No comments about Growing Up in the City: A Boy's Tale.

No comments about The Long Way Home.

No comments about Mother Was A Rebel: Tuscaloosa Sketches "...in Praise of Gentle People".

No comments about River Rats: Growing Up on the Raritan River.

No comments about Up on the Rim.

1 comments about Sandlot Stories.

1. Excellent little book about coming of age in the neighborhood sandlot. A great collection of stories from baseball loving adults about their childhood experiences with the bat and ball and also about the possible dream of making the big time.
   
   Highly recommend it. If you have a baseball lover in your family or a friend, this is a great little gift.

5 comments about A Twig Grows in Springdale.

1. Why is it that when we reach our 50s and beyond there is a certain longing for the past? Perhaps, this nostalgic craving is due to our desire to slow down time.

   Eviatar Zerubavel, a cognitive sociologist at Rutgers University, in his book Social Mindscape, made the following observation: "we all live in remembrance environments and mnemonic communities. These mental landscapes, constructed from shared feeling about the past, determine how we think about ourselves and our place in history."

   In other words, people will come to know us by the memories we share with others and in turn we shall know ourselves.
   It is with this in mind that I was able to appreciate first time novelist Al Michaud's A Twig in Springdale.

   Using short literary descriptive sketches or vignettes, Michaud narrates his many fond memories he has of growing up during the time of the depression years in the small village of Springdale, Connecticut.

   We learn about the schools the author attended and the teachers who had a made deep and lasting impressions. It was a time when male teachers were a rarity, and as he states: "teaching was rigid, warm, educational and productive."

   Various ailments would lead to the usage of such cure all medications as Vicks Vapor Rub or Chicken soup. People were not immune from tragedies that resulted in death such as trolley accidents, appendicitis, pneumonia, car wrecks, and fires. However, they did not seem to be big events, as life seemed to go on without any lasting impression, even when one the author's schoolmates was crushed to death by a steam roller in the school yard-"We watched in silence. The police came. The ambulance came. Mr. McCall rang the bell and we all went to class."

   You were not too concerned about the latest in clothing fashions, electronic gadgets, or the endless "goodies" children today enjoy, as money was scarce, you just had to make do with whatever you had.

   Although Michaud's writing focuses on memorabilia of life during the depression years, his personal reflections will surely bring back memories for those of us who were born after during the 40s and 50s, as is the case with myself.
   His style is straight- forward and at times sentimental coming across as a very human and down to earth individual.
   Readers will be pulled in from the very first few pages and I am sure they will find a bit of their own "Springdale," wherever they may have grown up.

   Norm Goldman Editor Bookpleasures




2. A Twig grows in Springdale is in the author's own words, "A simple patchwork of ordinary things, ordinary people and tiny ordinary happenings." It is the recollections of childhood during a simpler time- a time when money was scarce, family values were strong and our freedoms were threatened. Author Al Michaud takes us on a sentimental journey to the days of mothers in aprons with flour covered hands, fathers searching for work and kids who used their imaginations to create worlds of fantasy and excitement.

   Each chapter is a snippet of life during the great Depression from the author's point of view with lovable characters that everyone can relate to. The people and happenings in Springdale helped to shape the lives of countless children who look back with fond memories of "Days gone by."

   A wonderful book of memories for grandparents to read to their grandchildren or for those in their golden years to be reminded of the "Good Old Days." Teachers would find this book helpful in relating life in the thirties and forties to students who live in an age of computers, video games and fast food. Each chapter is a story in itself making it a nice light read for a sunny afternoon.
   Reviewer: Shirley Roe, Allbooks Reviews




3. Rebeccasreads recommends A TWIG GROWS IN SPRINGDALE as a treasure trove of stories, rather like your Grandmother's hope chest. Take it down, open it up anywhere & travel back to a time when the future is a distant thing & where everyday life is so much more important.

   Like an ancient family photo album, Al Michaud fills his with remembrances & impressions, written in snapshots & vignettes, some a hundred or so words, others a couple of pages long, penned in a storytelling rhythm, of a time when sliced bread was a novelty, coal was king, homework unknown, all immigrants wanted to learn English & become Americans, & Springdale, a small southern New England town, was the center of his universe.




4. Reading Al Michaud's book of reminiscences, A Twig Grows in Springdale, is like taking a trip backward in time. The time was the Great Depression, which coincided with his early boyhood, but in spite of the lack of money-possibly because of it-his was a happy boyhood.
   The place was a small New England town, Springdale, where we meet the colorful characters who peopled his world. Money may have been in short supply, but there was always enough for food, and though threadbare, clothes enough to keep them warm. And to add to the richness of a life of simple pleasures in Springdale were the years during the polio epidemic when the family spent the summers with friends on their farm in the mountains. There more adventures helped bend the Twig, and the reader is the lucky spectator. A good read.



