Starred Review ALA Booklist (Fri Oct 01 00:00:00 CDT 1999)

Starred Review Gr. 7 up. Set in Saskatchewan in 1965, this marvelous collection of memory stories spans the year its protagonist, Eric Anderson, turns 16. The stories, told in a totally engaging first-person voice, recall such rites of passage as a first date, a championship hockey game, a summer job away from home, and the death of a beloved grandfather. The setting ic's farm home on the prairie and the small towns nearby acutely observed and vividly realized, most notably in Sun Dogs, a harrowing story about a blizzard that catches the boy and his horse unaware. Book is a wonderful stylist who makes Eric's voice both authentic sounding and artful. Here, for example, is how he describes his grandfather: He was tall and thin, straight as a telephone pole. Swallows could build nests under the big bushy eaves of his eyebrows. Although it doesn't shy away from dealing with hard-edged issues ath, racial prejudice, and love's cruel disappointments--this is a life-affirming book that celebrates Eric's feelings for his family, for hockey, and for the land and the river that runs through it. The best thing about this very good book, though, is the large-spirited character of Eric himself: Eric acknowledges his fears and failings, but he is brave in confronting them and brilliantly successful as a human being who grows in his capacity for kindness and for caring rare and memorable combination.

Kirkus Reviews

Work, sports, making out, and breaking up: in seven linked stories set in 1965 a Saskatchewan teenager spins vividly personal takes on universal themes of adolescence, adding no fewer than three brushes with death to make the pleasures and pains of life all the more intense. It's an eventful year for Eric, beginning with a first official date ("The Clodhopper's Halloween Ball"), ending with his beloved grandfather's funeral ("Saying Good-Bye to the Tall Man"); in between he nearly dies in a sudden blizzard ("Sun Dogs"), fishes a suicide out of "The River," plays in a thrilling, hard-fought hockey game, discovers the pleasures of passionate lip-locking in the title story, and becomes conscious of the world outside his own narrow experience during "The Summer I Read Gone With The Wind." Book's observant young narrator tells each tale with laconic, sparkling wit ("Louise smiled and red lipstick filled the porch doorway and painted out the rest of the family"). Readers will come to know—and like—Eric and admire the way he rises to every occasion. (Short stories. 12-14)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

In a starred review of this tale, told in seven self-contained chapters, about growing up in rural Canada during the 1960s, <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">PW said, "Writing with hindsight and keen perception, the author extracts humor and truth—and a few life lessons—from a thoroughly likable adolescent's day-to-day trials." Ages 13-up. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(Oct.)

School Library Journal

Gr 8 Up-Eric Anderson, 16, experiences a series of major events in 1965: his first kiss, his first real girlfriend, a summer job away from home, his hockey team's loss of the championship game, and the death of his grandfather. Forced to evaluate his life several times that year, he gains valuable knowledge about love and family. While soldiers fight in Vietnam and blacks struggle for civil rights in the United States, Lashburg, Canada, becomes the battleground of Eric's adolescence. While vividly sketched, the seven short stories are slow to involve readers. The characters seem realistic but it is hard to get into the spirit of the whole novel. No overall theme is presented and the author's prose, while well written, may give readers pause on how this book might fit into their own rite of passage.-Jana R. Fine, Clearwater Public Library System, FL Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.