Alone with a Butterfly

About the Book

“Alone with a Butterfly” is about the White and Black situation as it existed in 1951, in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx where a benign segregation between whites and blacks is considered normal, especially by sixteen-yea-old Freed Messina and his girlfriend. In Freddy’s neighborhood the blacks, who hold good city jobs, live solely in an apartment building called the Colored House by the white neighbors. A sixteen-year-old black boy, Willy Hamilton, lives in the Colored House with Carol, his fifteen-year-old pretty sister. She is a superb artist and suffers from congenital illness that often weaken her so that she must rest. Willy is the only black boy in Freddy’s class at Hunts Point High School. Despite fearing ridicule by his friends and strong disapproval from his father for associating with blacks, Freddy becomes friendly with Willy and Carol. He is enthralled with her beauty and the magnificence of her paintings. Freddy and Carol like each other. Since Carol doesn’t go to school and must remain home all the time, she feels alone. But because of Freddy’s interest in her, she doesn’t feel alone anymore.

About the Author

Among Frank Di Silvestro’s creative projects is a song book dedicated to the celebration of America’s two-hundred-year bicentenary. And he composed a song book for children and a Christmas album for the family which features the song, “A Little Boy in Israel Prays” which the Desert Storm troops played during the Christmas season. He has written a children’s story, “Playing Ball with Jesus” which was inspired by the Christian soldiers he served with as a United States Army Presidential Honor Guard. He observed how they would write letters to their children in which they expressed how they looked forward to playing ball with them. Frank Di Silvestro has also written other children’s stories, songs and novellas for young adults. Three of these novellas “A Christmas Visitor”, “Alone with a Butterfly”, and “Veronica and her Daddy” are presently being considered by film producers for production.