Dear Great Book Guru,  Many of my friends here in Sea Cliff are transplanted Brooklynites and we will be getting together this weekend for a softball game in Clifton Park.  I was thinking of suggesting we continue our spirit of camaraderie by forming a Brooklyn themed book group.  Any ideas on a good book to start us off?  Bridging of Brooklyn and Sea Cliff

Dear Brooklyn/Sea Cliff Bridge Builder,  What a great idea and I have a wonderful new book to start you off: ANOTHER BROOKLYN by Jacqueline Woodson.  Set in the 1970’s, this lyrical, poignant tribute to the power of memory and friendship offers us a glimpse of life far from the boutiques and brownstones of our present day perception of Brooklyn.  August arrives from rural Tennessee with her young brother and grieving father after a traumatic loss. Her brother and father go on to find comfort in religion while August finds hers in friends : Sylvia,  Gigi, and Angela. These young girls see their friendship as an unbreakable force – themselves as beautiful, talented, powerful-  with lives that will be untouched by the corrupt forces surrounding them.  We meet August twenty years later- now an Ivy League academic traveling the world studying death rituals. The other girls have traveled long distances too but not always to places they had hoped. Their stories are told in a feverish voice of innocence and pain as the four girls cross over from childhood to adolescence in “another Brooklyn.” Highly recommended!