An American Childhood

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	921 Dillard, Annie	4-week checkout	Due 05-10-2024

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

How old should you be to write your memoirs submitted by ccrose on July 12, 2019, 5:18pm Annie Dillard was 40 when she looked back at childhood in the 50’s in Pittsburgh. She had already won a Pulitzer at 20somerhing (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek). And she could see how her way of approaching anything was to figure it out. Her memoir shows a peaceful time in history, a peaceful neighborhood, two parents who happily taught their kids how jokes worked and how wars worked. They gave her a loose leash to tramp around, studying bugs and the ways of people. All of her waking up to herself, no longer an empty child-vessel, started early and she jumped in, learning, setting up a microscope to see amoebae, pushing deeper than most little kids. It’s not a dull tale. She was watching people too, and tangled webs of screwups. You’ll see the driving curiosity that stayed on and on in life and made her a writer.