Kaleidoscope Memories: Childhood Stories that Celebrate Life

TITLE: Kaleidoscope Memories: Childhood Stories that Celebrate Family Life
AUTHOR: Cindy Oldham, Vicky Ennis, & Jenny Stees

PUBLISHER: Tide Dancer Publications

WEBSITE: www.TideDancer.com
COPYRIGHT: 2009, Kissimmee, Florida
PAGES: 138
PRICE: $14.99 (US)
FORMAT: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-9797079

A delightful journey into the minds and hearts of three authors who write about their home life, filled with love, loyalty, and growing up in a small town. Six siblings and their parents, relatives and friends experience different events from routine days, to elaborate family holidays at the Stees’ family home.

            Cindy writes about her aunt’s patience in teaching her how to play Jacks and how she overcame her fear of a steam pipe by realizing how greater dangers can occur when one tries to avoid a situation that isn’t necessarily dangerous. Vicky remembers the teamwork and competitive spirit, as well as the sheer joy of rolling barrels, and when her oldest brother suffered the initial experience of being stung by a wasp, while Jenny recalls her dilemma in helping her twin sister with her classwork at the risk of being confronted with “the meanest teacher.” These stories are not merely memories of the stories themselves, but of what is learned by children when they interact in a family setting, with their parents, and throughout the neighborhood, and institutions we all have to visit and deal with at one time or another. Family life, in various day to day experiences, endear the readers’ hearts and remind us of our own childhood memories and events that made us who we are in the midst of our own family lives, and how we were taught to understand the larger world in the microcosm of the family unit.

            The book is 7 chapters of remembrances: School Days, Family Pets, Playtime, Eating times, Special moments, Childhood fears, and miscellaneous experiences that make us wiser, kinder, more understanding and appreciative of those with whom we grow up and come to know and love.

            Cindy and Jenny are twins and the youngest of the six. Vicky, older, Gwen oldest of the girls and brothers Gabe and Kel, all take part in these wonderful experiences, through the memories of the three authors.

           This is an excellent book to read in family events, holidays, or just to your children at bedtime. It is also a helpful book to initiate games from the book, set up a family plan of organized space and preferences, and it will surely delight one’s whole attitude about the validity of family and home life, especially what it means to your children while they are growing up. 

L. Nolan-Ruiz, Reviewer

International Books Cafe