A Kaleidoscope For June

. my parents don't like other people's children. Actually, I don't think they like their own children much. My mom once said if she could live her life over again, she wouldn't have children. Well June, if I could live my life over again, I wouldn't have parents. With these words Willy tugs at the heartstrings of young and old alike. A Kaleidoscope for June is the fictitious journal of baby boomer Willy Velthuizen's coming of age in rural Ontario Canada in the late 1950's. Willy writes about her struggles against the strictures of an authoritarian upbringing with pathos, humor and insight. She is influenced by her education in a one room country schoolhouse, her passion for reading as well as her love of nature and augments this coming of age narrative with songs, poems and recipes of the times. Reading A Kaleidoscope/or June will bring back the late 1950's vividly to readers who lived at that time and bring it to life for those who did not.