Susan Meissner, Only the Beautiful
Thursday, April 27, 2023 ~ 7:00pm EDT
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Only the Beautiful
A heartrending story about a young mother’s fight to keep her daughter, and the winds of fortune that tear them apart by the USA Today bestselling author of The Nature of Fragile Things and The Last Year of the War.
California, 1938—When she loses her parents in an accident, sixteen-year-old Rosanne is taken in by the owners of the vineyard where she has lived her whole life as the vinedresser’s daughter. She moves into Celine and Truman Calvert’s spacious house with a secret, however—Rosie sees colors when she hears sound. She promised her mother she’d never reveal her little-understood ability to anyone, but the weight of her isolation and grief prove too much for her. Driven by her loneliness she not only breaks the vow to her mother, but in a desperate moment lets down her guard and ends up pregnant. Banished by the Calverts, Rosanne believes she is bound for a home for unwed mothers, and having lost her family she treasures her pregnancy as the chance for a future one. But she soon finds out she is not going to a home of any kind, but to a place far worse than anything she could have imagined.
Austria, 1947—After witnessing firsthand Adolf Hitler’s brutal pursuit of hereditary purity—especially with regard to “different children”—Helen Calvert, Truman's sister, is ready to return to America for good. But when she arrives at her brother’s peaceful vineyard after decades working abroad, she is shocked to learn what really happened nine years earlier to the vinedresser’s daughter, a girl whom Helen had long ago befriended. In her determination to find Rosanne, Helen discovers that while the war had been won in Europe, there are still terrifying battles to be fought at home.
Susan Meissner is a USA TODAY bestselling author of historical fiction with more than three-quarters of a million books in print in eighteen languages. She is an author, speaker, and writing workshop leader with a background in community journalism. Her novels include The Nature of Fragile Things (starred review in Publishers Weekly), The Last Year of the War (named to Real Simple magazine’s list of best books for 2019), As Bright as Heaven (starred review in Library Journal) and Secrets of Charmed Life (Goodreads finalist for Best Historical Fiction 2015). Susan attended Point Loma Nazarene University and lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and their yellow Lab, Winston. Visit her online at susanmeissnerauthor.com; Instagram: @susanmeissnerauthor; Twitter: @SusanMeissner; Facebook: @susan.meissner; and Pinterest: @SusanMeissner.
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Dr. Tim McNeese, Ellis Island and the Immigrant Experience: Gateway to America
Thursday, May 18, 2023 ~ 7:00pm EDT
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Ellis Island and the Immigrant Experience: Gateway to America
Located not far from the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island played a major role in American history. More than 16 million immigrants entered the United States through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1954. Ellis Island and the Immigrant Experience: Gateway to America discusses Ellis Island and what it was like to be an immigrant in America during the period in which it was open. Bolstered by extensive photographs and a chronology.
Dr. Tim McNeese is professor of history and department chair at York University in York, Nebraska. Dr. McNeese is a graduate of York University, Harding University, Missouri State University, and Faulkner University. He has published more than 130 books and educational materials, including the book, Revolutionary Spies: Intelligence and Espionage in America's First War, published by Barnes & Noble's Fall River Press (2015) and Time in the Wilderness: The Formative Years of John “Black Jack” Pershing in the American West, published by the University of Nebraska Press (2021), a recipient of the 2022 Nebraska Book Award for nonfiction biography. His book, William Henry Jackson’s Lens: How Yellowstone’s Famous Photographer Captured the American West will be published in 2023 by Globe Pequot. His book Ellis Island and the Immigrant Experience was published in 2019 by Chelsea House for the Milestones in American History series. His writing has earned him a citation in the library reference work, Contemporary Authors and multiple citations in Best Books for Young Teen Readers. Dr. McNeese has appeared as a consulting historian on the History Channel, the American Heroes Channel series America: Facts vs. Fiction, CuriosityStream’s American Icons series, and Nebraska Educational Television. Most recently, he served as consulting historian for a History Channel series in-production based on the Donner Party. He is in his 31st year of teaching at York University.
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Lesléa Newman, Gittel's Journey: An Ellis Island Story
Thursday, June 15, 2023 ~ 7:00pm EDT
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Gittel's Journey: An Ellis Island Story
Gittel and her mother were supposed to immigrate to America together, but when her mother is stopped by the health inspector, Gittel must make the journey alone. Her mother writes her cousin’s address in New York on a piece of paper. However, when Gittel arrives at Ellis Island, she discovers the ink has run and the address is illegible! How will she find her family? Both a heart-wrenching and heartwarming story, Gittel’s Journey offers a fresh perspective on the immigration journey to Ellis Island. The book includes an author’s note explaining how Gittel’s story is based on the journey to America taken by Lesléa Newman’s grandmother and family friend.
PHOTO - MARY VAZQUEZ
Lesléa Newman has created 80 books for readers of all ages, including Gittel’s Journey: An Ellis Island Story, which received the National Jewish Book Award and the Association of Jewish Libraries Sydney Taylor Silver Medal. Other books include, Ketzel, the Cat who Composed (Sydney Taylor Gold Medal) and Welcoming Elijah: A Passover Tale With A Tail (National Jewish Book Award and Sydney Taylor Gold Medal). She is also the author of the dual memoir-in-verse, I Carry My Mother and I Wish My Father. She has received creative writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Massachusetts Artists Foundation, and from 2008 - 2010 she served as the poet laureate of Northampton, MA.
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