A pleasant, if sometimes-monotonous, account that may appeal most to younger readers.
A memoir that recounts a young girl’s childhood adventures on the American prairie and her lifelong Christian faith.
Yexley (Not My Plan, 2015) pens a charming remembrance of growing up on a farm in Columbia, South Dakota, in the 1950s and ’60s, surrounded by loving family members and farm animals, and expressions of unwavering religious commitment. She writes about her early years of going to school, caring for animals, going on family drives through Nevada and California, and taking piano and cornet lessons; she also describes how the Vietnam War affected her small, intimate community. One particularly endearing chapter tells the story of the young author helping her grandmother take care of chickens, and in doing so, learning about responsibility, hard work, and finding lessons in her mistakes. She also learned about “dressing” chickens—preparing them for killing—and recalls the sadness of witnessing her first butchering. From a young age, she was protective of her younger sister, Yvonne, admired her older brother, Ray, and was fascinated by her grandparents’ many hobbies. Christianity plays a major part in many vignettes and it’s shown to have been an important component of her family’s daily struggles and successes. At the end of each chapter, she includes “Lessons Learned” and “Questions to Ponder,” such as “How do you overcome your fear?” and “Have you ever lost a pet?” However, these lessons and questions can sometimes feel reminiscent of those in children’s books. Overall, the memoir is overwhelmingly positive in tone. As a result, however, Yexley seems to gloss over some of the more serious moments of her childhood; for example, she only gently alludes to corporal punishment, poverty, and the isolation of middle America. She also has only complimentary things to say about each of her family members, and these purely positive descriptions render them somewhat colorless as characters. (Photos of the author’s family members are included throughout.)
A pleasant, if sometimes-monotonous, account that may appeal most to younger readers.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-973603-26-9
Page Count: 124
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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