On The Front Lines of Pennsylvania Politics: Twenty-Five Years of Keystone Reporting
By John M. Baer
The History Press, 156 pp. $19.99 (softcover)
In 2002, the National Journal described John Baer, a Philadelphia Daily News columnist based in Harrisburg, as having “the ability to take the skin off a politician without making it hurt too much.” Readers of his experience as a newspaperman and, for a brief period, campaign press secretary, will find just how exceptional an observer he is of the political class, the voters and the media. No one has been spared his honest examination, not even himself; he writes humorously and candidly about his own professional fumbles as well as those of elected officials and journalists. On the campaign trail in 1986, as press secretary to governor hopeful William Scranton III, Baer recalled the power of the name: “Once, before a taped TV interview in Altoona, a local reporter asked him off-camera where he was from. “Scranton,” he said. “Oh,” she said, “just like your name.” As a journalist who covered former Gov. Dick Thornburgh and the late U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, he provides this assessment: “Thornburgh is one of the steadiest, stablest politicians I’ve met; Specter one of the most entertaining.” Baer has fused politics and journalism into an enjoyable read of Pennsylvania’s recent history. It’s funny, serious and particularly sobering as he shows how needed political reforms could make this a far better state for everyone.
The Stories of Andrea T.A.H. Rossi
By E.M. Albano
Authorhouse, 424 pp. $33.50 (softcover)
Like William Faulkner and his fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Harrisburg writer Eugenio Albano has created a somewhat semi-autobiographical group of characters who live, love and struggle in their relationships and lives. His five novels (among them, “Bashful Lucy,” “The Letters of Peter Mitchell,” and “Martin’s Story”) have a breadth and depth to them that peels back the ordinary to find the unordinary. His latest work, “Letters to Andrea,” is the sequel to his first novel, “The Widow’s Web,” the story of a young woman, Andrea, widowed three times by uncommon circumstances and in that process inherits wealth and three last names. In the sequel, Andrea decided to leave her comfortable New Jersey home for India to help victims of human trafficking and social intolerance, where she encounters danger and learns about herself. Albano has chosen to publish a revised version of the original (he wanted to strengthen the writing) and its sequel in a single edition.
Kids for Cash: Two Judges, Thousands of Children, and a $2.6 Million Kickback Scheme
By William Ecenbarger
The New Press, 304 pp. $26.95 (hardcover)
Thirteen-year-old Matthew, at 82 pounds, small compared to other boys his age, was stepping out of an elevator in the Luzerne County Courthouse after serving 48 days in a lock-up for juveniles, PA Child Care, for a hearing on whether he should be released for the crime of throwing a steak in a heated argument at his mother’s 210-pound boyfriend. “Look at that little kid!” a woman exclaimed in amazement. “What could he have done?” Nothing, but for Judges Mark A. Ciavarella and Michael T. Conahan, that was enough to get sent to PA Child Care, a private, for-profit juvenile detention center in northeast Pennsylvania. The judges sent thousands of children there for non-criminal behaviors because they were getting millions of dollars in kickbacks. In “Kids for Cash,” William Ecenbarger writes a compelling book about the breakdown in Pennsylvania’s judicial system and the money that corrupts it mercilessly, and our society’s “lock ‘em up” mentality in which prosecutors, public defenders and school officials watched silently as thousands of children get shackled and lose fundamental constitutional rights.