5. I was born on Hope Street and lived in Springdale for most of my
   life. Al Michaud brings back many wonderful memories of growing
   up. "A Twig Grows in Springdale" is a good read for anyone who
   grew up in a small town or wished that they did.
   You get the feeling that we were richer then, with or without
   Con Lund's dimes.
   Thanks for the memories! Al.
   
   Marilyn Seaman Ritchie

5 comments about Four Seasons of Life.

1. An interesting, compelling story from child to survior. Well written. Not ever coming from a harmful childhood or disruptive relationships, I found it compelling reading. I couldn't put it down until I finished it.



2. This is a poorly written, uninteresting dirge.

   The changes from 1st person to third person were maddening and one has to slog through it just to find out that it adds nothing to the story but confusion. I have to confess that it was so poorly done, initially I though it was in error. Upon further evaluation of the material I think the author was attempting (ineffectively I might add) help the reader experience her protagonist's multiple personality disorder.

   This book attemtps, unsuccessfully in my opinion, to deal with some very meaningfull issues. Unfortunately, the character development is so poor that it hardly seems to matter what happens to them.

   This book comes off as a whining justification for the protagonist's deficiencies as a wife and mother. The truely sad part is that it has become so common a theme in our popular culture that now people accept these rationalizations as the whole truth. If you're a screw-up it must be due to the horrors suffered during childhood, because without that rationale we would have to take some responsibility ourselves for doing things that are unthinkable.

   This is a very difficult subject to do well and it certainly wasn't done well here. I came out of the book feeling little more than contempt for the protagonist, when I should have felt empathy. Don't waste time on this one.




3. I found this book to be REAL. I don't sense this is a seasoned author but a seasoned survivor! I found it hard to follow in the beginning, but after the culmination of the story, I could understand why! Definitely not a CLASSIC. Definitely an EXPERIENCE in life!



4. This book was raw and intense. A bit difficult to follow but considering it's content, very understandable. I felt I was there! The madness came through as only true madness can. Good job, tough story.



5. It's difficult to say what's more pathetic: This vanity-press pile of puerile drivel, or the 'author' herself coming here to repeatedly post five-star feedback for herself (see below!). 'Kathi Kay' is the pen-name of one Kathleen Sourwine of Chicago, a self-confessed failed wife and even more failed mother, who obviously scrawled this cheap pulp to shamefully cash in on the "repressed memories of incest" self-outings that swept the nation a few years back.
   
   The result?: A sparse, salacious little screed much more illiterate than illuminating. It's not easy to find any meaning through the constant gaffes of misspellings and bad grammar in every limp sentence. Was this sorry excuse of a woman actually an incest survivor? Is that excuse for her adult miseries real or imagined? Hard to tell, since the book fumbles from embarrassingly eroticised 'memories' to self-pity poesy in a muddled, confused fashion.
   
   The net effect is a creepy, almost laughable FEEL SORRY FOR ME whinefest that treats a serious subject with crass indignity: The author's not a charity case. She's a head case; skip this amateur trash.

2 comments about To You, My Grandchildren.

1. The author did an excellent job in ascertaining lessons in living or principles of life that are worthy of emulation by anyone,young or old. I found the book easy to read and I especially enjoyed the short stories that are humerous yet packed with provoking thoughts.

   I commend the author for giving all profits from the publication to the Boys & Girls Clubs in America. That is also a lesson in living.




2. I really thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is full of wisdom that we all could attach to our lives. Life lessons are something all of us deal with daily. Mr. Vaughn has shared his with us in a sincere way that captures the readers attention. I think everybody could take some piece of knowledge from this book and share it with others in good faith. I know I personally will use the lessons and pieces of wisdom to better my life. Mr. Vaughn has definitely left a piece of history for his grandchildren and wonderful lessons of life for all others who read his enchanting book.

1 comments about Mountain Born, Mountain Molded.

1. Mountain Born, Mountain Molded by Larry G. Morgan is a wryly written personal memoir of growing up in the Nantahala region of western North Carolina from 1945-1955 as the fifth in a family of ten children. Childhood memories, simple games kids played long before popular culture became overloaded with atrociously [spendy] collectible toys, and the refreshing wonder of the great outdoors are all recalled in this memorable, nostalgic, and highly recommended narrative.