Growing Up True
Lessons from a Western Boyhood
The world had been ravaged by global war and then in 1946 it was quite suddenly over. Families regrouped to sort things out, to fall in love again, went back to their roots, to firm ground, to stake out something to endure, to hold on to. Ours went to the wheat fields of eastern Colorado, a mile from a three-room school, a horse race from the Big Bend, a world away from radio and music and those things that draw a man to cities where wars come from. Here in cottonwood country three small boys failed miserably trying to teach a race horse to plow but shocked the county with a plow horse that raced. We showed chickens and sheep at County Fair, learned to true up a log barn or a wire fence, to stack hay and ride like the wind.
Stewart Udall, a former Secretary of the Interior, says that in Growing Up True are the lessons and laughter which shaped “the greatest generation.” AVI, a children’s book writer and himself a multiple award winner, calls the book “A rarity a memorable memoir a true love story, the love of family.“
The publisher, Fulcrum, has written this precis: “Written in a frank and refreshing style, Growing Up True evokes the struggles of a boy stretching for manhood. Whether describing the dares of taunting schoolmates, his perfectionist father’s attempts to true a fence by adjusting the posts just a “whisker more,” an elegant aunt on her knees with freezing new-born lambs in the family kitchen, or his own coming to terms with a suicide, Craig Barnes offers readers a hopeful message in which integrity, hard work, kindness, and tolerance remain bedrock. Craig Barnes grew up on the plains of Littleton, Colorado, in the 1940s and 1950s. Over time he has been an essayist, playwright, newspaper columnist, National Public Radio commentator, teacher, trial lawyer, politician, and international negotiator. He divides his time between Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Marble, Colorado.“
“Craig Barnes has crafted a beautiful, evocative book. This vivid reminiscence of family life in the rural West explains better than any general work I have read the beliefs and values and personal strengths that enabled the so-call 'greatest generation' to surmount the challenges presented by the Great Depression and the world's first global war. As a story of family life in America, Growing Up True is a boyhood classic which belongs on the special shelf that holds Russell Baker's book about Growing Up in Baltimore.”
Stewart Udall
Environmentalist and former Secretary of the Interior
Santa Fe, NM
“Here's a rarity: a memorable memoir in which the author transforms ordinary lives into the extraordinary by sensitivity, honesty, and great writing skill. Beyond all else it is a reminder of the beauty and terror that is the daily struggle of youth-innocence desperate to learn the truth. One senses that this book is the result of a promise made by the author to his family to set down what was. Craig Barnes has done so bravely and wonderfully. What is written here is a true love story, the love of family. Bravo!”
AVI
renowned children's book writer
Denver, CO
“Simple yet beautiful. On the surface, Growing Up True is a story about a boy coming of age on the plains of eastern Colorado. A closer study reveals a touching story about values, family, America, and growing up with grace.”