WEEDS IN BLOOM

Peck defines his fascinating life with vignettes that describe the extraordinary, ordinary persons he’s encountered in boyhood, early manhood and in his later years. And what a crowd these are: In addition to loving reminiscences about relatives and childhood neighbors and chums, he includes, among others, Movement, a Jamaican sugar-cane cutter and dancer extraordinaire; Bronx-born Elliot, a cherished WWII army buddy; and a nameless steam-engine stoker who tossed coal to Peck, a boy desperate for fuel in Depression-era Vermont. However, Peck dissembles: These people were mostly poor and uneducated, but they were hardly ordinary. They were all memorable and rich in character, and that’s the whole point. They touched and enhanced Peck’s life in incalculable ways, and they will do so for readers. There’s nothing ordinary about the author or the wonderful folks he—and we—were privileged to meet. (Nonfiction. 12+)