When Chicago author Caryn Lazar Amster wrote her award winning book The Pied Piper of South Shore, Toys and Tragedy in Chicago, she never dreamed where it would lead. Her book is a true family, true crime story about the rise and decline of her Chicago South Shore neighborhood from 1945-1970. 

When The South Shore News Spot Newsletter started in September 2005, it was a one page flyer to 50 people telling about the author’s speaking engagements.  Readers started writing in asking for dates of upcoming school reunions, looking for lost friends and classmates and retelling stories prompted by memories that came back while reading the book.  Today, the free email only newsletter is over 25 pages including photographs with a circulation over 2,000. 

“When you write a book and it appears on the shelves in bookstores and libraries you think you are done,” says Amster.   “The newsletter started as a way to inform and has become a great way for thousands of former South Siders to reconnect.”  There are so many great stories that Amster is considering another book on Reunitings.  

The Pied Piper book is now going into its second printing.  The memorable book cover showing the former Avalon Theater done by noted Indiana fine artist Mitch Markovitz is sold as posters and fine art prints. 

The Pied Piper of South Shore won the USA Book News "Best of 2004" award in the True Crime category and received an all "5" top rating from the 12^th Annual award from the same magazine in the Non-Fiction category. It has received rave reviews from local and national newspapers, websites, publications, book groups and audiences.

For information on the book or to sign up for the free email newsletter contact Amster at 847-895-6449 or visit the website at www.cmapublishing.net

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