"There was that ancient time of childhood," Thomas Byrnes has said, "when people and events, living rooms and backyards, church sanctuaries and Mrs. Thorne's delicatessen looked much bigger to me than they do now. Could this be the result of a child's misjudgment? Or is what I see now a misjudgment by an adult? Are things really getting smaller? I'm not sure. All I know is that, bigger than reality or not, certain old moments will not go away, but bed down in the memory and make life a little larger than it might otherwise have been." This affectionate memoir of family, teachers, neighbors, and friends, of growing up Catholic in the Chicago of the '30s an '40s, is spirited and tender, funny and warm -- and hard to put down. The author makes you feel the joy of childhood in such pieces as "Grandpa's Garden Goes on Forever," "My Tipperary Confession," and "The Rehabilitation of a Choir Boy."
