Book of the Week (12/28/2020)

The Worlds of Tomie dePaola: The Art and Stories of the Legendary Artist and Author by Barbara Elleman (New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2021).

Beloved NH children's author and illustrator Tomie dePaola is celebrated in this upcoming biography about his life and work.

"Tomie dePaola is one of the best-known and most beloved creators of books for children. His art and his stories, which are filled with imagination, humor, grace, and curiosity, represent a love of life that is reflected in everything he does.

Barbara Elleman’s exploration of Tomie dePaola’s career takes a fascinating look at the many worlds dePaola has brought to life through his work: from autobiographical memories to folktales, religious stories, nursery rhymes, and more—including, of course, the inventive world of his most famous character, Strega Nona. Originally published in 1999 and filled with evocative artwork, captivating photographs, and heartwarming anecdotes, this comprehensive book has been updated to cover two new decades of dePaola’s creativity. Elleman’s thoughtful narrative brings a fresh appreciation to the work of a unique author-illustrator, one who is a true legend of children’s literature and a source of lasting joy for generations of readers, young and old." --Publisher's blurb

Book of the Week (12/21/2020)

In the Woods by David Elliott (Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press, 2020). 

NH author David Elliott shares his love for woodland animals in this beautifully illustrated poetry collection.

The animals in the dark woods are secretive, their inner lives a mystery. The stealthy bobcat, the inquisitive raccoon, and the dignified bear waking up from his winter nap are just a few of the glorious animals featured in this clever collection of poems and woodland scenes. This companion to In the Sea, In the Wild, and On the Farm is the first collaboration between David Elliott and Rob Dunlavey, whose colorful, expressive art pairs with the author’s charming poems to create a love letter to the animals of the forest. -- Publisher's blurb.

Book of the Week (12/14/2020)

The Chicken Sisters by KJ Dell'Antonia (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2020).

Lyme, NH author KJ Dell'Antonia has released her first novel about family, dreams and second chances.

"Three generations. Two chicken shacks. One recipe for disaster.

In tiny Merinac, Kansas, Chicken Mimi's and Chicken Frannie's have spent a century vying to serve up the best fried chicken in the state--and the legendary feud between their respective owners, the Moores and the Pogociellos, has lasted just as long. No one feels the impact more than thirty-five-year-old widow Amanda Moore, who grew up working for her mom at Mimi's before scandalously marrying Frank Pogociello and changing sides to work at Frannie's. Tired of being caught in the middle, Amanda sends an SOS to Food Wars, the reality TV restaurant competition that promises $100,000 to the winner. But in doing so, she launches both families out of the frying pan and directly into the fire. . .

The last thing Brooklyn-based organizational guru Mae Moore, Amanda's sister, wants is to go home to Kansas. But when her career implodes, helping the fading Mimi's look good on Food Wars becomes Mae's best chance to reclaim the limelight--even if doing so pits her against Amanda and Frannie's. Yet when family secrets become public knowledge, the sisters must choose: Will they fight with each other, or for their heritage?"--Publisher's blurb

Join KJ Dell'Antonia and Gibson's Bookstore virtually on Wednesday, January 6th, 2021, at 7pm where she will be discussing her new book. 

Registration required: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/132306599601

The author is signing, personalizing, and mailing bookplates for book buyers, fill out the form here: https://forms.gle/CnJjJbhJGCzcYmj96

Book of the Week (12/7/2020)

The Last Traverse by Ty Gagne (Tmc Books LLC, 2020). 

On a mountain somewhere above tree line, in some of the coldest and worst winter conditions imaginable, two men lie unconscious in the snow as explosive winds batter the nearby summits.

The Last Traverse: Tragedy and Resilience in the Winter Whites, Ty Gagne masterfully lays out the events that led up to an epic and legendary rescue attempt in severe and dangerous winter conditions in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. More than a cautionary tale, it is a tribute to all the volunteers and professionals who willingly put themselves in harm's way to save lives. This is a must read for anyone who hikes the Whites. -- Publisher's blurb.

Join NH author Ty Gagne for a Gibson's Bookstore virtual event via Zoom on Wednesday, December 9th, 2020, at 7 pm EST. Registration required: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/130495659029 

Book of the Week (11/30/2020)

Wild Symphony by Dan Brown (Emmaus, Pa.: Rodale Kids, 2020).

