“How David Met Sarah: a very special love story” is a novel about a young man afflicted with Down Syndrome who falls in love with a girl with autism. The novel is written from the viewpoint of the fictional character, developmentally disabled David Kelly.

Kelleher, the author of 11 other novels, was inspired to write the book by her brother, David, who is 36 and has Down Syndrome. The book is an insightful look into the world of the developmentally disabled. It is both age-and reading level-appropriate for this overlooked population of potential readers.

Anne Kelleher says, “Like the young man in the book, my brother works in a mail room, lives at home and has lots of friends. He's been in love and been laid off. He deals with the same issues we all deal with and he wants the same things all of us want. I wanted to give my brother not just a book he could read, but also a hero with which he can identify.”

Twenty per cent of the proceeds from the sales of this book will be donated to the National Down Syndrome Society, an organization that benefits the lives of developmentally disabled adults.

More information on Kelleher and “How David Met Sarah: a very special love story,” go to http://howdavidmetsarah.blogspot.com/

Chapter To Host Meet & Greet, Public Invited

By Stephanie Sfiridis, National MS Society, Connecticut Chapter, Intern

ROCKY HILL, Conn. – Lemon wears diapers, lives in a house, walks with the help of a scooter and shares many symptoms typical of a person with multiple sclerosis. The only difference is, Lemon is a duck.

Lemon and her owner, Laura Backman, author of children’s book “Lemon the Duck,” will visit Connecticut to share their story of triumph in the face of adversity. Backman has been named a keynote speaker for this year’s National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Connecticut Chapter, annual meeting and awards ceremony.

Backman wrote “Lemon the Duck” to honor her father who passed away from complications associated with multiple sclerosis. The book, based on the true story of Backman’s experience raising Lemon, was written to provide a means for children to learn about disability as well as their own ability to make a difference in someone’s life.

“I wanted to make people aware of the challenges facing people and animals with disability,” said Backman, the mother of two grown daughters. “The MS cause is dear to my heart because I saw its disabling effects firsthand.”

Lemon, one of four Pekin ducklings hatched in 2006 in Backman’s Portsmouth, R.I., kindergarten classroom, has a neurological disorder affecting her coordination and balance. Backman recognized these effects to be similar to the symptoms caused by multiple sclerosis. She quickly adopted Lemon, outfitting her with a ducky diaper and equipping her with a scooter made of PVC pipes and four coaster wheels, allowing Lemon to balance better and walk.

“Because of my father’s struggle with MS, I had a better understanding of how to care for Lemon,” explained Backman, “I knew Lemon’s life was still valuable and that she deserved the best quality of life possible.”

Lemon, who has no pain despite her symptoms, lives with Backman and has become a fixture in her classroom, showing the children that being different is okay. Backman takes Lemon to the grocery store, mall and outdoor concerts. Lemon has even accompanied her on a canoe trip. By giving Lemon a great life, Backman stated, she feels she is honoring Lemon’s life, just as she and her family had done for her father.

“My father had a zest for life despite the effects of his illness,” said Backman. “I wanted to give Lemon a future and show that everyone can live life to the fullest even in the face of disability.”

Backman, who has family in Shelton, Conn., has made numerous bookstore appearances throughout New England. She has been featured on broadcast networks such as MSNBC and National Public Radio. Lemon has also been featured in print publications, such as TIME for Kids, South Coast Today, The Warwick Beacon and The Sakonnet Times. “Lemon the Duck” was awarded the 2009 Westchester Fiction Award and 2009 National Parenting Publications Award. In 2010, Lemon was awarded a Special Education Advisory Award in Backman’s school district. She and Lemon have also gone through Professional Pet Assisted Therapy Training and have visited with many children with disabilities. Backman donates all proceeds from her book to the National MS Society and the Majestic Waterfowl Sanctuary located in Lebanon, Conn.

More than 6,000 Connecticut residents, 450,000 nationwide, battle the potentially debilitating effects of multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disease affecting the central nervous system. There currently is no cure. Symptoms can include among other things, numbness in the limbs, difficulties with vision and speech, stiffness, loss of mobility and, in some more severe cases, total paralysis. The progress, severity and specific symptoms of MS in any one person cannot be predicted.

