OKelly Memorial Library

I listened to The Goldfinch through the digital database Overdrive we offer here at the library. I had heard much about it and it has become a movie as well. I am glad I chose to listen to it rather than read it because at times it gives you so much art history and detail it might have been hard to plow through it all. I did learn a lot and I think it is an exciting at times story. It follows the life a young boy who tragically loses his mother to a terrorist attack at a museum. It demonstrates his fall to drugs and alcohol and has a lot to say philosophically about life and family. In a way it is a tragedy with all the issues this boy and young man go through. He had taken a world famous painting from the museum he was at during the bombing and keeps it with him for years. This becomes the main focus of the story that he is telling about his childhood and life. The story takes many unexpected turns and keeps you guessing throughout the book. He winds up living with an antique furnit

In this new book David McCullough tells the story of the settling of the area north and west of the Ohio River which became the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin. The group of men that started this were mostly Revolutionary war veterans and their families. The book follows their struggles to survive there in the primeval forest of the time beginning in 1787. Some important things they did were to make freedom of religion, free education, and abolish slavery in their territory absolute rules. They fought to keep it that way over much opposition. Much later the area was a big part of the Underground Railroad. The book follows the hardships and successes of these people over 70 years and is very interesting I thought. McCullough writes an informative historical book and I learned much that I did not know about that time and territory. I would highly recommend this book. It is available on the new Overdrive digital download service we offer here at the library.