Modern kids Rowan and Nina Popplewell are forced to spend a summer in an old-fashioned town, Owatannauk, Maine, and stay with their old-fashioned great-aunts. They meet a pair of twins who befriend them, show them an old possibly ‘haunted’ resort hotel. There they visit an even more old-fashioned era when they discover a time-travel machine in Maiya Williams’ first novel, ‘The Golden Hour.’ The novel, published by Amulet, was released April 1 to outstanding reviews, prompting the publisher to contract with Williams for two more books in the series. The Palisadian author will read from her book aimed at fourth through seventh graders and answer questions on Friday, April 23, at Village Books, 1049 Swarthmore at 7 p.m. Williams read a great deal in her youth and loved authors such as Roald Dahl. ‘I love quirky characters, oddball things and humor,’ she says. ‘I think humor is important in a book.’ ‘Everything I like is in the book’time travel, old resort hotels, Maine and history,’ Williams says. ‘The book has magical elements, and it takes place in the farthest corner of the U.S. I could think of. ‘I’ve always loved books; it never occurred to me I could be a writer. Now that it has come to fruition, I’m very happy and pleased.’ Williams was born in Corvallis, Oregon, and grew up in New Haven, Connecticut, and Berkeley, California. She traces her love of history to a high school teacher. ‘He would describe things down to the details of what it was like to be there back in time, the smells and sensations, wearing the clothes, toilet habits, everything people are curious about.’ Williams wanted to pass on this love of history to young readers. Not only do the young characters have an adventure, they go through honest emotions as well. The Popplewell children have recently lost their mother, and Rowan is working on a list: ‘Top Ten Reasons My Life Stinks.’ ‘It’s meant to be something kids can relate to,’ Williams says. ‘A lot of kid books in the middle grades avoid emotions or have very simplistic emotions. I imagine kids can handle a little bit more. I wanted it to be honest about what kids are thinking and feeling.’ Williams studied history and literature at Harvard. She served as editor on the Harvard Lampoon humor magazine and was elected vice-president for one year while Conan O’Brien was president. ‘Conan was a goofy guy who would get a lot of attention,’ Williams recalls. ‘He was really funny and talented. He always wanted to have the David Letterman job. He was a nice person and still is.’ Like many Harvard Lampoon alumni, Williams moved to Hollywood and found work as an assistant in comedy development at Columbia Pictures Television. The job involved reading lots of scripts and led her to write her own. Williams has since worked as a writer and producer on ‘Amen,’ ‘Roc,’ ‘Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,’ ‘Rugrats’ and her current job on ‘MAD-TV.’ At the Lampoon, she met her husband Patric M. Verrone, whom she married in 1989. Patric, also a television writer-producer, is the Secretary Treasurer of the Writers Guild of America, West. The couple moved to the Marquez area in 1996. Their children Patric, 9, and Marianne, 6, attend Corpus Christi. Teddy, 3, is a student at Lyc’e Fran’ais preschool. Williams wrote her book about four years ago, while pregnant with Teddy. She spent about four or five months doing research, and nine months writing the book. Because of her TV writing work, Williams says she is good about sitting down and starting to write, without having to wait for inspiration. ‘I also leave off at an exciting point, so I can start right in the next day.’ She has spoken about the book at Corpus Christi. As gratified as she is about the reviews, she is most excited about feedback from her young readers. ‘I like writing for that age group’books really become a part of the person reading them.’

