Honorary Junior Friend of the Hasbrouck Heights Library Mary Rodgers dies at 83

Honorary Junior Friends of the Hasbrouck Heights Library Member, Mary Rodgers dies at 83

I was saddened to read that Honorary Member and the first author to attend the Junior Friends of the Hasbrouck Heights Library's "Celebration of Books" died yesterday in her home in New York City.

Mary Rodgers Guettel (just call me 'Mary',  Justin) died yesterday at the age of 83 after a long illness. When I was the Chairman of the Junior Friends of the Hasbrouck Heights Library, we came up with the idea of inviting classic children's authors to the library to 'celebrate' their books.

The idea had come into play after the death of author Maurice Sendak. When I had told one of our members that the author had died, he said "Who?". When I explained that he was the author of "Where the Wild Things Are" and countless other famous children's books, he just shrugged. For a generation raised on the great "Harry Potter" books, I felt they were missing something. That's when I decided to start inviting the great children's authors to our library to celebrate their books. Mrs. Rodger's Guettel was our first author and we were all lucky to get to meet her.

When she came to our library on "Freaky Friday the 13th", July 13th, 2012, she could not have been more charming to all the attendees. "Just call me Mary," she said to me as I gushed over her work and how thrilled I was to meet such a legend in the publishing and theater world and she could not have been more modest and funny.

She engaged the large crowd of members, their families and library patrons with a reading of her book, "Freaky Friday", a discussion of how the book came about ("Annabel is really me!") and then did a book signing. She was honored by Mayor Rose Heck in a ceremony proclaiming July 13th, 2012 "Mary Rodgers Day" in Hasbrouck Heights, NJ. After that, as then Chairman of the Junior Friends of the Hasbrouck Heights Library, myself and the membership honored her by making her the first Honorary member of the Junior Friends of the Hasbrouck Heights Library.

After the event was over, members and guest were able to talk to her one on one at a reception in her honor and after that we showed a double feature of her movie, Disney's "Freaky Friday", the original version from 1976 and the remake from 2003. It was truly a once in a life time event and we were all glad to have had her attend.

My hats off to Mary Rodgers, a true lady, a true Friend of the Library and our first Honorary Member of the Junior Friends of the Hasbrouck Heights Library. You will be missed!