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Reviews

“Ireland is famous for its storytellers. I didn’t know that Sarah Jo was one of them – I knew her as a musician. On a wonderful night when we partied ‘til the wee hours, her singing and flute playing delighted me so much that I said to myself, ‘Wouldn’t it be fabulous if I could get her into the Chieftains…’  Now she’s following in the footsteps of the great Irish storytellers and with this story, she really nailed it.”                                                Paddy Moloney The Chieftains

“What Sarah Jo Burke has accomplished in this autobiographical account is original as well as delightfully forthright. Among other unique treasures in this account is the unfailing glorious fact that it is about a decent, lively Irish-American clan, Rhode Island-based, loyal, devout, hard-working and aglow with aspirations and inborn talent…”       
       Ernest Gilbreth-Carey Author of Cheaper by the Dozen

“This is the heartwarming story of Walter, Anne, Steve, Marty, Florrie, Gemma, John, Jimmy, Annie, Walter, Sarah and Peter, known collectively in the 1950’s and 60’s as The Burke Family Singers.  Form Eastern America to Western Canada, through an American South torn apart by injustice and racial segregation, to the glamorous television studios of Ed Sullivan and Mike Douglas, author Sarah Jo Burke lovingly takes us on her family’s journey from rags to riches”
      The Harvard Coop, Harvard Square, MA  

“This story of a musical family’s life in the 1950’s and ‘60’s stands out from the dozens of memoirs that have been published in recent years. Amid volumes of stories chronicling familial abuse, personal trauma and dysfunctionality, it is, pardon the cliché, a ‘feel-good’ memoir.  And, it is unusual in its ability to transport readers back in time while engaging them in characters that are vividly drawn.”
            “Sarah Jo Burke has created something rare – a book that leaves you with the impression of truly knowing this large, Trapp-like family, and a feeling of affection for the Burkes and their well-ordered world. It was, to the surprise of this generally skeptical, unsentimental reader, a book I returned to eagerly.”
            “Don’t Think It Hasn’t Been Fun is written in a way that opens the floodgates of memory for anyone who was alive from the Sputnik era to the Vietnam War. For those people, this will be a page-turner…”                                                  
                                                               Mary K. Feeney Former critic, Hartford Courant