Lydia Likes It

Read All About It

Every now and then, I love to immerse myself in books of a particular type or on a related theme. Lately, I've been revisiting some old favorites about Boston, where I have lived for the past 45 years, and collecting on my iPad a few that are new to me. These ten books, fiction and nonfiction, explore busing, homelessness, politics, history, corruption, race, jazz, and ducks. Click on the links to learn more about each of them; all are available in a variety of formats, and at your local public library.

Common Ground (J. Anthony Lukas 1995)

Rough Sleepers (Tracy Kidder 2023)

Make Way for Ducklings (Robert McCloskey 1941)

Another Bullshit Night in Suck City (Nick Flynn 2005)

Boston: Voices and Visions (Shaun O’Connell, editor 2010)

Boston Boy: Growing Up with Jazz and Other Rebellious Passions (Nat Hentoff 1986)

The Boston Girl (Anita Diamant 2015)

Wild Women of Boston: Mettle and Moxie in the Hub (Diana Vargo 2015)

The Last Hurrah (Edwin O’Connor 1956)

Caucasia (Danzy Senna 1999)

For pure fun, lose yourself in Robert B. Parker's Spenser books, or the Carlotta Carlyle mysteries by Linda Barnes (thanks to my friend Phyllis, for reminding me how much I enjoy both of these series).

What are your favorite Boston books? Leave them in the comments below, so we can share.

Watercress

When a children's book wins every award -- Caldecott, Newbery, New York Times Best Children's Book of the Year, APALA and dozens more -- you know it's one to add to your grownup library. Here's a note from the publisher about Watercress, by Andrea Wang: "While driving through Ohio in an old Pontiac, a young girl's Chinese immigrant parents spot watercress growing wild in a ditch by the side of the road. They stop the car, grabbing rusty scissors and an old paper bag, and the whole family wades into the mud to gather as much as they can. At first, she's embarrassed. Why can't her family just get food from the grocery store, like everyone else? But when her mother shares a bittersweet story of her family history in China, the girl learns to appreciate the fresh food they foraged — and the memories left behind in pursuit of a new life." Author Andrea Wang calls this autobiographical story “both an apology and a love letter to my parents.”  It’s a bittersweet, delicate look at how sharing the difficult parts of our histories can create powerful new moments of family history, and help connect us to our roots. Jason Chin’s beautiful illustrations move between China and the American Midwest, and were created with a mixture of traditional Chinese brushes and western media. I'm planning to pass this book on to our two-year-old grandson, to read with his parents, but I want to live with it for a while longer. 

The volunteering life {something old and new}

For the first few years after retirement, my husband Ted spent most of his time volunteering in the bicycling community with a nonprofit organization called Bikes Not Bombs. BnB concentrated on two areas: bike programs for Boston youth; and international donation of used bikes and bike parts to countries in Central America and Africa.

With a change in leadership, BnB began to prioritize local activities over international projects, and Ted's interest waned. A serious bicycle accident forced him to take time off, and to think about what might come next for him.

For many years, Ted had been a member of The Boston Athenaeum, one of the oldest libraries in the United States, founded in 1807. Currently located on Beacon Hill, a short walk from our apartment, the Athenaeum houses a collection of more than half a million books (from the 1800s to contemporary publications), plus art, photography, rare books and special collections (Audubon prints, artist books and more). There's a children's library, reading rooms, and a full program of gallery talks by artists and authors.

And there are tours, open to the public. Art and architecture tours, and special-interest tours, attract visitors from all around the world. The tours are led by docents, well-trained guides who introduce visitors to the history and resources of this 200-year-old library. Last year Ted, a frequent library user and long-time member, was invited to become a docent.

After more than 30 hours of classes and training, Ted had to pass two tests in order to earn his docent name tag. One was a general art and architecture tour for some of the library staff, and the other was a short, in-depth talk about any one piece of art or sculpture of his choosing. Now he gives a couple of tours each month. The Athenaeum recently expanded into an adjacent building, so there has been additional training and exploration to adapt the art and architecture tour to the new space. 

Now that he's a docent, Ted has become interested in visiting other libraries and museums, and taking docent tours whenever available. Some docents are great storytellers. Some are terrible at sticking to a narrative. Some read notes from a tablet. Every docent is different, and Ted learns something from each of them.

Old library, new opportunity. It all happened at just the right time, and Ted -- a history major and trivia buff -- has settled into a great new volunteering life.

Little Free Library

Once upon a time, when we still lived in Boston's South End, my husband Ted and I served our community as its only little free librarians. Ted built our library out of scrap wood and pieces of an old Nordic Track, with help from his friend Matt, and painted "make way for readers" ducklings on the roof; our neighbor Ken Clark contributed the duck feet. The library stood on our front stoop and anchored the street. It could hold nearly 50 books, depending on size, and the idea was simple: take a book, leave a book. Thanks to its placement near the intersection of a major walking street, our Little Free Library turned over nearly one quarter of its contents every day, and any children's books we were lucky to get disappeared almost instantly. We ran the library for three years, until we sold our house. Another neighborhood group adopted it, repainted it, and moved it a few blocks away. There are now more than 150,000 Little Free Libraries worldwide, in more than 100 countries. Ours was #24,688. When you're out and about, pull up the map on the website, and search for them on your travels.

Paper stories

I'm no artist. (Don't make me prove it.) I can't paint or draw, but I do like to create simple collages by cutting and ripping things up, so I'm drawn to the work of collage artists who use the two-dimensional form in a more sophisticated way to show movement and tell stories. Boston's Museum of Fine Arts introduced me to the artist and activist Ekua Holmes. Earlier this year, the museum presented an exhibit of her vibrant mixed-media collages created for six children's books, along with sketches, portraits of her community of Roxbury, and a wonderful video interview that ran on a wall screen mounted above the wooden table where she used to make art in her grandmother's kitchen. (Image from Museum of Fine Arts web site.)