Savannah Grey by Jim Jordan

I hope you are all reading our selection for this month. Please join us for Mr. Jordan's discussion of his book next Thursday, March 26, at 5:30 in the Children's Program Room.

Our February discussion of Tombee: Portrait of a Cotton Planter, lead by Librarian Grace Cordial was a lively one attended by 28 people. Grace gave us a lot of background on Beaufort and St. Helena Island in the period just before the Civil War. She even brought along an original map of the town that the Federal government planned, but never built, on St. Helena. I think most of us decided that we would love the opportunity to talk to Tom B. Chaplin about his life as a plantation owner, but we would not want him for a friend. He borrowed too much from those around him, and whined a lot!

I have discovered that I did not comment on Stuart's presentation of Suite Francaise in January. We were treated to a discussion of the Nazi occupation of France from the point of view of of a citizen of Britain. (Stuart is a Scotsman.) It was a unique perspective for most of us. Stuart had really done his homework on the period and on Irene Nemirovsky! We were all amazed that her orphaned children proteacted the manuscript of her work for so many years through so many relocations. We were glad that this fictionalized first-person account of life in a French village was preserved for us.