Blooming: A Small-Town Girlhood

by Susan Allen Toth

Slumber parties, swimming pools, boyfriends, lakeside summers, family holidays -- Susan Allen Toth has captured it all in this delightful account of growing up in Ames, Iowa, in the 1950s. Charming, wise, funny, poignant, and true, BLOOMING celebrates an innocent and very American way of life.
"Tender and finely textured . . . Mrs. Toth has re-created memories with a journalist's ear and a novelist's touch . . . . she has conveyed more clearly than anyone I've ever read before what it was like to be a girl in the 50s." -- The New York Times Book Review

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Coming Of Age, Book Club, Biography, History

240 pages, Mass Market Paperback

Published May 12, 1985

About the author

Dr. Toth graduated from Smith College and Berkeley and received a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1969. She taught English at San Francisco State College and now teaches at Macalester College in Minnesota. Toth has contributed articles and stories to a wide range of magazines and newspapers. She has written two memoirs—Blooming: A Small Town Girlhood (1981) and Ivy Days: Making My Way Out East (1984). She has also written a series of books on England, including My Love Affair with England (1992), England as You Like It (1995), England for All Seasons (1997), and Victoria, the Heart of England: A Journey of Discovery (1999).

Reviews

[Sarah Coller · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was meant to be relatable.

Reading this memoir was like reading a Judy Blume book in the 5th grade. I felt the same sense of not being able to quire relate to the awkward teen thing. I just wasn't really an awkward teen and definitely wasn't an innocent or inexperienced one. Now that I'm living a much more moral and decent life than I did as a teen, I should be able to say that I wish my teen years would have been more like the idyllic ones she describes. But really, they were great years and I wouldn't be who I am now (and wouldn't be avoiding the stuff I now avoid) without them. Does that character revelation disappoint you? Ha! Well, I guess you can take comfort in the fact that I'll always tell it to you straight---like it or not!

In other ways, I related completely. For instance, in her chapter on being a bookworm she discusses the city library of her youth. "Entering the Ames Public Library I could feel its compelling power immediately." In describing the selection of books she says, "It was like having a box of assorted chocolate, all tempting, with unknown centers. I wanted to bite into each one right away to see what it was like." Recently, my mom and I visited the library in my hometown. So many wonderful memories came rushing back---libraries have always felt like home to me. Even upon the very first visit!

I related well to her stories about her early days in journalism and trying to put together a feature story form an interview subject that was way over her head. Her experiences mirrored my own immature attempts to appear to be a "real newspaperwoman" in my early 20s. Like me, she didn't last long in journalism.

The book is basically a really thorough social commentary on American life in between my mother's and grandmother's eras. Allen Toth had a simple, positive childhood, for the most part and told her story in an engaging way. Were I a good 30 years older than I am, I think this story would have affected me strongly. As it is, I can't say that I enjoyed the book---but I obviously found enough worth in it to read it through.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay, so I did rate this book years ago but I must confess to not actually doing much more than skimming. Whilst awaiting a library request and feeling uninspired by the other unread books in my apartment I picked this up again and gave it a real go. And, loved it!
This is exactly the kind of history I enjoy; ordinary people leading ordinary lives. I'm far less interested in historic events and epic battles and far more interested in the daily lives of previous generations. I know about General George Washington's command during the Revolutionary War but was thrilled when, during a stint as a student teacher in a third grade classroom, we read an entire book about what George Washington ate for breakfast (supposedly johnny cakes and tea) and recreated the event in the classroom. (Complete with the kids dressing up in their best approximations at eighteenth-century attire and dumping numerous sugar cubes in their styrofoam cups of tea. The "johnny cakes were made using Trader Joe's cornbread mix, in case you were wondering.) When I read a memoir I want to know the name of the kindergarten teacher, who was the best friend in fourth-grade, where did the family travel to for their summer vacations, what was the first kiss like, that's the stuff I care about. And, ultimately, it's these details, what some might call minutiae, that make up the bulk of our lives. It is also the stuff that feeds our souls and sticks in our hearts. I'm pretty certain I was meant to be alive during an earlier era and I think the '40's and '50's in small town America is where I would have felt most at home. Hats off to Susan Allen tooth for bringing me into her insular world and allowing me a glimpse into a simpler time.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Slumber parties, swimming pools, boyfriends, lakeside summers, family holidays -- Susan Allen Toth has captured it all in this delightful account of growing up in Ames, Iowa, in the 1950s. Charming, wise, funny, poignant, and true, Blooming celebrates an innocent and very American way of life."
~~back cover

I couldn't have said it better myself. I also grew up in the 1950s, and although my details are a bit different (California rather than Iowa, no big family holidays, no lakeside summers) the book still touched so many memories for me, and certainly described the mind set of middle class America during that time. It was a lovely, gentle time -- now long gone and mostly forgotten. But those of us lucky enough to have lived then will always remember it with a fond glow, and cherished nostalgia. Makes me wish I could find one of Jack Finney's dimes and retreat to the past!

