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Retta Caldwell #2
First a Dream
When Retta moves with her family to California, she is delighted when her boyfriend Dallas gets a summer job there to be near her, but she soon discovers that true love has other obstacles to surmount
10 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1990
41 people want to read
About the author
Maureen Daly
33 books55 followersMaureen Daly, a writer whose first novel, “Seventeenth Summer,” anticipated the young-adult genre by decades when it appeared in 1942 and has endured as a classic coming-of-age story, died on Monday, Sep 25, 2006 in Palm Desert, Calif. She was 85.
The cause was non-Hodgkins lymphoma, her sister, Sheila Daly White, said.
Written when Ms. Daly was a teenager and published while she was still in college, “Seventeenth Summer” told the story of Angie and Jack, two teenagers who fall in love during one enchanted summer in a Wisconsin lakeside town. Written in a straightforward, unpretentious style, the book is full of innocent pastimes — boating on the lake, Cokes at the corner drugstore — mingled with more grown-up pleasures like beer and cigarettes.
Reviewing the novel in The New York Times Book Review, Edith H. Walton wrote:
“By a kind of miracle, and perhaps because she is so close to an experience not easy to recapture, Miss Daly has made an utterly enchanting book out of this very fragile little story — one which rings true and sweet and fresh and sound.”
Published originally by Dodd, Mead & Company and most recently in 2002 by Simon & Schuster, “Seventeenth Summer” has sold more than a million copies worldwide, according to the reference book Authors and Artists for Young Adults.
Though fiction about adolescents was nothing new in the 1940’s — among its eminent practitioners had been Mark Twain, Booth Tarkington and Louisa May Alcott — the concept of novels specifically earmarked for adolescents would not exist until the late 1960’s, ushered in by writers like Paul Zindel and S. E. Hinton.
Yet a quarter-century earlier, “Seventeenth Summer” anticipated many of these authors’ concerns, as Teri Lesesne, a professor of library science at Sam Houston State University and a specialist in young-adult literature, explained in a telephone interview yesterday.
“For ’42, this is a pretty avant-garde young woman: she smokes, she drinks, she dates,” Ms. Lesesne said. “She thinks about more than a chaste kiss at the end of a date.”
Maureen Patricia Daly was born on March 15, 1921, in Castlecaulfield, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. She came to the United States with her family as a young child.
When Ms. Daly was 15, her short story “Fifteen” was published in Scholastic magazine. The next year she wrote another story, fittingly titled “Sixteen,” that was included in the O. Henry collection of 1938, which gathered together the best short stories of the previous year. Then, working in the basement of her parents’ home in Fond du Lac, Wis., she began “Seventeenth Summer.”
After earning undergraduate degrees in English and Latin from Rosary College in River Forest., Ill., Ms. Daly worked as a reporter and book critic for The Chicago Tribune. She was later on the staff of Ladies’ Home Journal and The Saturday Evening Post.
Among her many other books are the young-adult novels “Acts of Love” (1986) and “First a Dream” (1990), both published by Scholastic, and “Mention My Name in Mombasa: The Unscheduled Adventures of an American Family Abroad” (Dodd, Mead, 1958), a travel memoir written with her husband, William P. McGivern, a well-known crime novelist.
Ms. Daly’s husband died in 1982; her daughter, Megan McGivern Shaw, died in 1983 at the age of 35. Besides her sister, Ms. White, of Manhattan, she is survived by a son, Patrick McGivern, of Palm Desert, and two grandchildren.
In an interview quoted in the reference book Major Authors and Illustrators for Children and Young Adults, Ms. Daly recalled the special urgency — akin to grasping quicksilver — that gave rise to “Seventeenth Summer.”
“I was so wildly and vividly happy about love and life at a particular time in my existence,” she said. “I wanted to get all that fleeting excitement down on paper before it passed, or I forg
The cause was non-Hodgkins lymphoma, her sister, Sheila Daly White, said.
Written when Ms. Daly was a teenager and published while she was still in college, “Seventeenth Summer” told the story of Angie and Jack, two teenagers who fall in love during one enchanted summer in a Wisconsin lakeside town. Written in a straightforward, unpretentious style, the book is full of innocent pastimes — boating on the lake, Cokes at the corner drugstore — mingled with more grown-up pleasures like beer and cigarettes.
Reviewing the novel in The New York Times Book Review, Edith H. Walton wrote:
“By a kind of miracle, and perhaps because she is so close to an experience not easy to recapture, Miss Daly has made an utterly enchanting book out of this very fragile little story — one which rings true and sweet and fresh and sound.”
Published originally by Dodd, Mead & Company and most recently in 2002 by Simon & Schuster, “Seventeenth Summer” has sold more than a million copies worldwide, according to the reference book Authors and Artists for Young Adults.
Though fiction about adolescents was nothing new in the 1940’s — among its eminent practitioners had been Mark Twain, Booth Tarkington and Louisa May Alcott — the concept of novels specifically earmarked for adolescents would not exist until the late 1960’s, ushered in by writers like Paul Zindel and S. E. Hinton.
Yet a quarter-century earlier, “Seventeenth Summer” anticipated many of these authors’ concerns, as Teri Lesesne, a professor of library science at Sam Houston State University and a specialist in young-adult literature, explained in a telephone interview yesterday.
“For ’42, this is a pretty avant-garde young woman: she smokes, she drinks, she dates,” Ms. Lesesne said. “She thinks about more than a chaste kiss at the end of a date.”
