I find anthologies to be hit-and-miss, as I also find memoirs of childhood. As a youngest child, I was surrounded by adults at all times, and the ones I was around the most--my parents--were middle-aged adults, not interested in children (as a group, I mean; they were always interested in children as people). The world of adults always seemed much freer and more enticingly mysterious to me than what I had access to as a child. I view childhood as more of a time of confusion, lack of knowledge, and a lack of power than I do a time of discovery. So childhood narratives are not inherently interesting to me, unless the child is made to be a particularly interesting character.

This long introduction is meant to say that while this anthology had an interesting array of writers (including Helene Cixous), a good range of stories and experiences (from discovery of social inequality to first-hand experiences of war and environmental disasters), it all blurred together for me. ( )