| View Larger Image | Strawberry Lane: A Mystical Memoir of Boyhood in Rural South Texas | Paperbackby Edwin Scroggins (Author)
| List Price: | $18.99 | | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| | Binding: | Paperback | | Publisher: | BookSurge Publishing | | Page Count: | 296 Pages | | Publication Date: | October 02, 2007 | | Sales Rank: | 2,109,481nd |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
In a unique style that combines poetic prose, pathos, and humor, this entrancing mosaic of childhood memories lyrically details the songs and sorrows, the triumphs and travails, of a boy and his identical twin brother living through the 30s and 40s on a rural homestead in South Texas. With the constant support of their loving mother, the boys struggle amid primitive living conditions to meet farm-related responsibilities and educational objectives imposed upon them by their caring but stern, disciplinarian father. The author recounts his dearest and most anguished memories as a series of events, experiences, and observations that tell the story of his life from birth to leaving home at the age of nineteen. Vicariously return to your own delightful childhood years--those long-ago days when life was safe and sacred, slow and serene, and virtually free from drugs, depravity, and demonized crime. Find yourself saying, "Yes! That is exactly what I thought and how I felt when I was a child!" |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 5.0 based on 2 reviews)
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Poignant and inspiring by J. Chambers (Georgia, United States)  5 Stars
November 07, 2009
I bought "Strawberry Lane" after reading Edwin Scroggins' posts on the Amazon community forums. It's a marvelously entertaining book about the author's childhood in rural Texas in the 1930s. Although I was born in the 1940s and lived in suburban Atlanta, I was surprised at how similar my life was to Mr. Scroggins' life in many ways; however, it was the differences in our lives that fascinated me the most.
The young Edwin, his twin brother Eugene, their younger sister Peggy, and their parents lived, by today's standards, a very hard life. During much of the author's childhood, his family lived in a tiny house with no insulation, no electricity, and no plumbing. They made do with what little they had, and eventually they had electricity, which made a huge difference with electric lights and an electric pump to bring water from an outside well.
I enjoyed reading about Edwin and Eugene's adventures as they explored the wide-open land around them. The little town of Pasadena, Texas was there for shopping and the occasional movie, but mostly they made their own fun and games. As they grew older, they spent more time on chores around the house, since their father, who worked for an oil company, raised chickens for meat and eggs, and raised vegetables in their garden. What the Scroggins family didn't consume was sold door-to-door by the boys and their mother. Like all boys (myself included), they teased their younger sister mercilessly. During the story, the family is hit by a fire, a major flood, an unprecedented hard freeze (which actually had one beneficial result!), and a hurricane which destroyed everything but their house itself. The author continues his story in a sequel, "Return to Strawberry Lane," which I'm looking forward to reading.
Mr. Scroggins writes simply and to the point with no wasted words. He vividly describes his family's life during the depression years of the 1930s, but he does it in a matter-of-fact way without complaining about the difficulties, treating them as challenges to be overcome through hard work, ingenuity, and his faith in God. He writes poignantly of his relationships with his siblings and his parents, which will strike a note with many readers.
The bottom line: This is one of the better memoirs that I've read, and I recommend "Strawberry Lane" to all readers.
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wonderful piece of Americana by David C. Neisler 5 Stars
April 04, 2008
Edwin Scroggins recent book,STRAWBERRY LANE: A MYSTICAL MEMOIR OF BOYHOOD IN RURAL SOUTH
TEXAS is a heart-warming look at an America that no longer exists.The author offers a series of humorous,yet
often poignant glimpses of growing-up in south Texas during the 1930's.Accompanied at all times by his
beloved twin brother,Scroggins navigates the daunting challenges of childhood during the Great
Depression with a likeable mixture of naivete and determination.Although the family totters on the edge
of poverty,the two young brothers delight in a world of simple pleasures that might seem alien to today's
youth:exploring the fields near their home,listening to the radio,and the grand adventure of occasional trips
to their grandparents.Scroggins is especially effective in describing the hardships he and his brother faced
at school where the twins struggle to fit-in with their older classmates.
Being an identical twin myself I particulary enjoyed this book but all readers who wonder what it was like
to grow-up during the Great Depression will value this literary work.
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