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CARABASETT VALLEY — Children’s book author Julia O-Brien-Merrill will be at the at the Carrabassett Valley Public Library and Community Center for a book talk and signing.
O-Brien-Merrill, author of “Charlie on the M.T.A. Did he ever return?,” will speak at 4:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 10.
She is an educator and daughter of a librarian and a reading teacher, with firsthand knowledge of the power of reading richly illustrated children’s books to teach about the world, according to a news release from the library.
She has taught in Maine, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, New York, Tennessee and China. Born in Boston, she lives in Maine and is retired from teaching English as a Second Language. In her first book, published by Applewood Books, Commonwealth Editions in July 2017, she has fulfilled both her own and her father’s dream of honoring his commitment to social justice through a book that will teach future generations about a piece of Boston history, the release said.
“Charlie on the M.T.A. Did He Ever Return?” is for young readers, who will follow Charlie through the streets of Boston in 1949. Based on the 1949 folk song made popular by The Kingston Trio in 1962, the full-page magical illustrations of Caitlin Marquis take readers on a ride above and below the streets of Boston as they were in Charlie’s time, zooming past familiar landmarks — many still standing, some long gone — wondering all the while, as the song asks, “Will Charlie ever return?”
O’Brien-Merrill sets the story straight using original historical documents and the original M.T.A. song lyrics of the mayoral campaign song written by Bess Lomax Hawes and Jackie Steiner for her father, Walter A. O’Brien Jr. The timeline at the end of the book, filled with juicy tidbits of Boston’s history surrounding this time-honored folk song, will inform and enthrall readers young and old.