#1 New York Times bestselling New Hampshire author Dan Brown makes his picture book debut with this humorous and entertaining book!

"Travel through the trees and across the seas with Maestro Mouse and his musical friends! Young readers will meet a big blue whale and speedy cheetahs, tiny beetles and graceful swans. Each has a special secret to share.

Along the way, you might spot the surprises Maestro Mouse has left for you- a hiding buzzy bee, jumbled letters that spell out clues, and even a coded message to solve!

Children and adults can enjoy this timeless picture book as a traditional read-along, or can choose to listen to original musical compositions as they read--one for each animal--with a free interactive smartphone app, which uses augmented reality to play the appropriate song for each page when a phone's camera is held over it."--Publisher's blurb

Dan Brown will be donating all US royalties due to him to support music education for children worldwide, through the New Hampshire Charitable foundation.

Book of the Week (11/23/2020)

Witch: A Cranky Little Tale by Ann Robinson (Portsmouth, NH: Peter E. Randall, 2020). 

The story, set in an imaginary town in New York State’s Hudson River Valley, is alternately narrated by sixty-something Irene Richards and her thirty-five year old daughter Shirleen McClure, as they cope with events and each other during one year that begins and ends on Halloween.  The novel is peppered with elements of magic realism, inspired by Irene’s sudden interest in witchcraft and how to introduce her newly-acquired skills into her daily routine. In a comedy of errors, Irene completes a mail-order course in the Craft, and enlists the aid of a 700-year old sorceress, Moldred of Breste, to enact revenge on her unfaithful husband, Teddy, who is recuperating from a stroke and is confined to a nursing home. Shirleen convinces her mother to sell their house and move in with her; Deke, her rough-and-tumble husband; and their son Junior, who’s very attached to his grandmom. Along comes Rolfe, a handsome French-Canadian house painter, and Shirleen is smitten.Alas, the course of true love never runs smooth. Several months pass. Shirleen tours Montreal with her French club, and who should appear? Deke tries to phone her, but she can’t be reached. The tour guide is scandalized. Two days later, a contrite Shirleen returns home. Good thing, too: Irene has developed a bogus bath product that will make her famous. When customers discover the ruse, a repentant Irene seeks solace in a neopagan lifestyle, but soon becomes disenchanted with life in a coven. Ultimately, she forgives Teddy, who has recovered his health and become a caterer. The story concludes with the Wiccan marriage ceremony of Irene’s grandson, Junior, and his pregnant girlfriend, Antoinette, the daughter of Teddy’s former mistress, Rosalie.  To everyone’s delight, Shyrena Rose is born with midwyffe Moldred in attendance (is there no limit to this witch’s talents?)  At the novel’s conclusion, Irene, having rediscovered the pleasures of traditional family life, contemplates a future without neopaganism that might even include Teddy. -- Publisher's blurb

Book of the Week (11/16/2020)

Storm Over Key West: The Civil War and the Call of Freedom by Mike Pride (Sarasota, Fla.: Pineapple Press, 2020).

Bow, NH author Mike Pride has written another important work of non-fiction that brings insight into a little known portion of American history.

"A few weeks after the Emancipation Proclamation took effect, James Montgomery sailed into Key West Harbor looking for black men to draft into the Union army. Eager to oblige him, the military commander in town ordered every black man from fifteen to fifty to report to the courthouse, “there to undergo a medical examination, preparatory to embarking for Hilton Head, S.C.” Montgomery swept away 126 men.

Storm over Key West is a little-known story woven of many threads, but its main theme is the denial to black people of the equality central to the American ideal. After the island’s slaves flocked to freedom during the summer of 1862, the white majority began a century-long campaign to deny black residents civil rights, education, literacy, respect, and the vote.

Key West’s harbor and two major federal forts were often referred to as “America’s Gibraltar.” This Gibraltar guarded the Florida Straits between Key West and Cuba and thus access to the Gulf of Mexico. When Union forces seized it before the war, the southernmost point of the Confederacy slipped out of Confederate hands. This led to a naval blockade based in Key West that devastated commerce in Florida and beyond.This book is the widest-ranging narrative history to date of the military bastion in the Florida Keys." --Publisher's blurb

 Join Mike Pride on Tuesday, December 1st, 2020, at 7pm EST, online only via Zoom, presented by Gibson's Bookstore. Registration is required: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/128147148571/

Book of the Week (11/9/2020)

Of This New World by Allegra Hyde (University of Iowa Press, 2016).