Maureen Patricia Daly was born on March 15, 1921, in Castlecaulfield, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. She came to the United States with her family as a young child.
When Ms. Daly was 15, her short story “Fifteen” was published in Scholastic magazine. The next year she wrote another story, fittingly titled “Sixteen,” that was included in the O. Henry collection of 1938, which gathered together the best short stories of the previous year. Then, working in the basement of her parents’ home in Fond du Lac, Wis., she began “Seventeenth Summer.”
After earning undergraduate degrees in English and Latin from Rosary College in River Forest., Ill., Ms. Daly worked as a reporter and book critic for The Chicago Tribune. She was later on the staff of Ladies’ Home Journal and The Saturday Evening Post.
Among her many other books are the young-adult novels “Acts of Love” (1986) and “First a Dream” (1990), both published by Scholastic, and “Mention My Name in Mombasa: The Unscheduled Adventures of an American Family Abroad” (Dodd, Mead, 1958), a travel memoir written with her husband, William P. McGivern, a well-known crime novelist.
Ms. Daly’s husband died in 1982; her daughter, Megan McGivern Shaw, died in 1983 at the age of 35. Besides her sister, Ms. White, of Manhattan, she is survived by a son, Patrick McGivern, of Palm Desert, and two grandchildren.
In an interview quoted in the reference book Major Authors and Illustrators for Children and Young Adults, Ms. Daly recalled the special urgency — akin to grasping quicksilver — that gave rise to “Seventeenth Summer.”
“I was so wildly and vividly happy about love and life at a particular time in my existence,” she said. “I wanted to get all that fleeting excitement down on paper before it passed, or I forg
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 2, 2023
I just had to read this because I love Acts of Love so much. Maureen Daly’s writing is just beautiful and Acts of Love is far more romantic and accessible to contemporary readers than Seventeenth Summer.
First a Dream doesn’t have a clear direction, but Daly’s skill in bringing every day experiences to life so evocatively is still evident. This somehow makes them seem more, makes you see more in simple things. She’s at her best writing about simple, real things and making them sound magical.
Because of this, the contrived happy ending doesn’t fit. I would have expected an ending where Retta and Dallas have a magical moment in the desert and say goodbye, planning to be together in one year, when Retta goes to college. While the thought of going back is tainted by the knowledge her old home is gone, she can comfort herself with the thought that Aunt Blue’s home and acres are still there, being cared for by the Ambersons. You’re welcome to tack on my ending if you read this (I borrowed from the Internet Archive). It’s actually pretty okay before the final chapters. Just not as much drama as the first book has.
First a Dream doesn’t have a clear direction, but Daly’s skill in bringing every day experiences to life so evocatively is still evident. This somehow makes them seem more, makes you see more in simple things. She’s at her best writing about simple, real things and making them sound magical.
Because of this, the contrived happy ending doesn’t fit. I would have expected an ending where Retta and Dallas have a magical moment in the desert and say goodbye, planning to be together in one year, when Retta goes to college. While the thought of going back is tainted by the knowledge her old home is gone, she can comfort herself with the thought that Aunt Blue’s home and acres are still there, being cared for by the Ambersons. You’re welcome to tack on my ending if you read this (I borrowed from the Internet Archive). It’s actually pretty okay before the final chapters. Just not as much drama as the first book has.
June 29, 2009
After Retha's family moves to California she is thrilled when her boyfriend, Dallas, get a summer job nearby, but their true love is faced with many obstacles. Grades 7+
June 30, 2016
Acts of Love wasn't bad. I actually enjoyed it for what it was. This isn't near as good. Neither Rhetta nor Dallas is especially likeable here. Especially Dallas.
August 12, 2016
Wondering why I still own this book. Read it as a teen, and don't remember being impressed then, or when I read it again later. And yet here it is...
March 18, 2024
The only reason I picked up this book was because it was donated to my little free library. After glancing through it I saw the author at the time of printing lived in Palm Desert California. I live but an hour and a half drive from Palm Desert, so I was curious about references to the area. I live in a town called 29 Palms, the authors main character lives in a town called 39 Palms. I thought this was quite tacky. Actual cities referenced are Palm Springs and Indio. Twentynine Palms became Thirty-nine Palms, Banning became Dancing and Morongo Indians became Norongo.
The characters personalities were not consistent and the story was a bit boring, for some of reason I just couldn't do reading it, hoping for something good to come.
my ratings:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: Loved it. Couldn't put it down. I will probably read it again and it has a place in my library.
⭐⭐⭐⭐: Enjoyed it. Good characters, great story. if nonfiction, great information, interesting topic.
⭐⭐⭐: Liked it. Glad I read it, but won't read again.
⭐⭐: okay, I won't read it again, it will not be kept for my library.
⭐: I didn't like it, don't recommend it.
The characters personalities were not consistent and the story was a bit boring, for some of reason I just couldn't do reading it, hoping for something good to come.
my ratings:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: Loved it. Couldn't put it down. I will probably read it again and it has a place in my library.
⭐⭐⭐⭐: Enjoyed it. Good characters, great story. if nonfiction, great information, interesting topic.
⭐⭐⭐: Liked it. Glad I read it, but won't read again.
⭐⭐: okay, I won't read it again, it will not be kept for my library.
⭐: I didn't like it, don't recommend it.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews