An informative, sometimes-tender memoir of midcentury small-town Americana.
Kellams (A Coach’s Life, 2007) shares fond recollections of a childhood spent in the small town of Marion, Iowa.
In a series of chapter-length vignettes, Kellams brings readers back to the 1940s and early ’50s, recalling a time when local papers and radios were the main sources of news, when young boys played cowboys and Indians with prized toy guns (cap guns, the author says, were the best) and when kids ran off to local swimming holes in the summertime. The elder of two sons born to Stanley and Margaret Kellams, the author came into the world in 1936, during the waning years of the Great Depression. His parents were educated and industrious, and they reflected a Midwestern frugality that was only enhanced by the economic turmoil of their times. By his own account, the author was a sensitive, insecure child, easily brought to tears, but he still depicts his childhood as a happy one. Many stories involve his love of and involvement in sports, including baseball, basketball, and swimming; his father is shown to be especially supportive of all these endeavors. In a disciplined narrative sprinkled with dry wit, Kellams relates his experiences factually rather than emotionally. The crisp prose usually maintains a reporter’s detachment (his parents, for instance, are frequently called Stanley and Margaret instead of Mom and Dad), but there are a few revelatory moments that will give readers a glimpse into the passions of the child. Here, for example, he speaks of working as a newspaper delivery boy for the Cedar Rapids Gazette when he was about 11 years old: “The smell of Fred Ross’s cigar…was the dominant odor, but it mixed with the bitter smell of wet ink, the woody scent of damp paper, and the mingled stench that rose from the jumble of our two dozen bodies….It was part of the romance of journalism.” Kellams not only delivered the Gazette, he read it every day, foreshadowing his eventual move east to obtain a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. He would never again live in Iowa, but in this book, he offers effective reminders of the time he spent there.
An informative, sometimes-tender memoir of midcentury small-town Americana.Pub Date: July 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-692-72976-2
Page Count: -
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 23, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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