The Growing Seasons: An American Boyhood Before the War by Samuel Hynes

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I picked this book up because my Dad was born in 1927.  He died in 1995 and I never learned much about his everyday life or the the people he knew.  This is a midwestern book and Dad grew up in Michigan so I see a lot of cultural similarities.  Compared to my own boyhood years (I'm 55 this year), life and times hadn't changed too much, except that I had a lot more stuff than he probably did.

The author knows how to take the reader down the streets of Minneapolis and the lanes of the country.  His treatment of his awakening to the world of women is tasteful, humorous, and so real that I will likely read (parts of) it to my wife.

The books ends with his enlistment as a Marine aviator as WWII broke out.  My own father tried once to enlist in the Marines, but was underage.  The second time he was successful.

Now I'll have to read his Flights of Passage.



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