Allegra Hyde's debut story collection, Of This New World, offers a menagerie of utopias: real, imagined, and lost. Starting with the Garden of Eden and ending in a Mars colony, the stories wrestle with conflicts of idealism and practicality, communal ambition and individual kink. Stories jump between genres--from historical fiction to science fiction, realism to fabulism--but all ask those fundamental human questions: What do we do when we lose our utopia? What will we do to get it back? Over the course of twelve stories, Hyde writes with a mix of lyricism, humor, and masterful detail. A group of environmental missionaries seeks to start an ideal eco-society on an island in the Bahamas, only to unwittingly tyrannize the local inhabitants and disrupt the social ecosystem. The neglected daughter of a floundering hippie commune must adjust to conventional life with her ungroovy grandmother. A wounded veteran gets lost in erotic fantasies of his twin brother's life. Haunted by her years at a collegiate idyll, a young woman eulogizes a friendship. After indenturing his only son to the Shakers, an antebellum vegan turns to Louisa May Alcott's famous family for help. And in the final story, a down-and-out drug addict gets a second chance at life in a government-sponsored space population program, only to be flummoxed by erectile dysfunction. An unmissable debut, the collection charts the worlds born in our dreams and bred in hope -- Publisher's blurb.

Book of the Week (11/2/2020)

Bluegrass Ambassadors: The McLain Family Band in Appalachia and the World by Paul O. Jenkins (Morgantown, WV: West Virginia University Press, 2020).

Paul O. Jenkins is the university librarian at Franklin Pierce University and has written numerous articles on old-time and bluegrass music. His previous books include, "Richard Dyer-Bennet: The Last Minstrel" and "Teaching the Beatles".

"Bluegrass Ambassadors is the first book-length study of the McLain Family Band, which has spread the gospel of bluegrass for more than fifty years. Rooted in bluegrass but also collaborating with classical composers and performing folk, jazz, gospel, and even marches, the band traveled to sixty-two foreign countries in the 1970s under the auspices of the State Department. The band’s verve and joyful approach to its art perfectly suited its ambassadorial role. After retiring as full-time performers, most members of the group became educators, with patriarch Raymond K. McLain’s work at Berea College playing a particularly important role in bringing bluegrass to the higher education curriculum.

Interpreting the band’s diverse repertoire as both a source of its popularity and a reason for its exclusion from the bluegrass pantheon, Paul Jenkins advances subtle arguments about genre, criticism, and audience. Bluegrass Ambassadors analyzes the McLains’ compositions, recordings, and performances, and features a complete discography."-- Publisher's blurb

Book of the Week (10/26/2020)

Marked: The Witchcraft Persecution of Goodwife Unise Cole 1656-1680 by Cheryl Lassiter (CreateSpace, 2015).

“It must be so, it shall be so, do what you will.” So muttered Goodwife Unise Cole to her neighbor Abraham Drake as he pondered his mysteriously deceased livestock. The deaths were blamed on her familiarity with the Devil, one of many similiar accusations lodged against her– she bewitched crops; shape-shifted into a dog, a cat, an eagle; had conversations with the Devil; enticed young children; and moved at supernatural speed. Worse, she was blamed for the deaths of a man as he lay helpless in his bed and a child who had been diabolically transformed into an ‘ape.’ Unise Cole’s childlessness, low social status, and tempestuous spirit marked her for persecution as a witch in the puritan town of Hampton, where she endured three decades of accusations, whippings, court trials, and imprisonment, all in an attempt to banish her from the town. In her third non-fiction book about the people and events in the small seacoast town of Hampton, New Hampshire, Cheryl Lassiter shares her passion for detailed historical research to tell the definitive, true story of the woman known as The Witch of Hampton. --Publisher's blurb.

Book of the Week (10/19/2020)

Shake Strain Done: Craft Cocktails At Home by J.M. Hirsch (Lebanon, IN.: Voracious, 2020).

New Hampshire's own J.M. Hirsch, James Beard Award-winning writer and author of numerous cooking publications sets out to revolutionize the way you drink at home with his latest publication, Shake Strain Done: Craft Cocktails at Home. 

