A Boy's Summer: Fathers and Sons Together

by Gerry Spence, Tom Spense (Illustrator)

Gerry Spence, father to six, grandfather to ten, is a man who knows intimately the joys of fatherhood and who writes beautifully and lyrically about how fatherhood allows a man to rediscover the boy within himself, while simultaneously assuming true adult responsibility for the first time. This is a man who truly understands boys and how boys grow up to become men.

No school teaches us how to become successful human beings; there are no classes to teach boys how to become decent adult men. Boys grow up by imitating their father-if, that is, the father spends enough time with his son.

A Boy's Summer is a book of short essays describing activities, adventures and experiments that fathers and sons can do together. These projects take from an hour to an afternoon to a weekend-time that a father and son can spend together discovering themselves and the world around them

Illustrated with forty-five line drawings by Tom Spence, A Boy's Summer is written so it can be read by father to son or by son to father. "This book is for boys who, with their fathers, will share those precious moments that create the stuff of a lifetime from which successful sons, and because of it, successful fathers, are made."

204 pages, Hardcover

First published May 25, 2000

About the author

Gerry Spence is a trial lawyer in the United States. In 2008, he announced he would retire, at age 79, at the end of the Geoffrey Fieger trial in Detroit, MI. Spence did not lose a criminal case in the over 50 years he practiced law. He started his career as a prosecutor and later became a successful defense attorney for the insurance industry. Years later, Spence said he "saw the light" and became committed to representing people, instead of corporations, insurance companies, banks, or "big business."

Reviews

[Douglas Lord · Rating 2 out of 5]

Addressing boys aged eight to 14, Spence Give Me Liberty: Freeing Ourselves in the Twenty-First Century offers blueprints for outdoor activities that fathers and sons can do together. Making stilts, gardening, fishing, and kite making are among the suggested projects, most of which take place in the vicinity of creeks, woods, plains, and ponds. Through these projects, boys will have a good time, grow close to their fathers, and become more responsible through these skill- and character-building exercises. This work, however, has a limited readership because of its target audience. Since most of the activities demand rural surroundings, it is minimally applicable to suburban and urban kids, and it is largely useless to boys without fathers. Spence's intimate style and emphasis on strengthening relationships recall The Old Man and the Boy. Libraries interested only in a nature-oriented activity book, however, might consider Science Is...: A Source Book of Fascinating Facts, Projects and Activities. For rural public libraries or where interest warrants.

Find reviews of books for men at Books for Dudes, Books for Dudes, the online reader's advisory column for men from Library Journal. Copyright Library Journal.