Little Heathens by Mildred Armstrong Kalish
Review by McGuffyAnn M. (nightprose)
This book honours a time, place and way of life that unfortunately is lost to most of us today. This book is a joy to read, allowing one to live vicariously the happy childhood that Ms. Kalish so joyously shares.
Family is the central focal point. It is, in fact the importance of family ties that drive the entire book. Each story stresses the bonds that hold family together through the thick and inevitable thin of farm life and the Great Depression.
It was the love and commitment of family that made each experience, each memory so ingrained and important to Mildred, as a child and sustained her throughout her life.
It is both a pleasure and a privilege to read this book. While not an easy life given the hardship of the times, it was a beautiful life. That Ms. Kalish immortalizes this time and life makes it all the more special. The way of life, the innocence and true simple pleasures may be gone. But thanks to Mildred Armstrong Kalish they will remain in hearts and minds. The spirit remains in this beautiful memoir.
I, too, find myself admiring the far simpler life of the past, not only despite the difficulty and hardship of such a life, but in part because of it. There is no doubt that such an existence took a toll on the people who lived it, but at the same time, I also have no doubt that they were TRULY living, in every sense of the word. For as quick as the modern era can be to forget its past, it’s good to see there are memorial remnants preserved in books such as this.