Hudson Valley Bookshelf

Hudson Valley Bookshelf is becoming a regularly-updated Hudson-Valley-Area-Interest book blog on the AboutTown website starting early in the New Year 2011. Check us out to learn about books, authors, signings, links to local bookstores and booksellers, and local reader reactions. Get beyond Amazon.com at AboutBooks: Hudson Valley Bookshelf, starting January 11, 2011.

Books for Young Readers
by Kathleen Everett

The Hudson Valley is privileged to be home to many outstanding authors and illustrators. Three recently published children’s books, the work of local residents, found their way to my nightstand this fall.

Stalling by Alan Katz, illustrated by Elwood H. Smith. Margaret K. McElderrry/Simon & Schuster Kids, hardcover, ages 3–7, $21.99.

Stalling is a bedtime read featuring Dan, a champion staller:

“You’ve got to go to sleep,” Mom said.

“Come on, we’ll read to you.”

“Not time for counting sheep,”Dan said.

“First I got stuff to do!”

The way-too-busy-for-sleep Dan then proceeds to list, in rhymes that will delight little ears, all the things he needs to accomplish before hitting the sack:

“Use all my pillows to trap armadillos!

Visit the Nile, tame a crocodile!

See if my height is more than last night!”

The illustrations of Dan’s romp through his pre-pillow to-do list (by Rhinebeck’s own Elwood Smith) are hand drawings and cartoons collaged with digital images. Whimsical play with scale and space propel Dan and his world out of the pages to tickle wee viewers and the big people reading to them. Dan’s antics will thrill children and amuse anyone who has ever tried to tuck a little one in before s/he was tuckered out.

Gunner, Football Hero. Written and illustrated by James E. Ransome. Holiday House, hardcover, $16.95.

James E. Ransome, a much celebrated Hudson Valley artist, has revealed another of his talents by writing as well as illustrating this story for elementary school children. The book features Gunner, an unlikely hero of a boy who was born without a classic athlete’s physique but earned himself the third-string quarterback spot on the local Pee Wee football team through perseverance, heart, and a really good arm. The beautiful palette and rich illustrations make it easy to see why Mr. Ransome was named to The Children’s Book Council list of “75 authors and illustrators everyone should know.” Gunner doesn’t lose hope while patiently spending the season on the bench, and is rewarded with an opportunity to bring his team to glory. Just when the reader thinks s/he has the ending figured out, the story takes a twist. And in true football fashion, there’s another unexpected turnaround in the last few seconds. Boys and girls alike will enjoy this charming story of sportsmanship and commitment.

Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly, Delacorte Press, hardcover, 496 pages, ages 14 & up, $18.99.

For the young adult reader, Jennifer Donnelly, author of the award-winning A Northern Light, has written a haunting and utterly engaging novel. This story is carefully researched and the characters brilliantly developed, bringing to life the human impact of the French Revolution in a way no history text can. Revolution is an ideal read for students currently studying European history as well as anyone who appreciates outstanding intelligent fiction, contemporary or historical. Set in Brooklyn and Paris, Revolution follows the lives of two young women, Andi and Alex, born two centuries apart, struggling with many of the timeless issues of adolescence — compounded by personal tragedy —moving between Andi’s life as a rebellious student in a snooty Brooklyn Heights prep school and Alex’s tumultuous life in late 18th century France. Facing challenges which have the potential to destroy them, the girls persevere, finding strength through music, words, and a willingness to move beyond their self centered concerns. The themes of love, redemption, music, and literature are perfectly woven into this heady, complex tapestry of a novel, which has been named IndieBound’s Kids’ Next #1 Inspired Recommendation for Autumn 2010.

The Kennedy Heartache
by Elias Isquith

Dear Mrs. Kennedy: The World Shares Its Grief, Letters November 1963, by Jay Mulvaney & Paul De Angelis., St. Martin’s Press, hardcover, 240 pages, $19.99.

There may not be a moment in American history more sacralized than the murder of John F. Kennedy some 47 years ago. Even for those of us who were old enough at the time to pay attention, recollections of that day likely have become discolored and transformed by the onslaught of memorials, dramatizations, and fictionalizations that has blanketed our nation’s cultural consciousness ever since. From today’s vantage point, the 35th President’s murder almost seems preordained; a fitting opening salvo in the struggle between the better and worse angels of our nature; the moment the 60s truly began, and everything in America changed forever.

It’s because the sheer scope of all this history is too much for anyone to truly comprehend that books like Dear Mrs. Kennedy are so valuable. An intriguing and wistful collection of some of the thousands of letters sent to First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in the months following her husband’s murder, Dear Mrs. Kennedy reminds us, sometimes viscerally, of just how unexpected and traumatic Kennedy’s murder truly was. Reading through these letters, skillfully compiled and arranged by authors Jay Mulvaney and Paul De Angelis, we’re presented with some of the most touching and honest expressions of grief and solidarity imaginable. From black school children in the Jim Crow south, to Winston Churchill and Charles De Gaulle, to countless people living somewhere in-between, the voices heard in this book are each distinct, unique, and tender.

As the authors guide us through the letters, contextualizing along the way, it’s hard to resist moments of shock at the crumbling naiveté of this hopeful time. One letter after another writes with profound sadness—and often a seemingly personal sense of loss—about a man they understood not as the Carouser of Camelot but, rather, as the youthful and vigorous champion of a better tomorrow. De Angelis, who was an adolescent at the time of the shooting, says that writing the book “was like revisiting a time of innocence [when] it seemed like a world full of endless possibilities, before the assassination began a trend of everyone turning away from government…”

We know the rest of that story all too well; but with Dear Mrs. Kennedy, we’ve a chance, however brief, to read these heartfelt letters from a world long gone, about a heartache that lingers still.

Other titles of local interest:

The Sweet & Low Down. by Mary Leonard, Antrim House, chapbook, 28 pages, AntrimHouseBooks.com. “Vivid & intelligent” poems by AboutTown contributor Leonard.

Man in the Woods, by Scott Spencer, Ecco Press, hardcover, 320 pages, $24.99. Recent novel by acclaimed Rhinebeck novelist.

The Home Front at Roosevelt’s Hometown: Small Town America During World War II, by Carney Rhinevault & Tatiana Rhinevault, Roosevelt Press (Hyde Park NY), softcover, 328 pages, $22.95. Heavily illustrated scrapbook nostalgia by Hyde Park town historian an his wife.

Too Old for This, Too Young for That! Your Survival Guide for the Middle School Years by Harriet S. Mosatche, Ph.D. and Karen Unger, M.A., Free Spirit Publishing, softcover, 192 pages, $15.99. Updated and revised edition of a classic guidebook for tweens and their parents, by local co-author Karen Unger.

My Philosophy of Life, Plus a Few Handy Tips, Nita Micossi, The Zises Group, 280 pages, $12.95. Collection of wry humor by local columnist who died prematurely in 2008.

When Do They Serve the Wine? by Liza Donnelly, Chronicle Books, hardcover, 160 pages, $19.95. Donnelly on women, her funniest book ever.