Books
Liza’s Latest Book!
Detour Ahead
Have you ever wished you had a special talent, but you didn’t know what it could be?
Gabby is a twin sister to Lucy, who wants to be an Olympic swimmer. They live on a lake in the Adirondack Mountains, where their parents rent out cabins to hiker and paddlers. Their mom is creative, and their dad is a woodworker. Gabby is the quiet one, and likes to read and spend time with her dog, Simon. But she wants to find something special.
When the twins and their mom take a hike up Goodman Mt. near their home in Tupper Lake, they learn about the mountain’s namesake, Andrew Goodman, a civil rights activist who once lived summers near their house. He was a volunteer on many projects helping people, and one summer he went to Mississippi to help black people safety register to vote for a project called Freedom Summer in the 1960s. Although his story ended tragically, Gabby is moved by learning how he helped people find their voice.
When she visits her grandmother in the nursing home one day, the residents are all outside enjoying the sunshine, and they light up when they see her dog, Simon. They begin talking to the dog, brushing it, and even singing. After the hike up Goodman Mt., Gabby finds the courage to meet with the director of the nursing home and begin a formal program of having Simon visit with the people who live in the nursing home – and help them find their voices as they connect with her and her dog.
Lucy struggles after being bullied on social media when a jealous teammate posts a photo of her in a ripped bathing suit, exposing part of her butt, just after winning a swim meet. She becomes withdrawn.
When she is later injured while training, she is faced with finding other ways to connect with people and to discover other parts to her personality.
While the girls are going through their new challenges, their father has difficulty sleeping, and he starts making more and more birdhouses. They try to find out what is troubling him. Gabby and Lucy are intrigued by a new, secretive girl who moves to town, and by a mysterious kayaker who keeps shadowing the cove where they live. The family becomes alarmed when he keeps appearing and disappearing, and tensions heighten as they try to discover who he is and what he wants.
An unexpected meet-ups in the woods with the new girl, and a face-to-face in the water with the kayaker, bring the family on detours and then new paths in their lives in this emotionally layered novel.
Real life twins Gabby and Lucy Frenette hold the fictional novel about twins, adventure, mystery, friendship and finding purpose. The sisters are nieces of Liza.
Dead End
In this novel for young readers, the characters from Soft Shoulders and Dangerous Falls Ahead are back for another adventure amidst friendships, struggles with school, playing pranks and exploring.
Bridget, her mom and their dog, together with their friends, set out for an overnight hike up Mt. Arab, a mountain outside Tupper Lake in the Adirondack Mountains. Along with the excitement of climbing a fire tower on top of the mountain, Bridget and Anna are looking forward to planting clues to make the boys on the trip, Willie, Charlie and Peter, think there is a moose on the mountain.
When they get to the top and then climb the fire tower, they meet a ranger named Sarah who tells them all about the mountains and lakes they can see from the top of the tower. Her job is to scan and watch for fires. When Bridget’s backpack falls from the tower stairs, her secret comes spilling out, and she finally tells Anna that she’s failed a spelling test and has been studying a dictionary, which she brought with her. Bridget is usually an excellent student, but she’s been goofing off, preoccupied with making new friends now that she’s in middle school. She’s also been trying to get used to the idea that her mom, who’s been divorced from her dad for a while, is now dating.
When the boys follow fake tracks, fake moose droppings and broken branches all set up by the girls, they are sure they’ve found signs of a moose. But while digging around to find more traces of the animal, they uncover something mysterious and scary, along with a walking stick with carvings of different animals. Terrified, they race away from the scene, and their moms come investigate. Although they are alarmed, they finally realize they have uncovered a mystery of some missing hiker from long ago, and they will let the rangers and police know. Testing the bones for DNA will help some family learn about a lost loved one. Bridget’s mom explains that the man she is dating is a forensic anthropologist who has helped identify bodies, and she will have all of the hiking crew gather later at home so he can talk about his work and that of other experts.
Their long night on top of the mountain gets more tense when unexpected noises and flashes erupt outside their tents.
On the hike down the mountain very early the next day, the boys make plans to make their own walking sticks, and carve them with animals and things of interest they’ve seen, like a fire tower. The girls decide they will do research on missing persons and how to identify remains, and write a school project about it. Bridget also decides she will make a walking stick, and on it she will carve the sign they saw on the road to Mt. Arab: DEAD END. Little did they all know what that sign would come to mean.
Did you know? There is a Fire Tower Challenge for hikers who want to climb mountains in the Adirondacks that still have fire towers on top! Search the internet for towers in your area, or visit members.adk.org to learn from the Adirondack Mountain Club about the Adirondack Fire Tower Challenge and receive an official patch for climbing 23 mountains with fire towers: 18 of 27 Adirondack peaks, and all 5 of the Catskill summits. The challenge includes learning about how to leave no trace when being in the woods, or taking part in public land stewardship projects.
According to the Department of Environmental Conversation, rangers once watched over the forests in New York from more than 100 fire towers. There were 52 of them in the Adirondack Mountains. But then the use of the towers for spotting forest fires was phased out, finally ending in 1990. But many, many dedicated volunteers, preservations, nature lovers, history lovers and DEC staff are among those who work to preserve towers and ranger cabins. The views from the towers invite hikers to ascend stairs and experience the wonder of vistas only available from these perches. Some are still used to support vital radio equipment for forest rangers.