Are you done with generic gin and tonics, mediocre Manhattans and basic martinis? You can use pantry staples and basic liquors to produce more than 200 game-changing craft cocktails worthy of a seat at the bar.

Many cocktail books call for hard-to-find ingredients and complicated techniques that can frustrate home cocktail makers. Shake Strain Done shows a better way:

• If you can shake, strain, stir and turn on a blender, you can make great cocktails.
• No tedious secondary recipes hidden between the lines.
• No mysteries. You'll know what each drink will taste like before you pick up a bottle.
• No fancy equipment needed. A shaker, strainer and spoon are as exotic as it gets.
• The ingredients are mostly pantry and bar staples–things you already have on hand.

Every drink is rated by its characteristics — Warm, Refreshing, Sweet, Sour, Bitter, Fruity, Herbal, Creamy, Spicy, Strong and Smoky — to help expand your horizons and find more drinks to love. -- Publisher's blurb

Join J.M. Hirsch at an online event hosted by Gibson's Bookstore on Thursday, November 5th, 2020, at 7pm via Zoom. Registration is required: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/122728711881/

Book of the Week (10/12/2020)

You Found Me by Virginia Macgregor (Sphere, 2020).

Early one summer morning Isabel and her eleven-year-old daughter River walk across Regent's Park. They come across a rain-soaked man sitting alone on a bench and ask him if he's okay. But he doesn't know. In fact he doesn't know the answer to any of their questions - not even his own name.

Urged on by her daughter Isabel takes the man to the hospital she works at, hoping that will be the end of it. But when the tests show there's nothing physically wrong with him, and yet he still can't remember who he is, she realizes she can't walk away.

Isabel made a promise to River that they would help this man, but with no way to identify him Isabel begins to worry about what he past secrets his memory loss might be hiding. -- Publisher's blurb.

Join NH author Virginia Macgregor for a virtual event with Gibson's Bookstore on Wednesday, October 21st, 2020, 7:30 pm Eastern, online only via Zoom. Registration required: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/123212280247/ 

Book of the Week (10/5/2020)

Covid Spring: Granite State Pandemic Poems edited by Alexandria Peary (Concord, N.H.: Hobblebush Books, 2020).

"When the COVID-19 pandemic hit New Hampshire in March, it became clear that April—National Poetry Month—would not be celebrated with live poetry readings and writers’ workshops as in past years. In an effort to provide a channel for creatively navigating our common experiences, New Hampshire Poet Laureate Alexandria Peary set out to host two virtual poetry writing groups each week in April. At the end of the month, New Hampshire residents were invited to submit their work for consideration in an anthology of poems addressing the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 100 writers submitted their work—each with a unique voice and a fresh perspective on the pandemic’s impact in New Hampshire.

In her introduction, Alexandria writes, “Fifty-four of the state’s poets are represented in this anthology, writing of job loss, loneliness and love, masks, social distancing, surreal visitors, uncertainty, graduations deferred, grief, neighborly and less-than-neighborly acts, observing the beginning of the pandemic and making projections about the future, recalibrating or confirming what it means to be human, to be a resident of this region. In a remarkable range of poetic form and style, these writers provide a thirty-day snapshot of what life was like in the Granite State in April of 2020." --Publisher's blurb

To help support New Hampshire residents impacted by COVID-19, Hobblebush Books will donate $2 to the New Hampshire Food Bank for every copy of COVID Spring sold. 

Click here to order your copy from Hobblebush Books: https://www.hobblebush.com/product-page/covid-spring

Book of the Week (9/28/20)

Crown of Wild by Erica Bodwell (Kingston, WA: Two Sylvias Press, 2020).

What is the sound of in ruins, broken?" In Erica Bodwell's striking debut, brokenness is inflected with pain and also with beauty. Bodwell knows how humans get damaged and do damage, and sticks close to the stressed and womanly body: its sensations, its pressures, what impinges on it, how it breaks free--or how it can't. Her sounds are dense andvivid, her characters in these formally-varied lyric narratives are as real as characters in short stories.This is a book I'll keep coming back to. -- Daisy Fried

NH Poet Erica Bodwell returns to Gibson's Bookstore for this virtual event, where she will be presenting her first full-length poetry collection. Online only via Zoom, on Thursday, September 24th, 2020 at 7 pm EST. Registration required: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/poet-erica-bodwell-crown-of-wild-tickets-119288241341

Book of the Week (9/21/2020)

The Wrong Kind of Woman by Sarah McCraw Crow (Toronto: Mira Books 2020).

