Leah Komaiko

A great find at a local library sale, AM I OLD YET? is children's author Leah Komaiko's touching tale of her unlikely friendship with a woman nearly fifty years her senior. Leah is paired with Adele through a volunteer "senior adoption" program. The author turned 45 while writing the book, so the title question is for her rhetorical, or maybe tongue-in-cheek. Not for me though. I know I'm OLD now. And since the book was written in 1999, well, by now so is SHE. There are plenty of humorous show more moments here, but a lot of what's here made me wince in recognition too, because I was remembering my mom's last year's and months in a similar place to Adele's "Chateau" for seniors. And also mentally taking stock of my own situation. But Adele, in addition to being very old, was utterly alone, and also completely blind. Leah, divorced, childless and lonely, was surprised at how much their friendship came to mean to her, and how much she could learn from Adele.

Enough said. I was touched and greatly moved by this story, and will highly recommend it, especially to my OLD friends.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER show less

A touching and utterly honest story of the friendship between a woman in a nursing home and a female writer. There are some laugh-out-loud funny moments and some smile moments, and there are precious and sad moments. Maybe the story will urge the reader to go out and collect a nursing home friend; I hope so. It will bring most readers to some new insights. An enjoyable, easy-read book full of small surprises and surprising honesty.

In my opinion, this is a great book. One of the main reasons I like this book is because of the illustrations. Every illustration went along with the part of the story being told on each page. They were also very detailed and painted with water colors, so overall they were very bright and helped the story become more meaningful. Another reason that I enjoyed reading this story is because of the point of view. The story is told from a little girl's point of view and she is talking about her show more best friend moving. The point of view adds to the story and makes it very cute and age appropriate. For example, "How can you just go away? What about my sixth birthday?" At a young age children don't understand moving so it relates well. The last reason I liked this book was because of the characters. Annie Bananie was a silly little girl who did lots of fun things with her best friends. It was enjoyable to watch them develop and mature when they had to move away from each other. The main idea of this story was friendship and moving away. Annie Bananie had to more, but then the girls realized that they can still be friends from far away and that it is alright to make new friends. show less

The story of a daughter's trip to the shore with her father and the extended family in which she takes an extended dive beneath the waves and meets an undersea community of fish and assorted marine life, this book's title is misleading. But the poetic styling lends flow and people will enjoy it for its illustrations if nothing else.