For 20 years, Alan Mesher has been working with clients as an energy healer and spiritual counselor. In his latest book, ‘Just Who Do You Think You Are?: The Power of Personal Evolution’ (Sirius Creations, $19.95), he outlines his program for clearing negativity, finding true purpose, and heading towards self-discovery. His process helps people develop a strong center and find inner stability. Mesher will speak about his book at Village Books, 1049 Swarthmore, at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 29. This is Mesher’s fifth book, which he wrote at his ‘office’ at Starbucks. ‘Most people don’t have a clue who they are,’ Mesher says. ‘They define self by their roles’mother or husband, etc.’ His book is written to help people accelerate the process of self-disovery. At Village Books, he will speak about the principles he has developed for this process: how to clear emotional toxicity, how to remove inner roadblocks to personal success and fulfillment, how to become the person you were meant to be, and how to develop and increase your personal power. A native of Boston, Mesher graduated from Hobart College and thought he would go to law school or return to school for a Ph.D. But his path was altered when he met a New Hampshire woman named Eleanor Moore, who had a well-known gift for healing. ‘I had heard that she changed lives,’ Mesher recalls. ‘A friend introduced me to her. She started to tell me things about my life that were dead-on right. She said, ‘What I do, you’re going to do. You can go be a lawyer but it’s not your destiny.’ She put my hands between her hands and a hot, electrical energy went up my spine and made a popping sound in the center of my forehead. I saw a golden light. It was remarkable, ecstatic.’ Mesher ended up studying with her for three years. He performed his first healing, a year later, on a poodle he was taking care of for a friend. A St. Bernard had bitten the poodle in the diaphragm. Mesher took the dog to the vet, but worried, ‘How can I help this poor animal?’ He meditated. With his hands two feet apart, he called the dog’s spirit to come to him. ‘I felt something come between my hands, the space filled with tremendous energy, then it stopped. This was at 10:10 p.m.’ The next morning the vet said the dog was fine and I could pick him up. ‘He said that the wound had sealed up in front of his eyes at 10:10 p.m.,’ Mesher says. ‘I realized this is real, I have a gift.’ Another example of his healing work involves a woman who came to him with a sharp pain in her stomach, after traditional and alternative practitioners couldn’t help. She lay on a table and Mesher put energy into her by lightly laying his hands on the area where the pain was. ‘An emotional blockage came to the surface, and memories started coming up,’ he says. She started crying and thrashing around, remembering being abused at 9 months old. After 45 minutes of this, she became peaceful and felt as if she was floating in golden light. Her stomach was healed after the burden she had been carrying around was released. In Mesher’s three zones of personal evolution, the first step is clearing toxic emotion. ‘If you can’t do that, you can’t grow,’ he says. ‘You need to face the pain.’ He outlines a simple process for this in his book, although he also urges people to get professional help from a healer or therapist. ‘If we don’t deal with the toxicity, it’s never put to rest.’ This can include toxicity from past lives. This toxicity can also lead to health problems. In addition to his healing work, Mesher has hosted radio programs in San Francisco and Austin, and has been a regular guest on the Art Bell radio show. He is also a former publisher of the Yoga Journal, and has his own publishing company, Sirius Creations. His book not only refers to inner work, but also discusses history and politics, and how small numbers of people can bring about changes in social consciousness and behavior. He also discusses how to integrate psychology, social change and Eastern philosophy. Mesher and his son Matthew, a Malibu High School junior, have lived in the Highlands for three years. ‘Mesher can be contacted at 459-9007.

Judy Mazel, Palisadian author of ‘The New Beverly Hills Diet’ and ‘Slim & Fit Kids: Raising Children in a Fast Food World’ will discuss young people, obesity and a solution at 2 p.m. on Saturday, April 24 at the Palisades Branch Library, 861 Alma Real. The book was co-authored with Dr. John Monaco, an intensive care pediatrician. The Journal of the American Medical Association came out with a study that obesity will be the leading cause of death in the year 2005 if Americans do not change their eating habits and increase physical activity. The number of children and adolescents who are overweight has tripled in the past 20 years. One-third of U.S. children are overweight or obese. Ignored for too long, childhood obesity, a killer, has become the surgeon general’s number one priority for the 21st century. Mazel’s book maps out a way of eating and feeding a family that is convenient as well as nourishing, slimming and energizing. Mazel’s ‘Beverly Hills Diet’ is based on the concepts of conscious food combining and the way that enzymes appearing naturally in foods aid digestion. This philosophy is the cornerstone of the ‘Slim & Fit Kids’ eating program. Mazel’s prescription for slimming down offers a program of nonrestrictive eating that doesn’t include counting calories or fat grams, limiting portions or restricting fast food. Instead, the approach emphasizes combining foods for maximum effectiveness of digestion and nutrient absorption. One of the tenets of the regiment is to eat fruit without any other foods and on an empty stomach for quick absorption. Another rule of what is termed ‘conscious combining’ is to minimize mixing carbs and proteins. The book includes many recipes, all designed to promote health and energy, along with a 28-day exercise program, designed by Palisadian Thea White. Monaco and Mazel also delve into the psychological and social effects on children of being overweight and offer ‘games’ on how to talk and work with kids on this sensitive subject. Contact: 459-2754.

