Northern Passages

Northern Passages is Jerry Harju's third collection of tales about the trials and mistrials of growing up north in the 1940's, and is just as outrageously funny as his first two books. In "The Kindergarten Chronicles" Harju's scholastic career gets off to a miserable start when he's kept after school on his first day of kindergarten, although his education is greatly expanded when he confronts a urinal for the very first time. Other topics range from the terrors of performing in a piano recital to pulling off a scam during a Lutheran church confirmation. Adding an extra touch, one of the stories describes life in Hot Springs, Arkansas, where Jerry was the only Yankee in the grade school.