Reviews - Permanent Astonishment (Signed Edition): A Memoir

77 reviews for:

Permanent Astonishment (Signed Edition): A Memoir

Tomson Highway

4.15 AVERAGE

romonko's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

Such a joyful celebration of life is this memoir by very well-known Tomson Highway, who is a very important and significant indigenous Canadian author, playwright and musician. This book covers Tomson's life from birth to age 15. I certainly hope he is going to continue this memoir in future books. Tomson was born on December 1, 1951, during a huge blizzard. He was born on the tundra i a blizzard and in a tent. His older sister helps her Mom with his birth. The book describes a hard and brutal life, but nonetheless it is filled with love and laughter. Tomson describes his mother and father so descriptively, that I felt that I knew them. We see Tomson leaving for a residential school at the age of 6, and he goes into great detail about his time there. Contrary to what we are currently hearing, this school was a wonderful place to live, grow up and learn according to Tomson. He loved his time there, and when, at age 15, he had graduated from the school he was sorry to leave it behind. Tomson went on to high school in Winnipeg, and on to various Canadian universities after that. This book is a wondrous look at Cree culture and family life. It's also a piece of beautiful literature in Tomson's descriptions of the northern tundra where he was born and where he lived his nomadic childhood. Listening to this book on audio is what I would recommend since you get the pronunciations of the Cree language, and get an understanding of how difficult it was to teach these children English. English syntax, spelling and pronunciation is nothing like Cree. It was such a pleasure to listen to this book and to Tomson's fabulous memories of his childhood, his family and the school that he attended. Highly recommend.