sharing his talent brough him a lot of joy.
He helped a local man, Signor Baptista, sell his fruit and vegetables by juggling the oranges, apples, and lemons, and the eggplants and zucchini vegtables. In return, he was given a large bowl of soup at the end of the day.

As he grew older, Giovanni traveled more territory and used more items to juggle, including brightly colored balls. The brightest was a beautiful golden ball. As he grew older, he made mistakes. One day he dropped the rainbow of colored balls. He no longer was important and thus people threw vegtables, fruits and vegtetales . Running for his life, the old man walked back to Sorrento, the area where he began.

Cold and weary, he found a monestery church. He crept inside the church and found an area where he could sleep. Beautiful music awoke him and Giovannie found the church overwhelming in beauty.

Seeing a beautiful statue of the Lady and the Child. The child seemed so stern and sad. Giovannie wondered what gift he could give the mother and child, and then put his white makeup on his face, opened the bag containing his old items used to juggle,including sticks, plates, clubs and rings and multicolored balls that looked like a rainbow. Suddenly, at the end of his performance, he died.

The next day, the priest discovered the statue of the mother and child with the child smiling as he held the golden ball in his lap ( )

> --Résumé
L'adresse de Giovanni, jongleur depuis sa tendre enfance, lui vaut la célébrité. Mais à l'heure de la vieillesse, il devient maladroit, démuni et rejeté. Alors que tous apportent leur offrande à l'église à l'occasion de Noël, le pauvre clown décide, pour égayer l'enfant Jésus, de Lui présenter son numéro. A la fin de son spectacle ou plutôt de sa prière qui plaît à Dieu, le coeur de Giovanni s'arrête de battre. La lecture de cet ouvrage n'est pas sans évoquer chez les adultes les contes des frères Tharaud. Une belle histoire dans la tradition et les croyances chrétiennes où le travail est prière et la mort, naissance à la vie. Texte aéré.

Italian tale of a juggler. ( )

This would be a great book to read to your class during a renaissance lesson unit. It speaks of a beggar that learns the art of juggling and travels the world performing for people and princes. He juggles for the love of making people laugh and smile. The story comes full circle when one day his audience throws tomatoes at him and he becomes a beggar once more. He learns of Jesus, except the book amazingly hints at religion because he does not say Jesus or Mary. On Christmas, he has no gifts to give to the Savior so he once again juggles his best act yet/, dies, and baby Jesus is holding one of his juggling balls. He was a selfless man, performing for people and in the end, he gave his life to the Lord. It is a very huge concept that the author subtly introduces to his readers.

Religion based questions:
What gifts can we give to God?
What gifts did God give to us?

Non-religion based question:
How can we be more selfless towards others? ( )

A young boy travels around Italy and pleases crowds with his juggling. As the boy ages he learns that his juggling is a way to give glory to God.

The key element of this book are the illustrations. They vividly show how Giovanni ages throughout his journey and the different audiences/advisers he encounters. The rainbow colored balls, that Giovanni juggled, showed the consistency of his life, the joy he brought others, and the wonderful skill he had mastered. This book has an underlying message about religion, which some students may not understand or pick up on. However, I feel the larger message in this story is to value the skills you have and use them to share joy with those around you. This book can be used during a multicultural unit about Italy, folktales, or religion. ( )