By Anita Diamant

My favorite book of the year. Allow me a brief reminisce…shortly after Matthew was born, my Grandma Finigan came to Oak Park to visit him. It was one of the very few times she had flown alone, possibly the only time, and a fact I neglected to see the importance of at the time. Matt worked particularly ridiculous hours then. I’d go many days without seeing him awake. So, on that unusually warm, early April Saturday afternoon, it was just my grandmother and I sitting on my terrific back deck. As we sat there, she talked and talked about growing up in San Francisco in the early 1920s, about attending St. Monica’s and our beloved St. Rose Academy, about working for a doctor in downtown SF, about the outbreak of the war and being in a city of women and children for years. Like her flight, I took for granted how special this whole afternoon was. In hindsight, it is a memory I treasure and may someday write more about. This book is similar to that experience. Addie Baum is a young girl born in early 1900s and grows up in Boston. You open the book and entirely in her voice, without dialogue or other voices cluttering the purity of her story, she tells you about her life. It is just like sitting on your deck and hearing a dear relative or friend tell her story. She tells of her often-ordinary life experiences during a clearly exceptional time in American history. It is a true treasure of a book! Everyone please read it.

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