The 2011 Connecticut Chapter Awards Ceremony and Annual Meeting will be held Sunday, March 11, at the Hartford Marriott in Rocky Hill and coincides with the kickoff of MS Awareness Week. Mike Stacy, cohost of The Morning Show with Allan, Mike and Alison on WRCH’s Lite 100.5, will serve as the event’s emcee. The event brings chapter members, families, volunteers and staff together to celebrate achievements over the past year.

This year’s event is open to the public starting at 10:15 a.m. Families with children are encouraged to attend. Lemon and author, Laura Backman, will host a special reading for children, book signing and publicity photographs after the keynote address. Proceeds benefit the National MS Society, Connecticut Chapter. For more information on Lemon, visit her website at www.lemontheduck.com.

There is no fee to attend the awards ceremony and meeting, however, registration is required. For more information about the 2011 Annual Meeting and Awards Ceremony, please contact the National MS Society, Connecticut Chapter at 860-913-2550.

For more information on MS Awareness Week and the variety of programs offered by the National MS Society, Connecticut Chapter, visit www.ctfightsMS.org.

The Cookie Thief by Connecticut child educator Frances Gilbert is a charming, simple and engaging story about a family who is hit by a cookie thief.
Thomas is visiting Granny’s house when he hears a patter, a swoop and a rush and oh no. “Cookie thief! Cookie thief,” Grandma shrieks.
Cookies are disappearing, the whole family is in a state of shock. There are no more cookies to be had. People take precautions and start hiding them, "No cookie thief is getting my cookies!" they say. Even the animals are put to work and placed on guard. There are no more cookies to be found anywhere.
Thomas' wise grown up friend Kristina helps him make a plan to track down the cookie thief.
He looks everywhere. Who could it be? Will he find the cookie thief?
Colorful, detailed pictures lead young readers through the story. This is a wonderful read aloud book. Parents, grandparents and teachers will appreciate the simple lesson.
About the Author
Frances Gilbert was born in London and emigrated to the US where she became a special educator. Frances has worked with young children for over thirty years. Her interest in emerging reading and language led her to a writing career. Frances is a strong believer in the reading experience as a vital precursor to literacy for young children; she writes to be read aloud. She says rhythm binds language, language binds emotion and emotion binds meaning. Her stories quickly become favorites, read and enjoyed over and over again. Frances lives in Connecticut where she enjoys reading and playing word games with her six grandchildren. She loves old houses and gardens and her ambition is to own a sheep farm. She lives in Trumbull, CT.
Ben Quesnel is an artist and illustrator who is currently working as a part time elementary art teacher in the southern part of Connecticut. Ben recently graduated from Southern Connecticut State University with a degree in Art Education. He lives in Stamford, CT.

BRANFORD, Conn. – M.F. Pennington-Waseem ardently spins a thriller where skeletons come out of the closet at almost every turn in her latest work of condign merit. Set in a tiny hamlet nestled on the New England coast where pristine beauty masks a moral cancer seething beneath the surface, Consumed by Fire is blanketed with an intricate weaving of details that readers need to unravel as they sift through the pages.

Like many old towns, Eventide is steeped in secrets and hypocrisy, and into this maelstrom Ana Michaels arrives. Born out of time, rejected maternally, and adored by her father, all is lost after a car crash takes the lives of their parents, and Ana and sister Sarah are left to their paternal grandmother. The last link in a genetic chain of events, the affection-starved and withdrawn Ana becomes dominated by fate and family. Only after years of passivity does she finally rebel, and flee to forge a life of her own. Fast forward to a few years later, summoned by news of her grandmother’s imminent death, Ana Michaels, now a successful psychiatrist, returns home only to find herself on a collision course that radically alters her life and those around her. Sisters Ana and Sarah share a psychiatric practice, and despite warnings from violent patients and grisly murders paralyzing the community, Ana’s headstrong independence places her directly in the path of peril.

