Sunday, September 07, 2008

Portable Childhoods: "A Taste of Summer"

Here's another story which is about childhood, but is not a children's story. "A Taste of Summer" takes young Mattie Rodgers is on vacation with her parents and while her father is working on a boat, she takes a walk to a town store to get a popsicle. She isn't to cross the road, but of course, a girl by herself will. When a storm breaks she hides out in the store across the road and meets the owner's sister who shows Mattie a bit of magic in creating flavors of ice cream.

It's a cute story. I like how Klages described how certain flavors taste and feel, what they evoke and why someone would try to capture it in a flavor.

Compared to some of the longer stories in Portable Childhoods,"A Taste of Summer" is not nearly as strong, but it is overall a solid story entirely fitting with the theme and feel of the collection.

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