If you know Ronni Diamondstein as we do, then you know the longtime contributor to our former publication WAG magazine is devoted to two things – children’s books and her 16-years-young Toy Poodle, Maggie Mae, a writer in her own right. (Well, Ronni helps with her column.)
A former school library media specialist and teacher of gifted and talented students in the United States and abroad, Ronni served on the board of the Chappaqua Children’s Book Festival and is a past president of the Chappaqua Library Board of Trustees.
So we were delighted to hear that she has written a children’s book of her own, “Jackie and the Books She Loved,” out from Skyhorse Publishing on Tuesday, Nov. 7, Election Day.
It’s a lovely look at the literary life of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis – the first lady who symbolized beauty and elegance in the administration of her husband, President John F. Kennedy, then held a nation together and in thrall in the days following his assassination on Nov. 22, 1963.
An inveterate bookworm who worked as a reporter and aspired to be a writer, Onassis would reinvent herself in her native New York as an editor for Viking and Doubleday. With illustrations from Bats Langley, “Jackie and the Books She Loved” tells the poignant story of a woman whose love of literature and history helped her transcend tragedy.
With Election Day and the 60th anniversary of JFK’s assassination upon us, Ronni wrote us, the time seems ripe for the book. Certainly, the appearance of this Chappaqua resident at the recent Chappaqua Children’s Book Festival would suggest this. Ronni said she sold out all 100 advance copies, with many adults buying the book for themselves.
If you missed that appearance, here are three more:
Virtual launch, 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 9 ,at Chappaqua Library, co-sponsored by Friends of the Miller House, Skyhorse Publishing.
Legacy Lecture, National First Ladies Library, noon Thursday, Nov. 16, online.
Book signing noon to 2 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 25, at Susan Lawrence, 26 N. Greeley Ave., Chappaqua,
For more, visit ronnidiamondstein.com.
In other local book news, the Norwalk Public Library’s seventh annual Local Author Festival, including independent authors and publishers from Fairfield and Westchester counties, takes place this weekend. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Nov. 3 and 4, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 5. With more than 100 authors reading and selling their books, it’s the largest Norwalk Local Author Festival to date.
For more, visit norwalkpl.org.
