Growing an Inch

by Stanley Gordon West

Book Overview

1949 A story about a boy who made a solemn vow and became a man keeping it.

Saint Paul/Minneapolis - Those unforgettable days after World War II when people turned back to their personal lives with optimism, a time of Fibber McGee and Molly, newsreels, milkmen, boogie-woogie, The Best Years of Our Lives and chrome grilled automobiles.

Against this evocative backdrop, Staley West composes this heartrending song, bittersweet...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0965624714
• ISBN13: 9780965624718
• Release Date: May 2003
• Publisher: Lexington Marshall Publishing, LLC
• Length: 254 Pages
• Weight: 0.32 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.4" x 8.4"
• Age Range: 12 to 17 years
• Grade Range: Grades 7 to 12

Customer Reviews

Great Book!

I thought this was a great book and it was hard to put down. It shows the struggles of a kid who has it rough but yet doesn't feel sorry for himself. It was one of those books that you couldn't put down. There isn't a part in the book where it's boring, There is something exciting going on all the time. Everybody should read this book. It shows you how hard it is growing up in high school at times. Every high schooler should read this book. Through out the story you start to feel for Donny and root for him. Great read!!

excellent book

This book had me wanting more and more as i was reading. It shows the hardships of being the oldest kid with no mother and an alcoholic father. It also doesn't help when he is 4'11! It's very hard for him to try to tell his siblings what to do when they are taller then him. It's very tragic how his mother dies and that he has to live with that all his life but Donny is very mentally strong. I thought this book was great. I know a lot of people who have said they cried at the end of this book. It is well worth your time to read this book.

Growing an inch

This book was a very good book. I usually can't read books because I get bored with them because I can't visualize what's going on in the story. That was not the case with this book. I am from Minnesota and it's easy to relate with the settings and everything that happened in this book. Stanley Gordon West is a good author and should get more recognition for his writings. If you are looking for a book to get ya hooked, read Growing an Inch by Stanley Gordon West. Mrs. Sunde's 2nd hour English Class Rules!!

interesting characters

West offers a direct line to absolute realism in this well told story. It kept me interested throughout the book. His descriptions and dialogue were so precise that I felt like I actually experienced Minneapolis in the 1950s and was simply recalling these already familiar places and people. The characters, flawed and so utterly consistent, offered depth and heart. One book that I read this year that I can actually recommend and read again.

A memorable and tender story

Stanley Gordon West's ability to evoke the life of high school students is unparalleled. Their fears, joys, anguish, delights, and struggles with the serious business of becoming adult are all evident in this memorable novel. Like some of his other novels, this one is set in Saint Paul in the late 1940s, and involves young people at Central High. The hero, a physically small boy with a great heart, struggles to keep his family together at a time when the county welfare people want to place his brothers and sisters in foster homes. There is much more trouble, and the young man meets these crises with courage and ingenuity, even as he wrestles with his own sorrows. I think this may be the most valuable book ever written about growing up, a book that can change the lives of young readers and prepare them for an adult world.