NH author Sarah McCraw Crow has published her first full length novel.

"In late 1970, Oliver Desmarais drops dead in his front yard while hanging Christmas lights. In the year that follows, his widow, Virginia, struggles to find her place on the campus of Clarendon College, the elite men’s college where Oliver was a professor. While Virginia had always shared her husband’s prejudices against the four outspoken, never-married women on the faculty—dubbed The Gang of Four by their male counterparts—she now finds herself depending on them, even joining their work to bring the women’s movement to Clarendon.

Meanwhile, Virginia’s thirteen-year-old daughter, Rebecca, is adrift in a world without her dad and hates the woman her mother is becoming. And junior Sam Waxman, reeling from the death of his favorite professor, falls in love with a magnetic activist bent on effecting change by any means necessary.

Soon, reports of violent protests across the country reach this sleepy New England town, stirring tensions between the fraternal establishment of Clarendon and those calling for change. As authorities attempt to tamp down “radical elements,” Virginia must decide whether she’s willing to put herself and her family at risk for a cause that had never felt like her own.

Told through alternating perspectives, The Wrong Kind of Woman is an engrossing story of grief and renewal, of shedding old identities and finding new ways to belong, beautifully woven against the backdrop of the rapid changes of the early Seventies." --Author's website

Gibson's Bookstore will be hosting an online event where Sarah McCraw Crow will be joined in conversation by novelist Amy Meyerson (The Imperfects) on Tuesday, October 6th, 2020 at 7pm. Registration is required: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/120432457723/

Book of the Week (9/14/2020)

A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear: The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town (And Some Bears) by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling (NY: PublicAffairs, 2020).

Once upon a time, a group of libertarians got together and hatched one of the most ambitious social experiments in modern American history—the so-called Free Town Project: a plan to take over an American town and completely eliminate its government. In 2004, they set their sights on Grafton, NH, a flyspeck town with only one paved road, buried in the woods of New Hampshire’s western fringe. When freedom-focused libertarians across the US—from as far as California to as near as Massachusetts—descended on Grafton, state and federal laws became meek suggestions. Soon the wilderness-thick town lost public funding for pretty much everything: fire department, the schoolhouse, library, and perhaps most importantly wildlife services. As the people were ignoring laws and regulations on hunting and food disposal, their newly formed off-the-grid tent city caught the attention of some unruly neighbors: the bears. Armed with a pen and journalist’s notebook, Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling—a seasoned journalist who has covered everything from Maine's stately Governor's Mansion to the mud hut of a witch doctor in Sierra Leone—was drawn to Grafton in hopes of uncovering the truth behind this fantastical tale of bear vs. libertarian. Hongoltz-Hetling details how this tiny town became a radical social experiment—until the bear attacks started. Along the way he meets a band of interesting characters: Jessica Soule, a Vietnam-era veteran who became an acolyte of the controversial Reverend Sun Myung Moon; Adam Franz, a poker-playing communist who dreamed of founding a survivalist community; John Connell, a Massachusetts factory worker on a mission from God; and, of course, John Babiarz, the firefighter libertarian who opened Grafton’s doors to the Free Town Project and then spent the next decade trying to explain it to his nonlibertarian neighbors. This book is a sometimes funny, sometimes frightening tale of what happens when a government disappears into the woods. Complete with gunplay, adventure, and backstabbing politicians, this is a quintessentially American story, a bearing of our national soul. -- Publisher's Blurb.

Journalist and author Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling visits Gibson's Bookstore virtually to present his new book, A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear on Wednesday, September 16th, 2020, at 7pm EST. Online only via Zoom. Registration required: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/119111458579/

Book of the Week (9/7/2020)

Beneficence by Meredith Hall (Boston.: David R. Godine Publisher, 2020).

NH author Meredith Hall returns with a novel centered around family, love and loss.