When author Vanessa Summers took responsibility for her financial life, she found it affected the rest of her life. ‘When I took responsibility for myself at age 26 by getting on budget, addressing credit card debt and creating financial security for myself, the quality of my life upgraded, in terms of my health, well-being and sense of accomplishment,’ she says. Summers is hoping to help other young women achieve financial security through her book, ‘Get in the Game! The Girls’ Guide to Money & Investing’ (Bloomberg Press, $15.95). She’ll be speaking about her book on Thursday, April 22 at 7:30 p.m. at Village Books, 1049 Swarthmore. The book is an accessible look at financial basics aimed at 20-something women. The author, 32, is a registered investment advisor, who uses her own experiences as a way to connect with young women. A former model, Summers became a stockbroker at age 23 with a Hong Kong investment firm. Despite working in the field, Summers didn’t apply sound financial principles to her own life, and she found herself spending more than she earned and maxing out credit cards. After returning to the U.S. she worked as head of sales for a women’s equity fund. At a conference, she learned some frightening statistics about the poverty conditions of many elderly women. In her book, she cites an Institute for Women’s Policy Research statistic that 50 percent of all women 65 and older who are single or widowed live on $12,000 or less a year. ‘My jaw dropped,’ she recalls. ‘This was a big awakening for me. I realized I’d done nothing to plan for my financial future.’ Growing up in Miami, Summers was used to a lifestyle of vacation homes, luxury cars and country club memberships, until age 17, when her parents divorced, causing a downward shift in lifestyle for Vanessa, her siblings and her mother. Summers learned from this that as a woman, no one was ultimately going to take care of her financially. In her book, she shares statistics about women and money, giving guidance on budgeting, debt reduction, starting retirement and emergency funds and choosing investments. She includes information about socially responsible investment funds, which screen companies they invest in according to considerations such as environmental or labor practices or animal welfare. Summers wrote the book and also started her own private foundation, the Sutra Foundation, four years ago to educate young women about investing, retirement planning and other money matters. She has recently been bringing her message to college-age women at universities. Summers, who has been called ‘the financial guru of the MTV generation’ also offers a four-week wealth and success workshop in Beverly Hills. The next workshop begins May 4. Contact: 754-9706 or go to www.sutrafoundation.com.

The task would be daunting to even the most experienced art professional. View 100 works of art from the acclaimed Eileen Harris-Norton and Peter Norton collection’recognized as one of the top contemporary art collections in the world’and select just over a dozen to exhibit. But four Crossroads students’three seniors and one junior’did just that when they were tapped to curate their own art show, called ‘Deep Focus,’ an exhibition recently on view at the school’s Sam Francis Gallery. Among the four students was Palisadian Anna Ayeroff, a senior who has been at Crossroads since kindergarten. An avid painter and printmaker, Ayeroff is passionate about making art. ‘That and studying art history,’ says Ayeroff, who hopes to attend either Columbia or Brown next fall. ‘Becoming curators teaches students how to look critically and thematically at the work of other artists,’ says Pam Posey, an AP studio art teacher and director of the Sam Francis Gallery. This is the second year Posey has enlisted art students to don curatorial caps, challenging them to step outside their roles as art makers to lend a discerning eye to the works of others. ‘It encourages them to have a different relationship with art.’ Among those they evaluated in the Norton collection were both emerging artists and some of the biggest names in contemporary art. Making the final selections prompted healthy debates among the four students, with Ayeroff confessing she was drawn to installation and sculpture pieces, while another of her colleagues clearly favored photography. Ultimately, choices came about on the basis of how well pieces worked together, keeping in mind the challenges to come when installing the show. In the end, all media made the cut, with works ranging from large-scale color photography’Rosemary Laing’s rich painterly take on a forest she literally laid with carpet before photographing’to sculpture with direct political and social overtones: Kim Dingle’s gum ball machine filled with bullets and titled ‘Gunball machine.’ The students worked intuitively, choosing not to impose any strict thematic thread. ‘Quite a few pieces deal with identity,’ Ayeroff says. ‘We were looking both for interesting pieces and for works that were aesthetically pleasing. Beauty mattered.’ Two minimal works, dazzling in their simplicity, were probably chosen with beauty in mind. Tony Feher’s striking piece, 25 clear glass bottles arranged on a shelf, anchors one wall of the show while a Catherine Opie photograph’icehouses occupying one narrow horizontal strip against a vast white background of overcast sky and frozen water’is a kindred spirit hanging nearby. When Peter Norton attended the opening, he praised the fluidity and elegance of the show. ‘We’ve also been told by teachers and students that it’s the best show in a long time,’ Ayeroff says. Satire made its way into the show with framed pieces by the Guerrilla Girls, a group of anonymous female artists whose work illuminates gender and racial equality issues. Noted under the heading of ‘The Advantages of Being a Woman Artist’ are caustic witticisms such as ‘Working without the pressure of success’ and ‘Not having to be in shows with men.’ ‘I find them hilarious,’ Ayeroff says. ‘The idea of what they’re doing is so fabulous.’ She points out she is in the minority among her peers in thinking feminism is fascinating. ‘Kids should realize feminism isn’t about hating men. It applies to all of us, and especially to me since I plan to pursue art as a career and lifestyle.’ Surprising was the absence of pieces of a more combative, agitating nature. ‘We’re waiting until the senior class show to really push buttons,’ says Ayeroff with a laugh. ‘I’m working on a series of prints, etchings and linoleum prints revolving around issues of pornography.’ Ayeroff, whose younger sister is a 10th grader at Crossroads, speaks of her parents as ‘big art enthusiasts’ who made gallery and museum visits a regular part of growing up. Her mother is a non-practicing architect and her father, a collector of photography, is a former art director. The senior class show opened on April 14 and will continue through April 28 in the Sam Francis Gallery at Crossroads School, 1714 21st Street, Santa Monica. Contact: 829-7391, ext. 425.

Since he joined the United States Coast Guard seven and a half years ago, getting away from it all has taken on a whole new meaning for Bryan Goff. Goff, 26, is the IT1 (Information Systems Technician First Class) aboard Polar Sea, a United States Coast Guard cutter that returned to Seattle April 1 from a four-and-a-half month, 50,000-mile journey to the South Pole and back. The boat’s mission was to clear a path through an ice field big enough for other ships to reach McMurdo Base–the largest military base in Antarctica. Goff was part of a similar mission one year before. “The main reason I joined the Coast Guard was for the education,” says Goff, who specializes in handling all telephone operations, satellite communications and computer network systems onboard Polar Sea. “The training was both physically and mentally challenging, but I liked it.” The oldest son of Palisades High graduates Joan and Monty Goff, Bryan grew up in Topanga Canyon, graduated from Taft High and worked as an auto mechanic while attending classes at Pierce College in Woodland Hills before deciding to join the Coast Guard in 1997. His grandparents have lived on Drummond Street in Huntington Palisades since 1950. Goff’s brother David is now safely back from Iraq, where he served in the U.S. Marine Corps. Goff was stationed at the Coast Guard Yard in Baltimore, Maryland, when he decided to reenlist to get on the Polar Sea. “I knew these ships travel all over the world and that’s something I was anxious to do,” he says. “I wanted to broaden my horizons.” Polar Sea and its sister ship Polar Star are two of the largest ships in the U.S. Coast Guard and the world’s most powerful non-nuclear icebreakers. Nearly 400 feet in length and with a displacement of 13,500 tons, Polar Sea is designed to move continuously through six feet of ice at a speed of three knots. Equipped with six diesel-electric engines that power three underwater propellers, Polar Sea has a six-inch thick steel plate ‘skirt’ protecting its hull. The reinforced hull is shaped to ride up on the ice, which then breaks into small chunks under the ship’s weight. “When the bow scrapes up against the ice, it makes a very loud, distinct noise,” Goff says. “It sounds like metal being ripped apart. Not the most comforting sound for enlisted men who sleep below deck.” As one of only a handful of ships worldwide capable of conducting unrestricted high latitude operations, Polar Sea routinely operates in the Bering Sea, Chukchi Sea and the Arctic Ocean. Since being commissioned out of Seattle in 1978, it has sailed all seven seas, visited ports in 24 foreign countries, circumnavigated Antarctica nine times and ventured to the Arctic Circle 13 times. “The main