BOOK SIGNINGS

BOOK SIGNINGS
Irish storyteller pensher second novel
BOARDMAN -- As part of a 10 city signing and speaking tour, Youngstown native and author Juliene Osborne-McKnight will return to the area March 30 to sign copies of her new novel, "Daughter of Ireland." The book signing is set for 2 p.m. at Barnes & amp; Noble, 381 Boardman-Poland Road.
Osborne-McKnight is a traditional storyteller with more than 15 years of storytelling experience. "Daughter" is the second novel in her planned four-part series on the four cycles of Irish storytelling. A seasoned journalist and teacher for nearly 25 years, she is the director of faculty training for CAPE, aconsortium of more than 100 colleges, universities and school systems. She lives with her family in the Philadelphia area.
IN MEMORIUM
Virginia Hamilton,Pioneering Blackchildren's author
Virginia Hamilton, author of many highly regarded children's books, died of breast cancer Feb. 19 at a Dayton, Ohio, hospital. She was 65.
Over the course of her career, Hamilton received a number of awards, including the Newbery Medal, the National Book Award, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal and the Hans Christian Andersen Medal. She was the first black to win a Newbery Medal and also the first children's writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship.
Hamilton published her debut book, "Zeely," in 1967, and went on to write more than 35 books for children, including "M.C. Higgins, the Great," "The Planet of Junior Brown" and "The People Could Fly."
Hamilton was born March 12, 1936, in Yellow Springs, Ohio, the fifth child of Kenneth James and Etta Belle (Perry) Hamilton. She graduated from Antioch College in Yellow Springs and spent two years on a scholarship at Ohio State University. She also studied at the New School for Social Research in New York City.
In 1960, she married poet Arnold Adoff. The couple lived in New York for 15 years before returning to Yellow Springs and settling on a farm that her maternal grandfather, Levi Perry, a former Virginia slave, bought in the 1850s. (Hamilton's first name commemorated his successful escape).
She is survived by her husband, son and daughter.
Combined dispatches