(Book Review) An American Childhood

(Book Review) An American Childhood Daisy Parker Book Review An American Childhood by Annie Dillard At first I had a hard time getting into Annie Dillard’s An American Childhood. Being a first grade teacher for over 20 years, I am used to reading very simple books. This is not the way she writes. One sentence (11 lines) was an entire paragraph! The more I read, the more I appreciated the way her words made me see it, hear it, and feel it. Her words are so realistic that I felt like I was sharing every moment with her as she describes going to dances, living among the steel factories of Pittsburgh, and listening to her dad sing “Li’Liza Jane”. Being a child growing up in the 50’s like Annie, we had some of the same childhood adventures. When she was describing playing baseball in an empty lot with all the neighborhood kids, it was like she was painting a picture of the empty lot next to my house. I could feel the hurt as Annie tells the story about how disappointed she was because they wouldn’t let girls play Little League baseball, and in the next chapter, I was sharing the thrill she felt as she watches a tornado hit her neighborhood. I loved it when she wrote about playing with the loose skin on her mother’s hands. Immediately, one of my childhood memories pops into my mind. Her words take me back to when I was only four years old, and I was holding the hands of my 100 year old great grandmother as I tried to make the protruding veins disappear. You will enjoy reading An American Childhood because Annie Dillard’s way with words will take you back to a time when children were safe to ride their bikes all around town, roam the neighborhoods with friends, and enjoyed spending summer vacations with their grandparents. She was right on the money when she wrote… “the events of our lives are like dots on a map that God connects to shape us into the person we will become”.