The Girl in the Painted Caravan: Memories of a Romany Childhood

 Shirley J.     Adult Biography           A young girl growing up a Gypsy living in her granny's vardo

The Girl in the Painted Caravan by Eva Petulengro    310 pages

Eva Petulengro tells the story of growing up a Gypsy when vardos (elaborate wagons Gypsy families lived in) were still pulled by horses.    She goes through the modernizing of Gypsies moving from horse drawn rigs to driving cars.   A delightful book relating Gypsy life and how they feel and deal with non-Gypsies.  She talks about how her grandmother and her mother read Tarot and taught her to do so and the charms and healing ointments and elixirs her family made and sold.   She ends this book at the point she marries a non-Gypsy and is afraid tell her parents so she lives at home the first month they were married before she finally gets up the nerve to confess to her mother.   Excellent story.  Turns out Nina is psychic.   I recommend this to teens on up.