Customer Reviews

Memories Are Like Clouds

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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.

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."

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

This wonderfully descriptive and delightful memoir is charming. Hollywood filmmakers take note: This poignant remembrance of the 1950s would be a great movie or TV series!

Diana Dell's Memories Are Like Clouds should be read by everyone who wants to know or remember the gentle life of this small town family before Vietnam. It is a quiet, funny, sad memoir that reminds this baby boomer that life should be for all children the warm and tender journey taken on the three streets in E. Vandergrift, Pa. by Diana and Kenny.

Memories Are Like Clouds is a beautiful, evocative memory of the bucolic and misty 1950s in a small town in Pennsylvania. Diana Dell's love of Kenny, her younger brother, her family and her 'place' screams off the page. I found myself chuckling often and when not chuckling, a twinkle nestled in my eye side-to-side to a stray tear or a chill.
This is a story about a boy, a family, a town, and a time that comes alive in the present and says something meaningful to us.
Memories Are Like Clouds is a celebration of Kenny Dell, an All-American boy, a poignant toast to Kenny, the soldier and hero, and a song to the sacrifices of American soldiers heeding their country's call. We can pray their country exercises their love with wisdom.
Memories, like clouds, stir and churn. This book is a must-read that places history in context to the present. Bob Lupo, author, A Buffalo's Revenge; Extremities-4.

I like this book. It's very appreciation

I loved this book. As I read each page, I was reminded of my own childhood. I had to stop and put the book down while I dreamed and reminesced about my past life. I get emotional talking about it. Both Diana and I were so blessed to have such wonderful childhoods. You only have to look at so many kids today. We were truly blessed. Chris from Malden

Diana Dell has a talent for transporting the mind back in time and place - to the times that us baby boomers still remember with fondness. Her look backwards is also her way of dealing with the loss of her brother - without reminding us of that fact all the time. She has loving respect for her roots - her family and her neighborhood. She has captured those times and people and given us a snap shot of her heart as she grew up. The reader will find that they will get involved in all these people's lives that she introduces in the book. It is a book for both men and women to read. It makes a nice weekend reading journey as I have done this weekend.

I was growing up in the era that the book was written and just about the age of Diana Dell's sister, Barbara. We went to school together, knew the same people, some close, some not. I have lived in East Vandergrift for the past 28 years and this fantastic story has brought back so many memories...once I started reading it I could not put it down till it was finished. One of the best stories I have ever read. I ordered two copies and will probably order some more for family and friends that will love it just as much as I did. One book is going to Saudia Arabia for a family member who also grew up in the story's era. FANTASTIC BOOK !!