An American childhood

An American childhood

An American Childhood, by Annie Dillard, is a happy memoir of Annie's own life, a child of a well-to-do Pittsburgh family.

Dillard remembers much of her childhood and doesn't hesitate to tell us bit of it. Author Flannery O'Conner once said, "any novelist who could survive her childhood had enough to write about for a lifetime." This was most certainly the case for Dillard. As Dillard grows, so does the history of the town. Beginning with its origins in the forest primeval - so dense, people said, that a squirrel could run the length of Pennsylvania without ever touching ground -- she leads us through its evolution: frontier fortification of the 18th century, industrial giant of Carnegie, Frick and Mellon, and "clean city" of the 1950s, dominated from the beginning by Scotch-Irish and Germans, political conservatives, and staunch Presbyterians, all driven by that "powerful Calvinist mix of piety and acquisitiveness." . Dillard comes from this elite. And until in adolescence Pittsburgh proved to be golden cage, it offered her childhood demiparadise, a perfect place to grow up.

A person's childhood is something that cannot be forgotten. From grandparents telling their grandchildren about when they

were their age, to criminals pleading that their childhood caused them to become evil, our first years are our most important. Annie Dillard certainly remembered her childhood.

It is clear that what Dillard tells us about her life is true. It is easy to classify Dillard as an avid reader as she

constantly mentions all her books. An American Childhood is extremely interesting and entertaining. Having taken place in modern times, Dillard was born in 1945 and the story begins when she is five, it is something we can all follow and appreciate as Dillard climbs her way through childhood.

We, the readers, watch as Annie emerges from a typical five year old to the crazy, intelligent, independent young woman she becomes. Each year is a footstep with new adventures and new philosophies of the world around her. It is hard not to laugh as Annie does such crazy acts as quitting church at age 16 and writing her minister a fierce letter. An American Childhood is not a book for a person without an imagination. As a reader you must be willing to interpret what Dillard says and fit into your own life and your own childhood. We can all relate to her feelings and frustrations, and like Holden Caulfield in Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, Annie Dillard lets the reader know how she feels about everything and everyone, no matter how that may be. An American Childhood is a great book that is guaranteed to entertain even the pickiest of readers. It is amazing how through her writing and her own memories, Annie Dillard can bring back so many childhood memories of our own.

My personal experience

After reading some heartfelt material listing reasons to convert to Christianity, I began to play with the idea of listing reasons to convert to ...