by Mark Elliott ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A
Cheerful, more thoughtful than most reminiscences, and quite enjoyable.
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In this debut memoir, a songwriter and performer recalls a year of his childhood when friendship, imagination, and adventure combined perfectly, leaving an indelible impression on the author’s soul.
In 1977, Elliott was 10 years old. His family had just moved to Starmount Drive in Tallahassee, Florida, where his father was studying for his Ph.D. Jim Maples, who lived up the embankment next door, became the author’s instant best friend. Within that first week, the “herd” had formed: “Jim and John Maples; Matt, Tommy, and Timmy Stege; Matt Bourgeois; Joey Fearnside; and I.” Their ages ranged from 8 to 10, and they were held together by a love of fishing, the freedom to explore their swampy surroundings, and total loyalty to one another: “We regularly confided in one another with a litany of unproven truths wrapped in heartfelt sincerity. When you are ten, you can speak of Bigfoot, aliens, magic, falling stars, and forever friendship without the worry of ridicule, judgment, or even a hint of disbelief.” Their favorite fishing hole was Alligator Pond, complete with two resident gators and a variety of poisonous snakes. Summer days and year-round weekends were devoted to trekking through the woods, building rickety rafts, riding an assortment of pedal-propelled vehicles, playing backyard football, and getting into all manner of trouble bordering on danger that young boys can conjure when they are just out of range of parental supervision. Elliott’s graceful prose is filled with the philosophical musings that come with the passage of four decades: “My life on Starmount is still my best evidence that to be a truly protective and nurturing parent, you must be able to let go, and to do so beyond the high walls and latched doors.” And the joyful book is permeated with gentle humor that brings to life the exuberance of youth: “Let me tell you, you haven’t heard a true Big Fish tale until you’ve heard triumphant ten-years-olds talk about the alligator that got away.” But readers who are terrified of snakes may want to skip a few paragraphs here and there; the slithering critters appear a bit frequently.
Cheerful, more thoughtful than most reminiscences, and quite enjoyable.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Kurti Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 11, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
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
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by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 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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