In a Valley Surrounded by Hills: Stories of Growing Up in a Pennsylvania Town

by Don C. Skinner

Book Overview

Skinner grew up in Meadville, Pennsylvania, and tells of his childhood there. The very telling summons back to consciousness not just the places where pasts unfold but the people who inhabit them,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1592990304
• ISBN13: 9781592990306
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Franklin Street Books
• Length: 508 Pages
• Weight: 1.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A beautiful story, beautifully presented...

Don Skinner's new memoir of growing up in northwest Pennsylvania in the 1930s and '40s is is a must-have for folks with a small-town upbringing, those with a passing interest in community life of half a century ago, or anyone looking for a lovely, comforting, satisfying book. This chronicle is often laugh-out-loud funny, sometimes throat-catchingly poignant, and always vividly and expertly presented. The most striking aspect this book is Skinner's incredible imagery: whether he is describing an unanticipated trip down Main Street attached by his snowsuit to the bumper of a Model T Ford, or an impoverished African-American man plucking lumps of coal from the floodwaters of a creek, or a squabble with his sister and brothers to claim the cream at the top of the morning milk-bottle, the reader is instantly and charmingly transported into young Don's world.While the greater part of the book describes a gentle community and a child's life in a loving, close-knit family, Skinner doesn't shy away from tackling more troubling issues, both personal and societal: his father's untimely death when Skinner was only seven; the failure of the local educational system to recognize and address his learning disability; the years of World War II, when an unbearable number of the town's sons and daughters left and never returned; the tacit subculture of racism; the simmering anti-Catholic bias of some of the community's Protestants. This is by no means a view through rose-colored spectacles, but Skinner treats his subject with wisdom, sagacity, and affection. A very enjoyable read.