[Ann Hein · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting to me because I, too, grew up in the fifties: not in small town Ames, but in suburban Chicago. Much is the same, but Toth's memory is certainly much better than mine. Actually, she wrote it in her forties, not seventies, so the comparison isn't true. I didn't even THINK as detailed as she writes.

[Cynthia Paschen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this many years ago.

We are both girls from Ames, Iowa. The Ames I grew up in and the Ames that Toth grew up in are similar, and different. Hers was a kinder, gentler time. I wonder if Toth acknowledged her privilege. I am still reckoning with mine, and working to use my whiteness for good.

A quick, comforting read. I enjoyed it much more than "The Girls From Ames."

[Joyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this book over last weekend, it is similar to the second one I am reading . this one tells the story of youth and a young girl growing morphing and coming to terms with growing up and who she is. Loved it.

[Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful memoir.

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A sweet story, made me reminisce about my rural 70s childhood and how innocent it all seemed, yet more worldly than her 50s childhood.

[Em · Rating 3 out of 5]

I kept setting it aside because frankly it was not a page turner. I adore Toth’s prose on England and have been longing to locate and devour her new book on her travels there. The subtitle of this book is ‘A Small Town Girlhood’. Toth spent her youth in Ames, Iowa during the 50’s. She is old enough that she could have been my mother so she was raised in a time far different from my own. I found a few things that felt familiar in her tales, yet also quite a bit unfamiliar too. When she wrote of her connections to girlfriends, I realized that I do not have that connection, to a life-long pal from my youth and I never have and now never will.

[Betty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Susan Allen, born in 1940, is six years older than I and came of age in Ames, Iowa and not California, and yet these recollections felt familiar to me. Perhaps because her memories are strewn over a decade or so, there was enough of an intersection. But also perhaps because in the small town I lived in "nothing much happened" either. She skillfully evokes a time and place, as well as the emotions of being an average girl, neither popular no shunned. But her ability to write puts her far above average. While I enjoyed the book, at the same time I cringed with my own memories of such an awkward time of life.

[Dana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Illustrates beautifully the life of a small town girlhood.The best feature of this book is that even though every autobiography is true, this one actually seem to be true. I admit, to me, some autobiographies always seemed to be fiction or superfluous.Maybe it is the differences, the generation gap etc. Anyways, like I said, this is a good read. Nothing great or inspirational, you simply get to know someone else's life and can relate it to everything common that you've ever heard or seen or experienced.

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Nice coming-of-age memoir, taking place in the 1950s in Ames, Iowa. The author emphasizes her innocent, conventional upbringing in a small town, although her circumstances (widowed mother who was an English professor at Iowa State) were slightly different than most of the other children. The book has themed chapters; some were a little boring for me, but some were very relatable – my favorite was about her love of the public library. Provides a great sense of time and place. The book ends as she travels east to attend Smith College, and she wrote another memoir about that.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I felt like I was friends with the author after finishing this. She comes across as very warmhearted and good-natured. With few traumatic incidents, these stories are occasionally idyllic. But you can see that she knew growing-up was not something one can ignore or avoid. And becoming a woman in Susan's time was like a flower gradually opening: effected by her environment, the love of her family, and the ups and downs of everyday life. Anecdotal, yet thought-provoking.

[Jennie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice and well done. My mom gave me this book a thousand years ago and I finally read it all the way through again. Hard to imagine Iowa in the 50's without having seen the fifties but it does sound like a simpler time.

[Deb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good.

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Growing up in Ames, Iowa in the 1950's.

[Marti]

Passed on to me from Mom.

[Jeiimyxx . · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is an awesome book. I enjoyed reading it - it has the ability to make one feel calm and at the same time on edge! The author's simlpe style of writing makes the book easy to comprehend.

[Ann Adams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favorite Toth book but a book which resonates, none the less, for gals everywhere who grew up in the 50's in a "small town, USA" somewhere.