Silver Dollar Girls
Paperback. 5″ x 7″. 260 Pages.
“Silver Dollar Girls” is a combination of World War II history and a fictional family narrative, set in a rural valley during the 2020 COVID lockdown. Margaret DiBenedetto worked on the book over the past two years and recently published it through her kitchen-table publishing company Full Court Press. She’d been looking for a way to incorporate her mother’s aviation stories into her writing, which until now, has been comprised of nature essays and children’s stories.
DiBenedetto’s mother, Ruth Reynolds, was a member of the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots and ferried almost every type of WWII transport and combat aircraft from manufacturing plants to air bases around the country.
“What a great read! Silver Dollar Girls is filled with grit, warmth, and the beauty of family. DiBenedetto’s sure hand brings her characters to life.”
— Sharon Israel, author of Voice Lesson
From the author:
“COVID presented a unique opportunity to tell the story of a young woman fleeing from New York City to her family’s abandoned farmhouse, where she rediscovers her childhood experiences and finds a family secret. The storyline is fictional, but the aviation accounts come straight from my mother’s history. The characters are for the most part invented, but are also a fusion of people in my life. Some might be recognizable.”
“It was my COVID lockdown project,” says DiBenedetto. “I think anyone who lives here can identify with the descriptions of the community and the situations as the main character negotiates rural life during the pandemic. Now that we are back to some semblance of normalcy, I think we tend to forget or block out the challenges we all faced during 2020, and what a scary time it was.”
“It’s a little book about a little valley in the Catskills. I think readers will find it interesting, entertaining, and touching. I really hope they enjoy it.”
Author
Margaret DiBenedetto is an environmentalist who has spent decades observing and working with wildlife and studying golden and bald eagles in New York State. She grew up on a dairy farm in the Catskill Mountains where she still lives with her husband and two very loud dogs. Her hobbies include snorkeling, baking lasagna for her family, and native gardening (for the birds).
Wandering the fields, streams, and forests in her childhood made her a biologist; she earned a Bachelor’s degree from Sam Houston State University where she also studied Creative Writing with Texas Poet Laureate Dr. Paul Ruffin.
She has served on the Board of Writers in the Mountains, and is currently a Trustee for the Michael Kudish Natural History Preserve. She is also the Chair of the Board of Directors for the Catskill Center for Conservation and Development.
DiBenedetto is a past contributing editor to The Times of Halcott, and a current contributor to the Andes Gazette.
Wildlife Stories 