How to Prepare for Your High S

Offers a wry, poignant, funny, and wise look at the middle years of life and explores the struggles, as well as the joys of accepting oneself at this important stage in life's journey

Blooming: A Small-Town Girlhood and Ivy Days drew an affectionate reader response to Toth's reminiscences of her early days in Ames, Iowa, and at Smith College. Here we have her selections from published pieces on the daunting prospect of facing old classmates and other aspects of growing older. With the ability to amuse without malice, she makes one laugh exuberantly at her observations on familiar quirks in human nature. The title piece depicts Toth and nervous companions, intent on making their best impression at a high-school reunion. But she arouses compassion, as well, in other essays, notably "I Wish Words Would Help," about a dying friend. During their anxious years as young mothers, the two had shared reassurances: "This is just a stage; it will be all right." Now such supportive phrases have lost their magic, and Toth bemoans that she can find no substitutes. But she does have exactly the right words to engage readers in her experiences as a wife, parent, sometimes frustrated writer, tyro skier, disenchanted traveler, etc. Among the most memorable entries is Toth's appreciation of the late E. B. White.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Toth's view of middle age has changed from the "big gray parking lot" she feared when young to the "rocky, formidable, though fascinating coast" she sails today. Her essays on everyday matters touch on the changes in perception we all experience as time passes. Some, like the title entry, are quietly hilarious, as if she combined the styles of Bombeck and Thoreau. Others are sweetly poignant, evoking only a quiet sigh of recognition. Each one nudges the reader to draw the inference to one's own life. Nothing stark or dramatic here, but pleasant as an afternoon's conversation with an old friend. Susan B. Hagloch, Tuscarawas Cty. P.L., New Philadelphia, Ohio
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.