Former Cooperstown Resident Publishes First Children’s Book

By WRILEY NELSON
ACTON, MA

Bridget Chamber-as, a special education professional and daughter of long-serving former Otesaga Hotel General Manager Frank Maloney, published a children’s book inspired by her childhood experiences on Tuesday, September 5. “Bridget Finds a Home,” illustrated by Ethan Roffler, tells the story of a major upheaval in Chamberas’ childhood.

“When I was four, my family moved to southern Indiana because my father had taken a job as GM of a large resort hotel,” Chamberas said. “It was a 500-room hotel and a ton of responsibility, and we lived in the hotel itself. We were there for about eight years.”

Young Bridget is worried about the move to an unfamiliar new environment and gradually learns the true meaning of home from her family and new friends.

“When I think about my childhood, I think about the ways my parents brought together our family and the hotel family,” Chamberas remembered. “One of the bellmen was the last person I said goodbye to when I left for school and the first person I saw when I returned. The staff had every right to speak to us if we were out of line; we were raised to respect the other people in the hotel and knew that they were partly responsible for us. I know that this situation from my childhood was unique and I wanted to share it with my own children.”

“I was working in a school library and really fell in love with children’s books,” she continued. “I started to write little bits of my story at a time, I joined a local bookstore’s writing group and came out with this manuscript. I put it on the back burner during COVID and only got back to it recently.”
The book features lovingly-rendered, lavish colored-pencil illustrations that offer up more details with each new search. In addition to his work as an illustrator, Roffler co-founded Stories Untold, a company that helps authors self publish.

“The company helped me a ton with the editing, design and layout,” Chamberas said. “I had an instant working connection with Ethan. I knew he would be a good fit for the story when he described the illustration he was planning for the cover and it just perfectly fit the actual car we drove to Indiana in 1979.”

The book includes a selection of conversation starters at the end to help foster discussions between parents and children. Chamberas, an educator, said that this effort to help children sort through their feelings about home or about moving was her favorite part of the finished book.
Chamberas’ family moved to Missouri for a few years after Indiana and finally wound up in Cooperstown. She graduated from Cooperstown Central School in 1993.

“Bridget Finds a Home” is available in hardcover from any bookseller. Chamberas visited the Susquehanna SPCA for an author talk and literacy program recently; the program promotes literacy and helps socialize animals by asking children in grades 1-3 to read to cats or dogs awaiting adoption.