The life and times of the Thunderbolt Kid : a memoir / Bill Bryson.

I love books that describe idyllic times in an individual's life. Not only an idyllic description, this book is also a very funny, often laugh out loud account of Bill Bryson's childhood.

Bill Bryson was born in 1951 and he was fortunate to have had a wonderful childhood. He was raised in Des Moines, Iowa with loving parents in a fairly prosperous, stable home. The years during which he grew up were times of plenty in Des Moines and in America in general. He writes in an affectionate way about his parents, and later his grandfather, gently poking fun at his parents' foibles. His father was a sportswriter for The Des Moines register and Bill was able to accompany him on many of his writing assignments, going into clubhouses and dugouts and onto baseball fields before the start of games. His father was very frugal and caused more than a few anxious moments for Bill with his choice of dentist or doctor. Unusually for the time, his mother worked outside of the home - as editor, also for The Des Moines register. She paid very little attention to cooking and generally forgot about any food that she had begun preparing. "As a rule you knew it was time to eat when you could hear potatoes exploding in the oven."

Des Moines gave much richness of experience to Bryson's childhood. He describes innovations that were unique to the town and says, "But then most things in Des Moines in the 1950s were the best of their type." "We had our own department stores, restaurants, clothing stores, supermarkets, drugstores, florists, hardware stores, movie theaters, hamburger joints, you name it - every one of them the best of its kind." As a child, he especially appreciated the "inspired brilliance" of the Kiddie Corral which was in a neighborhood supermarket. "This was a snug enclosure, built in the style of a cowboy corral and filled with comic books, where moms could park their kids while they shopped. You didn't care how long your mom took shopping because you had an infinite supply of comics to occupy you." "No other institution has ever done a more thoughtful thing for children. Whoever dreamed up the Kiddie Corral is unquestionably in heaven now; he should have been awarded a Nobel Prize." His friends, school, grandparents and even tornadoes all take turns in being sources of hilarity, joy and awe.

He also describes many serious major country and world events that occurred during the early years of his life, although very little had direct effect on his life in Des Moines.

In the latter part of the book, Bryson becomes nostalgic as he reflects on how Des Moines has changed over the years with the disappearance of many of the institutions he knew and loved. "Imagine having a city full of things that no other city had. What a wonderful world that would be. What a wonderful world it was. We won't see its like again, I'm afraid."