A Pick for Mother-Daughter (as well as Black History Month) Reading Club

Beth Hoffman's Saving CeeCee Honeycutt would be great for an inter-generational reading and then, discussion, like in a mother-daughter or grandmother-granddaughter book club.  I give the feminine examples, mainly because it is a very female-oriented book. 

The story is narrated by Cecilia "CeeCee" Honeycutt who has cared for and was embarrassed by her mentally ill mother all her young life until Camille -- 1951 Vidalia Onion Queen -- is struck dead by an ice cream truck on the last day of school in June 1967, when CeeCee is but twelve-years-old.  Her traveling salesman father consents to her being taken home with Great-Aunt Tallulah ("Tootie") to Savannah for proper love and attention.  Despite her only friend in her hometown being an elderly neighbor with whom she looks forward to having Sunday breakfasts and the grown-up responsibilities of cooking for herself, keeping her mother away from cooking, being the receiving end of her mother's confidences about a cheating husband and the waste of the best years of her life in cold Ohio (in both winter temperature and small-town neighbors), CeeCee still has the aspirations of a young girl -- to fit in, to be liked, to have fun.  .  CeeCee also can, like any 12-year-old, be thoughtlessly inconsiderate, selfishly persuasive, stubborn, naively vindictive, astonished, wonderfully accepting and recklessly adventurous, all of the potential revealing itself as she blossoms in the genuine love and warm interest of Savannah women -- of society ladies and cleaning ladies, black and white, old and old-fashioned, crazy and borderline crazy. 

Being the Sixties, of course, Martin Luther King, Jr, is mentioned, but closer to home, so to speak, is the scary incident of CeeCee, Tootie's black housekeeper Oletta and Oletta's friends Nadine and Chessie being held up at knife point by a wild-eyed (read, drug-crazed) white man, saved only by Chessie swinging her bag full of chakra stones against his head.  CeeCee is amazed to discover Oletta and her black friends refuse to tell anyone about the incident for fear of being disbelieved.  Additionally, there's one of two feel-good moments at the end, involving a Tootie-hosted mixed-race luncheon hostile with segregationist hostility turned hilarious.  The other is CeeCee's start to a new school year and a new friend her own age.  It is a twelve-year-old voice in a bygone adult (almost ancient) world, making it a great vehicle for inter-generational discussion on both personal feelings and personal history, from girls and women who can remember pre-teen hopes and fears and women who lived through those tumultuous '60s.

Books for the Month

In time for Martin Luther King Day (17 January), we have several titles, including The Everything Martin Luther King, Jr Book.  Back in West Babylon, MLK Day (which was not a federal holiday then) was a big deal.  Classes spent weeks developing skits, practicing songs like "Go Down, Moses (Let My People Go)" and "We Shall Overcome," and putting together a multimedia presentation, which in my day was  considered pretty cool if you could get some film, some audio overlay and a light show together.

Additionally, Dixon being Ronald Reagan’s boyhood hometown, Books on First naturally specializes in all books Ronald Reagan, so rely on us to help celebrate the 100^th anniversary of his birthday (6 February).

Meanwhile, we are cleaning up inventory (something I wish we would do during the summer, but hey, I only physically show up one day a week). We have a lot of books to blow out of here. We must have 20 copies of the Dover edition of Shakespeare's Four Great Tragedies: Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello & Romeo and Juliet.  The title was special ordered by a teacher probably two years ago, and then, there was some snafu -- miscommunications about how many or which title or whether they were ordered at all.  The books were never returned (as that's not usually the best option) and Larry worked to sell them to another English teacher.  So, here we are, selling them for 60% off.  They would make great party favors (I am not jesting -- too bad this title does not include Julius Caesar, or else, I could suggest you have an Ides of March party and give them out.  Maybe you still can have an Ides of March party (or an Ides of January (which would be perfectly timed on Sunday, 15 January) or Ides of February party, and still give these out). 

At $2 a copy, it would be less expensive and much tidier to buy them all if you're planning to produce one of these plays in your basement or backyard (or local school auditorium) than to take one copy and make mimeographed copies (ha!  how many of you readers are old enough to remember mimeographs?  There were probably teacher's pets vying to run the mimeograph machine simply to get high on the chemicals emitted). 

No, seriously, folks, buying a printed bound book with four Shakespeare plays at 50 cents a piece (plus only 6.75% sales tax) is more than a bargain; it's a steal. 

Atop this, there are plenty of other titles for $1, $2 or 50% off list.  Check 'em out!

To Respond to Readers' Comments

Thank you, Christopher G Moore, for taking the time to write!  And it looks to be a great 2011 for you.
We look forward to seeing the film debut and hope you'll be happy with the end result being a good reflection of your vision.  And, we will be sure to have Spirit House (as well as other Vincent Calvino) in stock.  Keep the action up (and almost needless to say, keep the allusions to past books down).

We also feel great about helping Steve Cousins find something on the internet and we thank him for taking the time to write and let us know.  We at Books on First try our darndest to share what we know and what we discover as we pursue those little curious paths of inquiry.

I have had many people personally thank us for the "kind words" we post.  We are happy to showcase all the wonderful features of Dixon which make it a great place to visit if not stay -- Books on First, of course, but also Second Saturdays, Reagan Days, Heritage Crossing Riverfront Plaza, Lowell Park, White Pines State Park, Crystal Cork, Touch of Thai, Distinctive Garden, and the list continues.  When I was younger, the State of Indiana had "Wander Indiana" on its license plates.  I always thought that it was a county in Indiana.  A classmate at Boston College (now Carroll) Graduate School of Business who is from Indiana clarified that this was a slogan thought up by a tourism bureau.  She said it would be changing to "Linger Indiana," to shift the thinking from driving aimlessly through Indiana to staying awhile in Indiana.  I don't know if she had been pulling my leg, but whether you wander into, linger in or just plain make this a destination sometime, Dixon is someplace you should consider.

Some of you may have noticed that these posts have become "fast breaks," as I consider them.  Yes, I am learning again to write better faster, just like when I was on the school newspaper in West Babylon.  One fortunate change that computers have wrought is the capability to change the article after publishing.  Why don't we learn and know more about who created the internet and the first word processing programs, like we (well, some of us oldsters) learned about Gutenberg and the invention of the movable press which changed the world from the 15th century onward.