Looking Back On Some Titles

Always my best critics and cheerleaders, Mom and Dad encouraged me ever since I announced my decision to be a writer at nine years old. One of their favorite books was Conquering Polio: The Story of Jonas Salk (Lerner, 2001). They well remembered the anxiety of the yearly polio season prior to the advent of the Salk vaccine. And they were thrilled to meet Dr. Salk in the early 1970s.

I was going through some old magazines with Mom and Dad one day when I came upon a fascinating article. A teenage boy invented electronic television! He got his inspiration while plowing a field on his father’s farm! I had to know more. And so did Mom and Dad. With their encouragement, I began research that led to TV’s Forgotten Hero: The Story of Philo Farnsworth (Lerner, 1996), one of many books I dedicated to them.

Mom and Dad enjoyed finding my books on display at Barnes and Noble. Albert Einstein was my first title in Lerner Publications’ History Maker Bios series.

When I was in sixth grade, I had trouble understanding an explanation of aerodynamics in my science textbook. Dad cleared it up for me easily. His explanation of what makes an airplane fly was so simple and straightforward that I never forgot it. Dad’s words especially echoed through the years when my nephew, Joseph Sammartino, and I were working on Wilbur and Orville Wright: Taking Flight (Lerner, 2004).

One of the things that fascinated me most about Douglas MacArthur was his overseeing of occupied Japan after World War II. Mom and Dad were particularly interested in the freedom the Japanese people gained during MacArthur’s time there, including, for women, the right to vote. My short biography, Douglas MacArthur (Lerner, 2005), is one of nine I wrote for the History Maker Bio series. Here’s the dedication: To Major Angelo J. Sammartino, USMC, Ret., veteran of Guadalcanal and the Korean War, and to Marion R. Sammartino, who waited and bravely took care of the home front.

A selection from the more than thirty books my parents read and critiqued enthusiastically

In September 1983, Mom called me up, sounding as excited as a teenager. Her proposal to do a series of educational articles for a local newspaper had been accepted. Aiming for a run of twelve weeks, Mom planned to offer tips on learning, studying, and academic success. Her sage advice and conversational style proved so popular that the column, School Days, ran for sixteen years. In 2009, when I was asked to do a book on dealing with academic pressure, many of her suggestions, as well as those of my dad, found their way into Stressed Out In School? Learning to Deal With Academic Pressure (Enslow, 2010).  A revised edition came out in 2016 as part of Enslow Publishing’s Got Issues? series.