Darkness overtakes Ana after sexual assault by a trusted mentor leaves her pregnant and alone to face the consequences. As her family’s facade is stripped away, Ana becomes entrenched in the murky past of a town that buries its secrets. A series of devastating discoveries unearth underground genetic breeding in Eventide -- and even more staggering truths she wished had remained buried.

Disaster, self-discovery and notoriety happen all at once in Consumed by Fire. M.F. Pennington-Waseem has unquestionably come up with a compact thriller that is obviously the sum of pure brilliance and exquisite artistic chemistry.

For more information on this book, interested parties may log on to www.Xlibris.com.

About the Author

Marianne Pennington-Waseem, R.N. received her BS from Sacred Heart University, Fairfield, CT; attended Saint Vincent’s School of Nursing Registered Nurse Program, Bridgeport, CT; and a MS Degree in Biology and Clinical Nutrition from the University of Bridgeport. For over twenty years, her distinguished career in nursing has provided unique insight in the field of psychiatry. Currently, she lives in Connecticut and works for the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS); Whiting Forensic Division of Connecticut Valley Hospital (WFI) and Connecticut Valley Hospital (CVH).

Consumed by Fire * by M.F. Pennington-Waseem

The Chronicles of Ana Michaels

Publication Date: December 7, 2011

Trade Paperback; $19.99; 347 pages; 978-1-4691-3104-7

Trade Hardback; $29.99; 347 pages; 978-1-4691-3105-4

The New Year starts off with a bang during a night of award-winning Jewish fiction at the Mandell JCC Jewish Book Festival’s second Signature Series event on Tuesday, January 24 at 7:30 p.m. in the Herbert Gilman Theater, Mandell JCC, Zachs Campus, 335 Bloomfield Avenue, West Hartford.

The event features prize-writing authors Julie Orringer, Nadia Kalman and Austin Ratner, with moderator, Josh Lambert, author of American Jewish Fiction: A JPS Guide.

Julie Orringer is the 2010 winning recipient of the Edward Lewis Wallant Award, and a finalist in the 2011 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. Orringer is the author of The Invisible Bridge, a New York Times and L.A. Times bestseller, and she has also written the acclaimed short story collection How to Breathe Underwater, a New York Times Notable Book.

Author Nadia Kalman, a Ukrainian immigrant, moved to West Hartford, CT with her family as a child. They later moved to Stamford, which became the setting of her first novel, The Cosmopolitans. Kalman is the 2011 winner of the Emerging Writer Award from Moment Magazine, and a 2011 finalist for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature.

Austin Ratner penned the novel The Jump Artist, and received the 2011 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, which is the largest monetary award given to early career writers by the Jewish Book Council. His novel is considered historic fiction at its best, as it tells the story of famous photographer, Philippe Halsam.

Tickets to all Mandell JCC Jewish Book Festival Signature Series events are $20 per person, and are on sale via mail, in person, fax, or online at the Mandell JCC Box Office, 860-231-6316, 860-233-0802 (fax), tickets@mandelljcc.org and at www.mandelljcc.org.

For more information, contact Jewish Book Festival Director, Elana MacGilpin, 860-231-6327, emacgilpin@mandelljcc.org, or the Member Services Center, 860-236-4571. For updates, follow the Mandell JCC on Facebook and Twitter.

CLINTON - Author Roya Hakakian will be presenting her non-fiction book Assassins of the Turquoise Palace at the Henry Carter Hull Library on Thursday, Jan. 5 at 6:30 pm. Assassins of the Turquoise Palace is about Iran's extrajudicial assassination campaigns against exiles in Germany and the case which brought it to a halt.
Hakakian's book explores the assassinations and the implications of Iran, their fallout, and the subsequent court case known as the Mykonos trial that became one of the most high profile cases in Europe that ended implicating the highest level of Iranian government.
Awarded a 2008 Guggenheim fellowship in non-fiction, Hakakian’s book was a New York Times Sunday Book Review editors choice, a Daily Beast-Newsweek Not To Be Missed Book of 2011, and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.
Please register for this program at hchlibrary.org<http://hchlibrary.org>.