Nympha Palermo

Middle School Adventures
of an Italian-American Girl
Gemma Grimaldi
Copyright © 2024 Tikalon LLC
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-942459-11-8

Author's Forward

Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, and it's the capital of Sicily. Some Sicilian immigrants to America took Palermo as a surname. During the Middle Ages, Saint Nympha was one of the four patron saints of Palermo, and her feast day was November tenth. Little is known of Nympha, but one tradition is that she was a virgin martyr who died in the fourth century. Our little Nympha is much more fortunate, growing up in a middle class Italian-American family, but she does have many of the problems that school girls face, some exacerbated by her ethnic family. Nympha Palermo is a fictitious character, as are her family and friends. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. According to the US Social Security Administration lists of names, Nympha has been a rarely used girl’s name in the United States for the past 140 years. It's unlikely that your name is Nympha, and probably more unlikely that your name is Nympha Palermo; so, if it is, our congratulations! Note that some of these cartoons might be appropriate only for children 15 years of age or older; so, parental guidance is advised. There’s mild sexual content, some fat-shaming (especially with the aptly-named Aunt Blimpa), and adult use of alcohol, tobacco products and marijuana. However, children are not as innocent as their parents think they are, since they are strongly influenced by their school classmates.

Author's Forward............ii
1 Nympha....................1
2 School....................7
3 Family....................25
4 Aunt Blimpa...............47
5 Aunts, Uncles & Cousins...56
6 Church....................79
7 Food......................89
8 Sex.......................105
9 Culture & Society.........119
10 Pandemic.................148
About the Author............158
Index.......................159

About the Author

Gemma Grimaldi is the pseudonym for the author of Nympha Palermo. Since the primary message of these cartoons is the text, the drawings are done in a minimalist style. Hopefully, the content is enough to generate an occasional laugh, especially among Italian-Americans. As for source material, I've got plenty! I grew up in a middle class Italian-American family, living first in an Italian neighborhood, and later in the suburbs. There was quite a collection of characters in my broad base of relatives, in-laws, neighbors, and friends, so these comics essentially write themselves!

Author's Forward

CONTENTS

About the Author