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My Father's Summers: A Daughter's Memoir

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The memory of our childhood is like a collection of snap shots that capture not only high points but unrelated odds and ends that are preserved for reasons we can not even suspect any more. An autobiography tries to connect all the dots and provide a smooth narrative flow, filling in gaps the way the scientists in "Jurassic Park" spliced in other genes to make a complete strand of DNA. However, the artificiality of such life stories and the way they lose reality but making all the pieces fit is revealed by Kathi Appelt's "My Father's Summers: A Daughter's Memoir." What we have here are a series of prose poems that provide brief glimpses at the bits and pieces of a life more vividly than would a complete autobiography.

"My Father's Summers" are created for Kathi and her two younger sisters when the absence of her father working half a world away in Arabia turns to a smaller but more devastating move across town to a new life with another woman her sons, suddenly stepbrothers for a little girl who cannot understand what has happened to her family but who can appreciate the emotional pain. Against such stark moments as the whispered insinuations that her mother was not a good wife or the constant connections between life in general and what had happened with her father (e.g., the idea that crabs leave one shell to find another), there are touches of wonder, such as the sweet boy with brown hair and deep brown eyes who made sure Appelt had been kissed before her 16th birthday.

There are a couple dozen black & white family photographs scattered throughout the book, some tied specifically to the prose poems and others just showing Appelt, her sisters and her parents (but, somewhat surprisingly, none of Karen, the best friend of which she often writes). While there is a rough chronological structure to the arrangement of the prose poems, the topics go where memory takes and other tenuous connections take them; at one point the photographs of Appelt are going backwards in time. Memories are unstuck in time.

The description on the front flap of "My Father's Summers" describes it as a "memoir of coming-of-age in Houston, Texas" and sometimes it is difficult to think of it in those terms because the title and the revelation that Appelt's father found a variety of ways of being absent from his daughter's life becomes the dominant element of the book. Even when she does not write explicitly about her father and his absences, he is a presence, even when the death that ends the story is not his own. The poignancy of Appelt's work will have a resonance beyond that for the daughters of divorce or those who grew up in Houston or some similar place, because these remembrances combine the bitter disappointments and unforgettable delights that make up the life of any child.

When you look back at your childhood, you remember the great things, the bad things, and even sometimes the unusual things. The book My Father's Summers: A daughters Memoir by Kathi Appelt, is a fascinating arrangement of Kathi's childhood memories. While reading this memoir you know all of Kathi's feelings and emotions when she is going through anything, such as staying with her dad and new mom and brothers. The memories are the good, bad and random things she remembered about her life. All ages would enjoy reading about Kathi's ups and downs in her early days. What I loved about this book is that it made me feel as if I are watching Kathi live her life because of the wonderful format her life as been presented in this book.
Each page is a different day in Kathi's childhood that narrates a different amazing adventure that Kathi takes you on. The adventure started on her 11th birthday when her dad sent her a letter from Arabia saying happy birthday. It ends with a great black and white photo of her young dad hold her as a baby, still loving her, more than ever. "It's clear he is happy to be holding me, hanging on to me. Despite everything, that was always clear." There are remarkable black and white photographs placed through out the book helping the reader recognize what Kathi is explaining and gives a good image of what life was like when the story is taking place.
When you read autobiographies of people who are reflecting on their childhood, they usually cover only happy and sad points in their life. However, in My Father's Summers: A daughters Memoir, Kathi writes about anything that she can pull out of her mind to put on paper. On every page that goes by, a day goes by and more events happen to her. She includes every bit and end of her life. This memoir keeps you on your toes about what event is going to happen next, or what her next birthday will bring. Nothing is boring and everything is so real.

I am eighth grader. This memoir tells you how Kathi Appelt misses her old life when her loving father and mother were together and happy. It goes through many feelings and emotions of a young teenager and how she copes with change. Kathi gains a new family and loses part of her old one. this book also talks about how her dad included her and her sisters with his new family and how difficult it was for them. I recomend this book to any teenager or anyone who is experiencing change in their life.

I teach sixth grade, and my students and I love this book. What a great book to spark writing. There are many vignettes that can be read aloud in isolation or in patterns. Sensory details, concrete language, and a poetic style make this book a winner for many purposes. I often use its passages to get my students writing. Kids like reading it because of the shortness of each vignette. But don't let the shortness fool you--they pack a wallup.