Gramercy Books owner’s coming-of-age novel, WORLD NEWS FROM WAVERLEY HIGH, covers race, war, music, and belonging during late Sixties!About this Event
Join Gramercy Books owner Linda Kass for the book launch of her fourth novel, , a coming-of-age story set in an urban high school during one year, 1969 to 1970, where classmates forge friendships and debate over issues of race, politics, and belonging against the backdrop of national unrest and some of history's best rock and roll. Kass with be in conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author Connie Schultz.
One can pre-order the book during registration. Bexley Public Library is Gramercy’s Community Partner for this event.
Told through the eyes of precocious teenager Lena Rosen, the novel chronicles the spirit and soundtrack of that volatile year for Lena and her fellow classmates as they navigate high school hallways and a country in crisis. With chapters titled by classic songs from the times, and a narrative shaped by Lena’s sharp, ethical mind as a budding journalist at her school paper, the novel takes the reader back to key moments in American history through the lens of idealistic young adults.
Says Wil Haygood, author of The War Within a War: The Black Struggle in Vietnam and at Home, “The characters in this bighearted novel set in a high school are trying to make sense of that astounding, magnetic, musical, and tumultuous decade known as The Sixties. Linda Kass orchestrates the telling of it all with eloquence and true tenderness.”
During her junior year, Lena becomes attuned to the pulse of her times in her first period Current History class, where rebellion, social change, and musical innovation of the 1960s dominate discussion. When she becomes the associate editor of the school newspaper The Beacon, Lena is drawn into the swirling discourse surround the Vietnam War, civil rights, environmental debacles, and campus protests—while also navigating her growing attraction to Jack Stone, the paper’s editor.
As the year progresses and the antiwar movement gains momentum, the unrest builds at Waverley High. Lena wrestles with her own cultural and religious identity as a Jewish teen while she and fellow students struggle to cope with racial discord, a bomb threat, and the emotional toll of a world that seems to be unraveling. When tragedy collapses the distance between headlines and Lena’s own life, she must decide what it means to stand for peace—and to hope for a better world.
Set during one school year against the backdrop of an America on the brink of change, World News from Waverley High reveals the crossroads of personal growth and national unrest at an urban high school.
Linda Kass began her career as a magazine journalist and correspondent for regional and national publications. Along with her forthcoming novel, World News from Waverley High (September 2026), she is the author of three previous works of historical fiction: Tasa’s Song (2016), A Ritchie Boy (2020), and Bessie (2023). A longtime civic leader, she is the founder and owner of Gramercy Books, an independent bookstore in Central Ohio, now in its tenth year. Linda lives in the Columbus area with her husband, Frank and their labradoodle, Wally. They have four children and six grandchildren.
Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and Professor of Practice in Journalism at Denison University. Her favorite job title is Grandma. She is the author of a collection of essays, Life Happens, and a political memoir, …and His Lovely Wife. Her first novel, The Daughters of Erietown, was a New York Times bestseller in 2020. Her debut picture book, Lola and the Troll, was released in February 2024. Connie lives in the Columbus area with her husband, Sherrod Brown, and their two rescue dogs, Franklin and Walter. They have four children and eight grandchildren.
Event Venue
Bexley Public Library, 2411 East Main Street, Columbus, United States
USD 0.00 to USD 34.59
