Pinocchio's Sister

Book excerpt: Not long after Geppetto made Pinocchio, he finds himself disappointed in the boy he looks on as his son. Pinocchio cheats, plays hooky from school, and lies to cover his selfishness and misdeeds. But his nose betrays him. Still, when Pinocchio runs away from home, Geppetto is broken-hearted. One day he is driven to make another marionette that turns out to be a girl he names Gelsomina. She is everything Pinocchio is not, generous, warm-hearted, eager to go to school and learn. Yet to his amazement, he finds that, in contrast to Pinocchio, Gelsomina's nose grows not when she tells a lie but only when she tells the truth. But Geppetto misses Pinocchio, so Gelsomina sets out to bring him home. How she does so is a magical and charming fairy tale of how goodness triumphs, in which Gelsomina saves Pinocchio's life, changes Geppetto's life for the better, and learns how to deal with telling the truth and lying until at last she becomes a real live girl, a daughter to Geppetto and a sister to Pinocchio.