Saturday, July 7, 2012

A New Look at the Old Days: Tell Me a Story

Tell Me a Story:  Stories from a Childhood in Old New York
by Bea Gold
Publisher: Outskirts Press, Parker, CO 80134
Jan 2012

Available at Amazon

When I was young, there was always a certain feeling when I was around the old folks, particularly my father's parents, who had come to the US as quite young adults from Eastern Europe.  I never could put my finger on it, until now that is.

Bea Gold's book “Tell Me a Story:  Stories from a Childhood in Old New York” is what most would call a “coffee table book” -  lots of pictures and not much text – but the stories, while they could be told to children with only one or two exceptions, are very compelling.  They speak to a culture and way of living that was hinted at in what I saw in my  grandparents,  yet one most people have no memory of in our far more comfortable times.  The time frame is the 30s and 40s, when the US was going through both the first Great Depression and World War II,  but this set of tales has a horizon much closer to home: -- the ethnic neighborhoods of Old New York.