SUMMARY
Tom was the fifth child of 12. His parents lived in the housing projects of Toledo, Ohio on Bronson Street. One day, when Tom is just a pre-teen, he makes a page in his notebook "animals I want to see" and lists them: lemurs, gorillas, tigers, etc.
Bronson Street is known for crime and hardship. But it's also a mythical street filled with people who share their food, protect each other, offering gifts of beauty and laughter and proving that the bonds of community and friendship.....even across racial and social lines...can bridge divides and transcend what many of us have been taught to believe about one another.
We learn that Tom is an A student and a hard worker. We learn that he is fiercely loyal to his mother and that he is no longer afraid...by age 12....of his father who spends his days drunk on beer, belittling the children and their mother, and reading cowboy novels.
He questions everything and gets most excited about learning new things. He was thrilled when his mother bought a set of encyclopedias in the late 1960s. He would even question the Catholic priest with deep spiritual/theological questions where he, his mother, and siblings attended church. He keeps lists such as places he wants to go to someday, how to succeed in life, etc.
We learn from where he came and to where he was headed.
MY THOUGHTS
This is a beautiful look at a life that could have turned to crime but didn't. Tom went from being a child janitor with very big dreams, to being a student at Yale and Harvard.
This is a powerful look at the theme of friendship, hope, desire, identity, ambition, education.
The story of Tom's childhood is one that is gripping and hopeful. I was enthralled with his story, mainly because I taught for many years in an inner city preK for children with special needs, many of them in families similar to Tom's, although in my students' cases, they usually didn't have a biological father living with them or one they even knew.
This book contained some very powerful quotes:
"Maybe the ability to to block everything out is a trick that most kids born into crowded families come to master----this journey into the imagination that can make almost anything, at least for a brief time, seem to disappear." (pg 81, Animals I Want to See by Tom Seeman, c.2024)
"Maybe love lived in the magic she wove into the tapestry of the ordinary so that we could grow up in the projects rarely noticing that we were poor, and seldom feeling sad." (Tom, about his mother, pg 109)
"Or maybe it has something to do with pride and self-reliance--a need to resist having any need at all. Whatever the reason, those two words were not part of my vocabulary growing up. But if I could go back now, I would thank so many people...........and Mrs Lambert, who gave me my first paying job because she knew I needed it." (pg 143).
'"People in politics are all about control, said Barry. They don't always think about what's best for our country or even for their party. They think about what's best for them, even if it means taking down one of their own." " I vowed to always vote for the person who I thought was best for the country and not best for me." (pg 229)
And this one really resonated with me as it reminded me of how I feel about my childhood hometown in the central part of New York State:
"I saw how it was possible to love a place and hate it at the same time. It's in the space between, I was realizing, that life happens, and it's up to us to choose how to live it." (pg 263)
" Though I worked hard for the success I have, I wonder if the same doors would have opened for me if I'd been Black, like most of the other kids in my neighborhood. It's always been an unfair system, but of all the promises I've made to myself over the years, or all the lists and notebooks I've kept, of all I've been taught in the highest institutions of education, the most important lesson I've learned is that every act of kindness, no matter how small, makes a difference." (pg 277)
Tom grew up on welfare and food stamps but he earned his B.A. from Yale (and was also accepted into Dartmouth and Brown) and he graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. Then he earned his law degree from Harvard. He's lived in five countries and has visited over 100 countries. He currently lives and works in Boston with his wife and 4 children. He also serves on the Board of Directors for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston. I'll save the rest of the "Afterward" for you to enjoy...it literally brought tears to my eyes.
I loved the honesty in this book. I loved Tom's mom and all the lessons she modeled for her 12 children without even realizing it.
I also really liked that the author acknowledges and thanks President Bill Clinton for giving him the encouragement and inspiration to write his story.
In my opinion, this book is appropriate for ages 12 and older. (although there are a few crass words in the book that his friends utter).
On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, I rate this a 10.
2 comments:
Hi Faith. This sounds like such a good book! Thanks for the review.
i didn't want it to end!!
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