Years ago, when Grandmother Daniela Gioseffi was a child, her father Daniel Donato Gioseffi wrote a children's story for her and her sisters Camille and Lucile titled The Fantastic Adventures of Patch Panda. The story no doubt reflected his own experience as a poor Italian immigrant, maligned for being lame in one leg. He was called derogatory names such as "Guinea Gimp, WOP, or Dago" by American school children who maligned him for his inability to speak English. He therefore determined that he'd learn English better than any of his American School mates, and he became a perfectly educated speaker of English with a voice like Walter Cronkite, the famous newscaster.

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     He read Sheakespeare, Dante, Cervates, Rabalais and became learned in the great literature of the world's classics.  Thus the story of a character who is different, but finally a triumphant hero. Due to hard work, enormous labors, and immigrant tenacity, Daniel Donato Gioseffi was the first Italian immigrant to win both a Phi Beta Kappa and a Sigma Si from Union College in 1928, honors in both Liberal Arts and Science. A busy chemical engineer, he never had time to publish the story of Patch Panda, but Daniela remembers him reading it to her when she was a child. Daniela edited the story a little and after her father's death, she hoped to publish it as a book that would help children learn lessons against prejudice toward those who are different. But, when her Grandson Keir Sampson came of computer savvy age, and good at building websites, she asked him to build this website with her for all children to enjoy. 

     

      Keir Sampson, began building this website when he was just 12 years old. He is now 13 and a Black Belt Sensei, who has mastered Karate. He is also top of his class in mathematics and makes the Honor Roll every semester, following in hs Grandfather Daniel Gioseffi's footsteps. Keir loves to play soccer and likes to create games with code. He has an older brother who is an arborist and learned gardener at age 17, and who also loves to game and likes to edit logos, and is good at animating cartoons on Youtube. Keir's Mom is a computer graphics artist, painter and musician who is a singer/songwriter, and a gardener. Keir's Dad likes to watch soccer games, shoot hoops, bike ride, and code with him. He also likes to take his sons and wife on vacations every summer to explore the world. 

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      Grandmother, Daniela Gioseffi is an American Book Award winning author of 18 books of poetry and prose from major and university presses. She has won The John Card Award for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry, and two grants in creative writing from The New York State Council for the Arts. She has read her published writings at book fairs from Miami to Barcelona, and on campuses around the country, from Rutgers to NYU, Montclair State U.or Hofstra U. to The University of Venice, and on NPR and BBC Radio, as well as for The Library of Congress radio program, The Poet and the Poem. For her book On Prejudice: A Global Perspective (Anchor/Doubleday, NY 1993), she won a World Peace Prize from The Ploughshaers Fund, CA. More can be learned about her books at www.DanielaGioseffi.com and about her work at www.AuthorandActivist.com. She appears on the websites of the Poetry Foundation of American and The Academy of American Poets. Her papers and books are preserved at The Beinecke Library of Yale University, a fact that would have greatly pleased her father Daniel. Daniela is happy to at last share the meaning of her father's story with her grandson, Keir, who has helped greatly to bring it to light on the World Wide Web, as well as helped illustrate it.