Although new author Tom Gilfoy lived the first few years of his long life in La Cañada and moved back to the city 44 years ago, his first book is about his interim early life in nearby Sunland and Lake View Terrace. “Growing Up In Sunland and Other Short Stories,” available at Bolton Hall in Tujunga https://boltonhall.square.site, has many historical pictures of the area and includes stories about early Lake View Terrace and Gilfoy’s memoirs of his early years working in the woods and logging camps of northern California.

It was out of deference to his friends and relatives that the author waited so long to write his first book.

“This way they don’t have to worry about me living long enough to write another one and making them read it too,” he explained with a laugh.

Praise of the book includes a review by The Hon. Gregory O’Brien, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge (ret.) and former president of the California Judges Association.

“Lawyer Tom Gilfoy’s regular feature columns once published by the Sunland-Tujunga’s Voice of the Village newspaper are a fond but faithfully unembellished collection of adventures from his youth in the 1930s and ’40s in a once semi-rural patchwork of homes and groves now turned to an extension of suburban Los Angeles. Gilfoy recalls the voices, talents, idiosyncrasies and values of his family, friends, classmates, coaches and iconic old-timers who influenced his development, as well as the innocent, often humorous, sometimes dangerous mischief he and his pals caused or encountered as true 20th century Huckleberry Finns,” writes O’Brien.

The retired judge added that Gilfoy’s “ clear and professional journalistic style and careful attention to historic and topographic detail” are authentic touches that will easily engage readers while making many yearn for days gone by.

All income from this first edition of the book is being donated to the Little Landers Historical Society in Tujunga, which has also been given exclusive sales rights.