purpose of our mission was to break up the ice around McMurdo Station so that supply ships and fuel ships can reach the base safely,” Goff says. “On this last mission, the hard part was trying to break into Marble Point, which is a fueling depot for the two HH-65A helicopters we carry on board. We hadn’t broken the ice there in four years so it was very hard and thick. When we broke through, we could see the layers of older ice. Usually a layer is equivalent to a year.” Although his most recent assignment brought him to tourist havens like the Hawaiian Islands and Sydney, Australia, and exotic spots like Tasmania, where mission scientists came aboard, Goff is quick to point out that in the armed forces, life at sea is no pleasure cruise. “It’s not as glamorous as it seems,” Goff admits. “Even when you’re docked, you’re on the boat and once you are underway it definitely gets routine. “You’re out there to do a job,” he adds. “At sea, you wake up at 6:45 a.m., have breakfast at 7 and work from about 8 in the morning to 4 in the afternoon. My wife Jessica is in the Coast Guard too. She’s stationed in Seattle, which is our home port, but once I leave on a mission I don’t see her for months at a time.” Goff even confesses to getting seasick: “I can assure you that is no fun. Especially when you’re 100 miles from nowhere and all around as far as the eye can sea is blue ocean.’ Though day-to-day life aboard Polar Sea gets boring at times, missions can also be exciting and full of adventure. Recreational activities include a library, exercise room and daily movies to maintain morale during lengthy deployments. To break up the monotony, officers even order an occasional “abandon ship” drill, during which every crew member must report to a designated life raft with a specific piece of equipment. For Goff, that item is a satellite phone. Several times in January, while in “Ice Liberty” (meaning the vessel is lodged in ice and cannot move), Goff and his shipmates descended a ladder, engaged in snowball fights, played football and soccer, snow boarded and skied cross country-style across the iceberg. On one occasion the Polar Sea and Polar Star were caught in Ice Liberty together. “We were playing football and they decided to challenge us to a game,” Goff recalls. “In the end we beat them and they had a long walk home.” On New Year’s eve, Goff and his crew encountered a pod of orcas at the stern (rear) of the ship poking their heads out of the water to look at them. As the orcas surfaced, hundreds of Adelie penguins fled from the water and waddled to safety on the ice to avoid becoming dinner for the hungry killer whales. “That night, we had the penguin drop,” Goff explains. “You know how New York City drops the ball at midnight? Well, we have what’s called a penguin drop. All it is is a big inflatable penguin that we had up on our lanyards. As the time got nearer, the penguin got closer to the deck. After that was done with, we wrapped things up and went to bed.” McMurdo Station, located in the Ross Sea, has a population of 200 in the winter and 1,200 in the summer. It covers almost two-and-a-half square miles and contains over 100 buildings, including a church, fire department, a coffee house, a U.S. Post Office and even two ATM machines. Goff says it “resembles a mining town from the Old West.” Navigating through the Ross Sea requires the utmost precision because of icebergs, a constant threat to ships due to their massive size and often invisible surface. “About seven-eighths of an iceberg is underwater,” Goff explains. “Icebergs are either white or blue. The white ones have bubbles trapped in the ice and the surface reflects sunlight, giving the berg a white appearance. But blue ones have few or no bubbles at all and therefore no reflection. Those are the most dangerous.” One of Antarctica’s most impressive tablet-shaped icebergs, labeled B-15K, is six miles wide, 24 miles long and 100 feet high. While the assortment of marine life is fascinating to watch and the scenery can be breathtaking, crew members know the mission itself is first priority aboard Polar Sea. “We had to constantly send divers down into the sub-freezing water to check our propellers to make sure the ice wasn’t bending them,” Goff claims. “There were times when the ice was very thick at certain locations, where we were moving about 100 yards a watch (one watch is four hours in duration). It takes perseverance and determination to get the job done.” Polar Sea is back at its home port in Seattle undergoing routine maintenance, as it does upon completion of every mission. And although he still reports to work every morning, Goff is happy to be doing so on dry land for a change. “It’s nice to wake up and be in the same place you were when you went to sleep the night before,” he says. “Looking out the window and seeing the same view takes a little getting used to.”