"When they meet in the 1930s, Doris and Tup’s love is immediate. They marry quickly and Doris commits to the only life Tup ever wanted: working the Senter family farm, where his parents and grandparents and great-grandparents are buried under the old pines. Their lives follow the calming rhythms of the land—chores in the cow barn, haying the fields, tending their gardens—and in this they find immeasurable joy.

Soon their first child, Sonny, is born and Doris and Tup understand they are blessed. More children arrive—precocious, large-hearted Dodie and quiet, devoted Beston—but Doris and Tup take nothing for granted. They are grateful every day for the grace of their deep bonds to each other, to their family, and to their bountiful land. As they hold fast to this contentment, Doris is uneasy, and confesses, “We can’t ever know what will come."

When an unimaginable tragedy turns the family of five into a family of four, everything the Senters held faith in is shattered. The family is consumed by a dark shadow of grief and guilt. Slowly, the surviving Senters must find their way to forgiveness—of themselves and of each other."-- Author's website

Join Meredith at an online book discussion hosted by Gibson's Bookstore on Monday, September 14th, 2020 at 7:15pm, via Zoom. Registration is required: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/118221921951/

Book of the Week (8/31/2020)

Hampton and Hampton Beach by Grace C. Lyons (Arcadia Publishing, 2016).

I'm definitely looking forward to more (safe) beach time before fall arrives (how is it the end of August already?). Take a trip down memory lane with this book about the history of the Hampton Beach area.

Hampton Beach is a gem tucked away on New Hampshire's 18-mile coastline, but its unique qualities and picturesque views have made it one of New England's most beloved vacation destinations. At the center of beach activity is the Seashell Complex and the Hampton Beach Casino. The Seashell has been on the coast since 1962, and the Casino Ballroom has occupied Ocean Boulevard for over 110 years. The community boasts a seamless combination of old and new, from the recent Hampton Beach Redevelopment Project to the long-standing Ashworth by the Sea Hotel. Its small-town values, annual parades and festivals, and weekly fireworks continue as they have for decades. -- Publisher's blurb.

Book of the Week (8/24/2020)

Condor Comeback by Sy Montgomery (Boston.: HMH Books for Young Readers, 2020).

Granite State author Sy Montgomery is back with a new children's book focusing on the tireless efforts to save the California condor from extinction.

"Sibert Medalist, National Book Award Honoree, and New York Times best-selling author Sy Montgomery turns her formidable talents to the story of California condors and the scientists who have fought against their extinction in this installment in the award-winning Scientists in the Field Series.

In April of 1987, the last wild California condor was captured and taken to live in captivity like the other 26 remaining birds of its kind. Many thought that the days were over of this remarkable, distinguished bird that had roamed the skies of North and Central America for thousands of years.

Sy Montgomery employs her skill for on-the-ground reporting, shrewd observation, and stunning narrative prose to detail the efforts of scientists, volunteers and everyday citizens to get California condors back in the wild. Montgomery profiles scientists and volunteers at the Santa Barbara Zoo, universities, and federal agencies who have worked tirelessly to raise chicks, nurse sick birds back to health, and conduct research that can support legislation to ban the greatest threat to the survival of the wild condor: lead bullets.

In turns affectionate, frustrating and hopeful, Montgomery does justice to this magnificent but still critically endangered icon.

Coupled with world-class, full-color photos by Tianne Stromback, and along with helpful sidebars including one on the Chumash Indians’ enduring relationship with the bird, Condor Comeback is an inspiring story of groundbreaking science, preservation and cooperation." --Author's website

 

Book of the Week (8/17/2020)

Communities & Consequences II: Rebalancing New Hampshire's Human Ecology by Peter Francese and Lorraine Stuart Merrill (Portsmouth, NH: Peter E. Randall, 2020).

New Hampshire’s age structure urgently needs rebalancing before shortages of workers cripple economic growth and impede our ability to care for the rapidly growing numbers of older residents. More than the increase in people over 65, the concern is the decreasing numbers of children and young people. Nationally school-age children outnumber seniors, but our state now has 22% more residents age 65 or older than children ages five to 17. This book and companion documentary film by Jay Childs describe how we got here, and how visionary local leaders are crafting strategies to restore balance, and build thriving intergenerational communities. -- Publishers blurb.

For regularly updated facts and periodic interviews, please visit the website: http://www.nhpbs.org/communitiesandconsequences