Set in Hespeler Ontario, Becky Alexander’s memoir beautifully captures the spirit of small town Canada. For those of us who grew up in the sixties and seventies, we see ourselves and our families in the tales. Children played outdoors for hours, the local neighbourhood their only boundaries, racing home to beat the “streetlights on” curfew. Neighbours knew neighbours by name and community history, celebrating the good times together, and banding together in times of need.

 

More Tales from an Old Hespeler Girl is a window to a past where extended families gathered in real-time, food came from your garden, some of your best friends were your cousins, you played with nickel and dime store paper dolls and paper airplanes (not computer games), and face-to-face conversations were the norm (not text messages).  

 

A superb storyteller and poet, Becky Alexander pulls us into her growing-up world, and it is a delightful place to be. Her family and community become our family and community. In the reading, we are all “Hespelerites.” We are right there with her.

 

It is a magical memoir.

 

         Marianne Paul, author of Tending Memory and Above and Below the Waterline, www.mariannepaul.com