A Twig Grows in Springdale
Al Michaud
(Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
2004 PublishAmerica
ISBN: 1413707815

Stories about a boy growing up in one small town during the Great Depression.

Like an ancient family photo album, Al Michaud fills his with remembrances & impressions, written in snapshots & vignettes, some a hundred or so words, others a couple of pages long, penned in a storytelling rhythm, of a time when sliced bread was a novelty, coal was king, homework unknown, & Springdale, a small southern New England town, was the center of his universe.

In Springdale, immigrants “had one overpowering ambition as their first goal of their new life in the United States ... [their] entirely self-imposed task and duty was to earn a Certificate of Proficiency in English as rapidly as possible ... [e]ach local school offered night classes for the eager newcomers ... Free and easily available education appeared as a miracle to be appreciated, valued and used to achieved their goal ... unity ... to be American.” (Page 15)

Often, what Al Michaud remembers is stirred by some modern politically correct thing we take for granted. He wants us to know what it was like in a time when childhood was far from safe, when health & medicine was simpler, & everyone had much more character than our homogenized era.

Even as he tells of Crystal Sets (those pre-radio inventions), the kids in school; Rubber Cement; Fiddler Crabs; Firemen's Carnivals; Money; Snow; Junk Man and Horse; Kelly's Neighborhood Phone; Leaf Burning, & just about everything else from his small town childhood, A Twig Grows in Springdale is a unique patchwork of American memories, unevenly stitched together like a Crazy Quilt, in gentle, unpretentious language.

A Twig Grows in Springdale is a treasure trove of stories, rather like your Grandmother's hope chest. Pull it out, open it up anywhere & travel back to a time when the future is a distant thing & where everyday life is so much more important.

Even though my editor's hat was vibrating all over the place -- a Contents Page would have been good -- settling down at Al Michaud's knees to hear his stories is refreshing.

More from Al Michaud: Mediocrity in Ten Easy Steps
(07/18/04)

Rebecca