Memories Are Like Clouds [Hardcover]

Diana Dell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1999

Set in East Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, in the 1950s, this poignant story, filled with memorable characters, is a fond remembrance of growing up in small-town America when life seemed simple.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Diana Dell, a former college instructor, personnel counselor, second grade teacher, photographer, business owner, disc jockey, social worker, and journalist, lives in the Boston area. She currently writes full time.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 292 pages
• Publisher: Xlibris Corporation; 1 edition (February 1999)
• ISBN-10: 0738802034
• ISBN-13: 978-0738802039
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,236,580 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Recollections of growing up in a small ethnic community, September 4, 2001

By 

Marc J. Yacht "MJY" (Florida) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Memories Are Like Clouds (Paperback)

I enjoyed this book. The title is perfect for a work that snapshots growing up in a Polish community. My grandparents were Russian Jews (both sets) who came to America about 1912. Both my parents were born here. So much of the anecdotal tales of local characters, mom and pop shops, numbers running, close communities, mirrored so much of what I remember as a child. Overlaying the story and presented initially is the loss of a loved one in Viet Nam. This book relates how immigrant families sacrificed for their children encouraging their education that resulted in 2nd generation Doctors, Lawyers, Accountants etc. Its a wonderful book to read and struck many chords for me.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling Story of Post World War Two Coming-of-Age, November 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Memories Are Like Clouds (Hardcover)

What makes this book so appealing to a "Baby-Boomer," like myself, is that it brings back memories of what it was like growing up in a small town in the fifties. The wiry humor and interesting characters make the book hard to stop reading. Fact is---I read it twice, and would certainly recommend it for its entertaining aspects, as well as its literary merit. Dell's other book, "A Saigon Party," is a must read for those desiring a different view-point of the Vietnam war. Her writing is poignant, sincere, and manages to capture a little of the American spirit that is in all of us. Sincerely, Franklin D. Rast, author: "Don's Nam," and "Ghosts In The Wire."

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A unique accomplishment, a delightful adventure, May 5, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Huntington, West Virginia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Memories Are Like Clouds (Hardcover)

MEMORIES ARE LIKE CLOUDS Author: Diana Dell

Scenes from Diana Dell's MEMORIES ARE LIKE CLOUDS float into the reader's mind as a fresh mist that puts all of life into a saner perspective. This sharp and focused narrative begins with little Diana's discovery of her brother Kenny sleeping in her very own crib.  It continues by detailing the developing relationship between brother and sister based on similar interests: the love of a good story, an interest in people - family and neighbors especially, and the drive to get across the street and then keep moving on. Ms. Dell's relationship with her brother Kenny is the link, which ties together the delightful, the funny, the sad, and the devastating happenings of the book. Contrasting threads -- the telling of various war-time stories and living the easier life in East Vandergriff - weaves through the minds of the children, creating an awareness of their own family's history from Eastern European roots.  They see through the stories their mother tells that wars are motivation for change and moving on. They become very aware of our country's history, and see other traumatic events such as the economic depression as a mover of people to places they would not have been otherwise.  As the children are nurtured by their mother's stories, we readers see the Dell family history as a microcosm - the social and emotional setting that emphasizes man's humanity toward man, the ultimate theme of this volume. Ironically, this proves to be a startling contrast to the way Ms. Dell's beloved brother Kenny actually died in the horror of man's greatest inhumanity to man - war. That Pennsylvania town had only one road leading in and out. This means safety and togetherness for the duo until that bitter day when the twenty-one gun salute put the twenty-one year old Kenny to rest - this time a final rest in a coffin, not a crib - finalizing the twenty-one year history for the little brother and sister team. Through the colorful accounts of the people and happenings in Diana's childhood, I find myself making comparisons between the life I remember in the fifties and life today. I absorb the daily insights and epiphanies through the eyes and mind of the child Diana, and find that I also knew all my neighbors, their dispositions toward children and animals, and consequently their situations financially, mentally, morally, physically, and spiritually. Today, with a swoosh of the automatic garage door, we prevent even a glimpse of the neighborhood.  I wonder what we have lost and what we have gained in the interim.  Through it all - the gains and the losses - the memories float on. They keep us moving on.  They help us cross streets.

Rebecca Phillips Payne