Did You Know This Booklover, JACKIE KENNEDY?

Sky Pony Press, 2023

 The name Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis will always have a place in American history and likely in world history. As the wife of one of our most well-known presidents at the time (and since), Jackie Kennedy was a first lady whose short tenure in that role reshaped expectations of  the spousal-residents of the White House. 

In JACKIE AND THE BOOKS SHE LOVED, written by Ronni Diamondstein and illustrated by Bats Langley, readers will learn that a throughline of her life was her love of books. Reading books, talking about them, eventually writing and editing books, articles, and even becoming a photojournalist/interviewer. 

The roles played by books in her life, from childhood until her dying days, were less widely known by the general public than her roles in politics, fashion, or social circles. This cradle-to-grave account of Jackie and the ways books shaped and enhanced and supported here throughout her life makes it clear that knowing this central force in her life is essential to understanding who she was.

As iconic as her image has been for decades, and as admired and even idolized as she was globally, this is actually a very intimate view of the privacy, solace, and comfort she sought within the pages of beloved books and among those in her life who understood who she was. One  spread especially appealed to me, in image and in narrative. This segment references the time in her later life in which she edited and helped to launch the many books she supported in their making. 

Interior Illustration and text:
JACKIE and the BOOKS SHE LOVED
Sky Pony Press, November, 2023

"Even though she was very famous, for Jackie, 

the author was the star of every book. 

She made sure to stay in the background and let her authors shine."

As a once active and successful photojournalist, Jackie was well-aware that the subject of the spotlights and flashbulbs told a story in themselves, so it is her unlit face here that beams out at her starring author on stage. And at readers who may often feel those camera-aware selfies and smiles are the mark of greatness. With her approach, it is clear that Jackie invested in the editing and publishing process for the sake of the creation and celebration of fine books, not for the spotlight. Both front and back endpapers include short quotes from her career, including this one:

"If you produce one book, 

you will have done something wonderful

with your life."

It is noteworthy that Jackie wrote her own books as a child, as well as poetry. Anything she chose to write and submit would have found ready publication and promotion. But she actively resisted writing a memoir or other book under her own name throughout her life, although she wrote with and researched writings of others, including her husband Jack Kennedy, as well as the many authors she later edited. She chose to submerge herself into their work and into the readings and thinkings about other books that opened her to worlds beyond her own persona- past, present, and future. 

Back matter for this distinctive bio/profile includes a timeline of Jackie's life, an author note, more quotations, and a representative selection of the books professionally edited by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Sources and credits are also included for this thorough homage to an iconic American woman.  

  

The Power of Story: THIS IS A STORY

 My experience tells me this is universal truth:  

Gather two or more people together, especially family and friends, then mention a shared event from some time past. The recollection of, relative importance of, details retained, and consequences of that singular experience will vary far more than they will match, but all will center on the experience itself, and the people who shared it.

I say this because I've read several books for adults lately, all highly recommended by friends and family, all praised as powerful and important. I've read each with intensity and appreciation, and found that each centered its theme on the power of STORY. In each case, too, the stories within stories inspired, informed, and connected with the characters portrayed in different but significant ways. 

That's what stories do.

CANDLEWICK PRESS, 2022

Incidentally, the book I finished reading last night centered librarians as the flinders and facilitators of story, of information, of content that had been forbidden (banned, censored, legislated against) as a form of resistance and as sustainers of community.

THIS IS A STORY is written by librarian and book-lover JOHN SCHU, illustrated by LAUREN CASTILLO, and dedicated to several remarkable books-for-youth creators and the librarians who serve young people everywhere. 

In a series of simple, progressive statements, Schu leads readers from the simple recognition of words, to words on a page, to books, to topics, to the infinite portal of connections, a library. With equally progressive illustrations, Castillo presents appealingly familiar folks of diverse backgrounds and interests, each of whom explores, connects, and embraces particular books. Many of the titles used in illustrations reveal the covers and spines of beloved and award-winning favorites among the many books for kids published in recent decades. Even so, the topics and stories within those chosen distinctly call to individual readers,  readers who will warmly recommend those that touch their minds and hearts.

My guess is that those who take the invitation to try someone else's recommendations will respond differently, even if equally enthused.  "Story", whether in lived experience, oral narration, or within the pages of a book, is only one wing of a unique bird. The other, the wing needed to bring a story to life, to lift it into the heart and atmosphere and beyond, is the life-story of the reader/audience. When the author's words connect with the heart of the reader, the story flies. 

Whether reading for ourselves as adults, reading aloud to someone else (and ADULTS enjoy being read to, right?), or as young folks just discovering their own power to transform print into life, the process depends on STORY, on the meaningful connection of ideas within that form. Something has to matter. And that happens in well-written narrative nonfiction as well as in fiction.

Stories matter. Share this one. Share your own. Seek out the stories of others. 

Fly.