Book art by Jane Gillis.
Dangerous Falls Ahead
Have you ever been canoeing? Have you ever been on an overnight camping trip while canoeing?
In this lively summer adventure, a group of friends heads out with their dads to paddle from Long Lake to Tupper Lake in the Adirondack Mountains. Bonds form as the Bridget, Anna, Gracey, and Peter swim, sing songs and have fun with storytelling on their journey. As they journey along the Raquette River between the two lakes, they learn about a hermit who once lived for decades off a branch of the river. Noah John Rondeau lived alone on the Cold River, and made up his own language. When they reach the end of Long Lake, they have to carry their canoes about a mile around Raquette Falls, which is a series of rock waterfalls that cannot be paddled over.
That night when they camp at Raquette Falls, and enjoy some nighttime antics, they begin to wonder if Noah’s ghostly spirit is around them.
Their neighbors Willie and Charlie, who were also characters in Soft Shoulders, ride into the falls on horseback to where the group is camping. The next day they tease Bridget about her bathing suit, so she leaves the group to walk a path with her dog Ming because her feelings are hurt. She finds herself alone on a trail by the falls, where she discovers someone in grave trouble and has to take quick action.
Everyone on the trip, including the forest ranger who lives at the falls, gets involved in a brave rescue. They come to realize the meaning of the sign Dangerous Falls Ahead and the true meaning of friendships.
Did you know that Noah John Rondeau’s cabin is now located at the Adirondack Experience Museum in Blue Mountain Lake, N.Y.? It is one of several cabins he made himself. He lived on Cold River for about 20 years, hunting and fishing to feed himself, and sometimes getting supplies in town. At the museum, there is a recording of his voice, and samples of the languages he invented.
The Raquette River is a beautiful river that is 146 miles long. It begins at Raquette Lake and flows north to meet up with the St. Lawrence River. The river region is home to moose, black bear, river otters and white-tailed deer. The river was once used to float logs to lumber mills, especially during the spring melt. My relatives owned the former Oval Wood Dish company in Tupper Lake, where wooden plates, bowls, spoons, etc. were made, and much of the wood came from logs that were cut and floated down the Raquette River to the factory.
As author of “Dangerous Falls Ahead,” I learned a lot about the river because my family lived alongside it every summer since 1967: first in tents, and then in a cabin my father and his friends built. I still swim there! It is a most special place.
My brother Michael worked as a ranger at Raquette River Falls for 13 years, and it was great fun visiting him there and swimming below the falls, letting the “chute” float us downstream.
Book art by Jane Gillis.
Soft Shoulders
Soft Shoulders is about a 10-year-old girl who lives with her mom on the backside of a mountain in a small community in the Adirondacks of New York state. It’s winter time, and Bridget is tired of having to wear snowpants, tired of being picked on by neighboring boys, and happy she has two friends who live nearby. Her mom operates a wing plow in a huge yellow truck for the transportation department to help clear the roads during snowstorms, and sometimes Bridget gets to sleep over at the home of Anna and her little sister Gracey when her mom is called into work.
In this award-winning book, Bridget and Anna have come with a plan involving a treasure map that will lead to a buried bucket of smelly food rather than a real treasure as a way to trick the neighborhood brothers Willy and Charlie who make fun of Bridget for wearing snowpants and Anna for having new braces.
When Bridget’s mom gets called into work, Bridget heads to her friends’ home and the three girls go out sledding in the fresh snow. They make snow angels, discover a snow cave, and decide they’ll have their own special place for tea parties. When little Gracey has a meltdown, Bridget decides to take her for a walk to look for pitcher plants while Anna heads back to the house to get the bucket of gross, overripe food and sour milk so they can bury it. They will mark a trail with yarn to lead the boys to the “treasure” that is marked on a map as “hidden birthday money.”
But as Bridget and little Gracey take their walk, the snow comes down thicker and faster. They find themselves near the bog, and the sound of ice cracking and forming makes Bridget think of the bog man she learned about in school, an actual man a thousand years old who was found in a bog in England completely preserved because a bog has no oxygen. In the swirling snow, with the sound of ice cracking, she sees a figure and wonders if a bog man could be waking up right near them! It turns out to be Anna, and Bridget is tremendously relieved. They head to the spot for the treasure burial and dig hard with shovels in the frozen ground to bury the bucket. While Anna finishes up, Bridget and Gracey head back to the snow cave to get Gracey’s doll and Bridget’s bear, but they get lost in the woods.
They walk, circle, and walk some more, telling each other stories about road signs to keep from worrying. SOFT SHOULDERS means there will be someone with a soft shoulder to lean on. SLIPPERY WHEN WET lets the raccoons know this a place to skate across with their paws. FROST HEAVES means Jack Frost is about to throw up.
They make a shelter with pine boughs, and get ready to face a night alone in a snowstorm. A full moon and two deer bring them back out of their shelter, and they find light and possibility from a road sign and a snowplow.
Book art by Jane Gillis.