Anyone who has ever gone to school will relate to the students, the situations and Mrs. Ceci McKinney. We live with Ceci at home through her strained relationship with her husband and teenage children. We watch her at school in the craziness of a typical 9-period day where one particular student is her only sensible reason to go to work. By the end of the story, we understand fully why Ceci McKinney needs to be ABSENT FROM CLASS.

In Grace Zolla Protano's touching memoir we meet the people who most impacted her life: her brothers Jack and Sal, who gave her strength and laughter; her father Anthony, who showed her gentleness and character. We see her mother Fiorentina, who taught her kindness and wonder, but whose emotionally crippling illness stole half a childhood. Set mainly in Brooklyn in the 1950s, AS LONG AS YOU CAN SEE THE CLOCK, YOU'RE OKAY is a recollection of growing up with a unique love embodying joy and sadness; pride and shame; tenderness and cruelty. The author longs for her absent mother and we cry with...