From Publishers Weekly
When Hemley, a writing professor at the University of Iowa, decides that he wants to do over some of the experiences he flubbed as a child, he isn't just dreaming. The 48-year-old father of three makes a list of times and places he'd like to revisit, including kindergarten, the prom and summer camp, doggedly pursuing all the contacts and background checks necessary to storm the walls of childhood as an adult. Surprisingly, the kids and teachers he meets along the way accept him in his overgrown state; some even express envy. The complex logistics of Hemley's quest—including endless e-mails and phone calls to convince others that he's legit—can be tedious, but Hemley is endearing, funny and more than a bit courageous (the night before his first day of kindergarten, he's too nervous to sleep.) As he tackles his part in the school play or sits with the popular kids at lunch, Hemley philosophically ponders the lessons of the past. While some experiences don't pan out quite the way he hopes (after crashing his car into the ACT center, he ditches the idea of a standardized test repeat), others fall serendipitously into place (a crush from high school now works as the school's alumni director and agrees to be his prom date). A big kid at heart, the author draws readers in with just the right mix of humor and tenderness. 22 b&w photos.
(May) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Regrets? Sure, he has a few. Ten to be precise. Beginning with a shrewish kindergarten teacher who made his first academic year pure torture and ending with his mortifying withdrawal from a foreign-exchange program his senior year in high school, Hemley revisits the lowest episodes of his formative years in order to gain perspective on what went wrong the first time around. Inventively, Hemley actually reenacts the “do-over” experience in pursuit of authenticity, adopting the persona of a sixth-grader to see if this time he can avoid being the bullies’ favorite target, and finally nail his lines from “The Littlest Angel,” a performance complete with a super-sized costume. Now a middle-aged husband and father and successful author and professor, Hemley knows he should have left these youthful traumas behind, but unavoidable shame and unsettled scores die hard. Taking the concept of “coulda, woulda, shoulda” to its most eccentric extreme, Hemley’s step back in time imparts hard-earned wisdom with humility and humor. --Carol Haggas
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