Two new books have been published within the last few months about the community that is known as the prototype for suburban housing developments in America, Levittown. The authors of these books, Susan Kirsch Duncan-Levittown:The Way We Were and Margaret Lundrigan and Tova Navarra-Levittown Volume II, have sought to inspire a greater understanding of the people and actions that created and shaped this town.

Levittown: The Way We Were chronicles the life of a baby boomer growing up in the community. Duncan states, in the Preface of the book, "The objective of this book is to give readers a feeling for the way we lived, and the events that took place during Levittown's baby-boom era. My generation was blessed with countless playmates, and together we explored the area, watched the cookie-cutter homes evolve into unique structures of self-expression, and shared our families' ups and downs with wonderful neighbors."

Duncan's family moved to Levittown in 1955 and she was born there that same year. She reminisces about growing up in the community and various milestones reached along the way. She writes about walking to the Azalea Pool and the Pool at the Green. In speaking about the pools, Duncan mentions that although the Pool at the Green was closer they usually went to Azalea because the Pool at the Green was near the grocery store and older children threw their beer and soda bottles in there, causing people to cut their feet on the concrete areas, a problem faced again just this year at Wolcott and Acorn Pools. In her reminiscing she shows just how much some things have stayed the same throughout the years, even while showing the evolution of the community.

The book tells about various traditions that her family had as well as traditions in the community such as the various parades held. It also goes into what television shows were popular at the time, what schools the family attended, and how holidays were celebrated.

It is the celebration of one of these holidays, Valentine's Day, that showed Duncan, in researching the book, how much some things have remained the same. "Like all towns of course, all over the country, changes have taken place. However, there's a charm in Levittown that remains to this day ... I noticed all the Valentine's decorations in the windows. People don't do that anymore. I don't know if Levittowners are aware of that. There's just so many communities that don't even do that and that whole sense was back. It's just so homey, so friendly and warm that I don't think it [the warmth] will ever leave," said Duncan in a recent interview.

It was these fond memories of Levittown that made Duncan decide to write about the community her family lived in until 1967. She stated, "Those were the best days of my life, growing up there and you don't just forget the most wonderful times you've ever had." She added that she has found, since writing the book that she is not alone in these feelings. She has heard from other Levittown Baby-Boomers who had the same sense of community growing up in Levittown. Duncan added that every detail of her childhood came alive for her again when she wrote the book and feels the book brought these feelings back for others as well. She added, "Although our personal experiences might be different, from person to person, family to family, I think that the whole gist of the book kind of conjures up the essence of what Levittown was and continues to be today."

Lundrigan and Navarra attempt to conjure up this same essence through photographs in Levittown Volume II, which is part of the Images of America series published by Arcadia. The challenge for them was not only to tell the story of the community's evolution through just pictures and captions but to show it without actually having lived through it.

Lundrigan grew up in Staten Island and when she was first married she purchased a home in a development, which she later discovered was a Levitt Development. She loved the community and discovered that it was very similar to Levitt's other planned communities. "I've done several books on Staten Island and the whole idea of a suburban community and Levitt really intrigued me and then I thought, 'Gee, the 50th Anniversary is coming up.' I thought it would be a marvelous thing to do a book and we approached Arcadia," said Lundrigan. Although Arcadia usually focuses on older communities they agreed to publish the original book, and then there was enough interest that they asked Lundrigan and Navarra to do a second one, Volume II.

According to Lundrigan, she and Navarra received an enormous amount of help from the Levittown Library, which has a whole collection of pictures of the community. While doing the first book they made more contacts and were able to show a more personal part of Levittown history in Volume II through residents' own family photos.

Lundrigan believes that the book is able to capture the essence of the community through the variety of photos. "I think, especially with a community like Levittown, one picture is worth a thousand words."

Navarra had barely heard of Levittown before Lundrigan suggested putting together the first book. It was Lundrigan who made her decide to work on it. Navarra stated, "It was such a compelling vision that she had of the book that I really felt that I wanted to be a part of it."

Navarra believes that they managed to see that vision through and give a real sense of Levittown and its evolution through pictures of the community. "The first volume was, I think, a good encapsulation of the essence of Levittown's evolution. The second one, we tried to expand on that and I think it's Levittown in a nutshell," noted Navarra.

Both books have gotten a very good response from readers and have prompted various locations to invite the authors as guest speakers. Duncan, whose book is available online, directly from the publisher and is available at Borders and at online bookstores, has been invited to speak about how Levittown was at Levittown elementary schools. She said that she is thrilled and excited to have the opportunity to speak at any of the schools but most especially at her alma mater, Northside. She has also been invited to participate in Northside's 50th Anniversary celebration. Lundrigan and Navarra have also gotten several requests for speaking engagements and plan to be at Borders Books in Levittown and the Levittown Library at some point.