Childhood Memories

What are your earliest childhood memories? Were you afraid of the dark? Can you remember a particularly embarrassing moment? Those memories - along with the words and emotions you use to describe them - hold the key to understanding the person you are today! Drawing on examples from his own life, the lives of celebrities, as well as case studies from his private practice, renowned psychologist Dr. Kevin Leman helps you apply these same techniques to uncover why you are the way you are.

The man who should have been there to help protect me, love me, and teach me about life did the opposite. I was told to keep quiet and not tell anyone our secret. A secret that filled me with fear and shame. I was sexually abused from ages five to twelve.

A book that instantly captured the hearts of readers across the country, An American Childhood is Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard’s poignant, vivid memoir of growing up in Pittsburgh in the 1950s.

Some nightmares are memories. And some memories stay with your every waking moment. Every time Ella thinks about the past, it feels like a dream she's not sure she ever woke from. When she was a child, it was always the two of them: Ella and Michael, Michael and Ella. Twins. Soulmates. Two halves of a single whole. Best friends against the world. Until the day Michael vanished without a trace. Twelve years later, Ella begins dreaming again—of what might have happened back then. Of the black beach with its waves crashing over diamonds of ice. Of Michael’s voice calling from somewhere ...

In the vein of Running with Scissors, Playground is the glitzy, glamorous, and surreal true story of a young girl who grew up inside the Playboy Mansion and never learned where the party stopped and the real world began. You are six years old. Every day after school your father takes you to a sprawling castle filled with exotic animals, bowls of candy, and half-naked women catering to your every need. You have your own room. You have new friends. You have an uncle Hef who's always there for you.

In 1965, Frank Wilcox and his friends enter Acorn Primary School in Acorn, Georgia—about forty miles north of Atlanta. Over the next eight years, Frank and his close friends grow up together through the school and their nearby hometown. Fun-loving Charlie Keller, thoughtful Lester Freemont, kind Pete Yancey, and loyal Wendell Mann all play important roles in Frank’s world as he comes of age. While written as fiction, Frank’s childhood adventures are closely based on the childhood memories of author Scott Douglas Vaughan. In Frank’s new love of writing, readers can see the seeds ...

In a near future where adulthood has lost its magic, a revolutionary program offers a tempting escape: relive your childhood in perfect simulation. Memories are smoothed, fears erased, and every birthday, hug, and summer afternoon can be experienced again—with the promise of staying as long as you like. For most, it’s harmless nostalgia. But when Jonah, a burned-out office worker, signs up for Childhood 2.0, he finds himself sinking deeper into the illusion. Each return trip erases more of his present self, until he no longer remembers which life is real. When Jonah tries to leave, the ...

First, I Believe You is an astonishing memoir of resilience and recovery from severe childhood trauma she had no memory of. Terrifying flashbacks haunted her for decades despite an affluent, advantaged childhood, resulting in severe depression, food addiction, anxiety, and nightmares.

Who am I? Who were these people who made me who I am? And, what was this place? Was it ever what I thought it was? For celebrated journalist and author Julie Salamon, these recently became central questions. Salamon spent the first 18 years of her life Seaman, Ohio, a town that is part of the American heartland, a repository of mythology and misunderstanding.

A Most Anticipated Book of the Year: Time, The Washington Post, and Literary Hub A novel tracing a father’s disappearance across time, nations, and memory, from the author of Trust Exercise. One night, Louisa and her father take a walk on the beach. He’s carrying a flashlight. He cannot swim...

In this memoir of his childhood, Harvey recreated the daily struggles of life in postwar rural Ireland and bomb-shattreed London. Ireland, just 30 years removed from 700 years of British domination, had scarcely emerged from the 19th century. London, shrouded in fog and greasy coal soot, was the epicenter of an exhausted debtor nation, still clinging to an image of British exceptionalism as a young Queen Elizabeth took the throne and the empire circled the drain.

From Nylon Frocks and Cotton Socks to Carrier Bags and Nutty Slack, Cabbage and Semolina is a kaleidoscope of recollections and family stories drawn from a happy childhood in 1950s Britain.

Ray Bradbury’s moving recollection of a vanished golden era remains one of his most enchanting novels. Dandelion Wine stands out in the Bradbury literary canon as the author’s most deeply personal work, a semi-autobiographical recollection of a magical small-town summer in 1928...

When you talk to Addie Johnson (Reinert is her maiden name) it isn’t long before you encounter her startling outspokenness. Some would call her opinionated, but her strong convictions stem from personal experiences that few of us can imagine. She will be quick to point out, however, that her experiences are no different than countless other children who grew up during wartime.“Maybe they never talked about it or wrote about it, but many will recognize the things I have written here.”Born in 1934, Addie was only four years old when Hitler declared war and her childhood and life were ...

"I learned about conflict from my parents." So begins Christina McKenna's haunting memoir of her lonely early life. Recounting scenes from her childhood in Ulster, she paints a memorable and poignant picture of violence and oppression with her uncaring father and protective mother, whose retaliation to her husband's penny-pinching came in the form of a secret yellow dress. Her formative years and her foray into the world, which begin with the daily trudge to and from school, are peopled by a troupe of bizarre and unforgettable characters dancing in and out of her life, filling her with awe ...

Bill Bryson was born in the middle of the American century, 1951, in the middle of the United States, Des Moines, Iowa, in the middle of the largest generation in American history, the baby boomers. As one of the best and funniest writers alive, his is perfectly positioned to mine his memories of a totally all-American childhood for 24-carat memoir gold. Like millions of his generational peers, Bill Bryson grew up with a rich fantasy life as a superhero.

Reuben Bare Weaver and his wife, Annie Martin (Shirk) Weaver, were part of the Old Order Mennonite faith in Lancaster County, PA. Their children – Ben, Esther, Enos, and Mary – grew up speaking Pennsylvania Dutch; riding in horse-drawn buggies and wagons; working on farms with hand tools, no electricity, and old-fashioned equipment; and adhering to a non-worldly lifestyle as one of the “plain people.” Join Enos and his sisters as they share some of their memories of growing up on a Pennsylvania farm during the 1950s and 1960s.

A true story that pulls at your heartstrings and stays with you as it leaves its mark!This powerful and touching story provides a picture of family life when a parent is in the military. It's a true story that gives children comfort in realizing they are not alone as they struggle with their emotions. Hopefully, the story will guide parents and children to talk openly about difficult situations. Every military family will feel a connection, and smile at the discovery that with discussion comes healing. It is all about the love that brings us together. Carolyn Watkins' books build confidence...

Burton's Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days (1909) consist of four parts. In the first, ‘Recollections of a Happy Life, Burton recalls her childhood on a plantation in Alabama and her marriage to Samuel Burton. In the second, 'Reminiscences,’ she reflects on emancipation while the third, ‘Vision’ is an account of her conversion. The fourth consists of an essay on Abraham Lincoln, an essay on the ‘race question,’ various poems, and hymns.

From authors featured on NPR, BBC, and the New York Times, and from emerging poets, comes a monumental anthology in which every poem sends shivers down your spine. Childhood’s joy and trauma expressed - with stunning talent and sincerity - by over 150 poets in more than 280 poems. Childhood spaces magnified by the human memory, populated by good and bad, by trips to hell and heaven, in an almost Hieronymus Bosch type of atmosphere. Over 150 voices call you to read this book. Read it. You will learn that childhood never goes away. You will be reminded of the beauty of the seraphim and the ...