Learning Joy from Dogs Without Collars

by Lauralee Summer

Book Overview

Learning Joy from Dogs without Collars is a memoir about growing up homeless. Lauralee Summer and her eccentric, idealistic mother move repeatedly in search of work and a better life, but most often find happiness and security only in their relationship with each other. When she reaches junior high Lauralee and her mother set out for Boston in search of a better education. There Lauralee thrives under the care and guidance of Mr. Mac, becomes the...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743257928
• ISBN13: 9780743257923
• Release Date: July 2004
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 351 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.6" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Immensely moving

Lauralee Summer's memoir moved me beyond words. It is so uplifting to read stories like hers that show the resilience of the human spirit. Despite her very unconventional childhood, Lauralee's mother was very loving and supportive within her capacity to provide for her brilliant daughter.An earlier reviewer mentioned her father. This chapter moved me more than almost any other. If there was ever a person who regretted his earlier behavior and genuinely tried to make it up, then her father would get my vote.Inspiring, moving, beautifully written in the same vein as ANGELA'S ASHES and FINDING FISH

Humanity

A woman and her infant daughter, chronically transient and homeless...the mother (an unsung champion) makes love, tenderness, knowledge and wisdom available to her child in small ways, whenever and however she can; one or two important people at critical moments, and the bright, irrepressible child grows up and goes to Harvard.There is a tender innocence throughout. A protective telling of the author's story. The love between the mother and the child...the anguish felt over their circumstances...never maudlin, always sweet...intimate sadness, a tender grief...an un-self-pitying resolve. I sensed all of these feelings and ideas on almost every page.And, finally, the child becomes a young woman, intelligent, strong and loving.I think of this as more than just another Horatio Alger story.

Homeless finds a home

Seeing is believing, or in this case---reading, as the adage goes that relates to the remarkable story of one such lady who in my opinion beats Frank McCourt's 'Angela's Ashes.' Don't get me wrong about McCourt's memoir of the Irish poor, but Lauralee Summer's oddly titled 'Learning Joy from Dogs Without Collars' has an extraordinary flair all it's own. When Lauralee Summer was at the age to enter college she never knew her life would make the newpapers and make radio airwaves nationwide. The headlines would read "Homeless to Harvard" and she even got interviews with the Boston Globe and other prestigious newspapers. When she was asked to make a network TV appearance, during the interview she was pressed for time, the host gave her only less than a minute to reply to the question: What was it like to be homeless? The short-moment media experience of her life in a nutshell prompted her to write the memoir.Summer's reveals in her memoir of a fatherless, nomadic-type life who lived with her mother who was known very little of being employed, eccentric---but loving and protective of her daughter. Summer and her mom were always on the move to one state or another. Life was far from easy of living in dreary, and even dangerous homeless shelters and delapidated welfare houses. They didn't own a car or a bank account and what little money they had wasn't enough for food or clothing. The sort of schooling Summer had she obtained here and there. And her joy came from learning to read and her love of books when she was a small child. It wasn't until she reached high school when she found the mentors she needed and a love for wrestling where she was accepted on the competitive all-male team! This was the time in life, Summer was able to move into her own acceptance. This would later build her foundation into the priviledged walls of Harvard. It was when Summer won a wrestling scholarship to Harvard, she was in the limelight of the press media of her unique story. Summer had come a long way from poverty and neglect, but everything paid off in the end. For everyone it always does in some way. Summer found her place in the world and made her own home. By constructing her life from the life of the streets and her Harvard education she is a mentor who paints a window of the dark, isolated and discriminating world of women and children in poverty. The house that Summer built was the one of a honest, courageous and compassionate heart who has found joy from dogs without collars.

Not your average Harvard grad

Yep, this girl stood out at Harvard. She stood out on the East Coast. She'd have stood out anywhere, except perhaps for the gritty streets in Oregon and California where she was raised, essentially homeless. Lauralee Summer is protective of her mother in this memoir, and one quickly understands why. Certainly hampered by despair, depression, perhaps mental illness, and the stigma of welfare mom and Bag Lady, Lauralee's intelligent mother nevertheless home schooled her daughter, protected her, stayed with her, and loved her. Somehow Lauralee won a scholarship to Harvard - in wrestling.!?! Graduated now, surviving even the Parents' Weekend when Mom arrived from the shelter, she has written a memoir without self-pity, full of the shame, rage, and heartbreak of her growing up years on the streets and in shelters.It's not a perfect book, but it deserves 5 stars for talent, guts, storytelling, and a great forecast for the future.

Beautiful

Lauralee has a warm soul, a compassionate heart, and a gift with words. I feel truly thankful that she has chosen to share these stories. Once I started reading I could not stop. I kept reading as I walked through the city, oblivious to the traffic dodging and cursing me as I drifted through intersections. I barely looked up from the book hidden under my desk when my boss came by asking if I was working. Emerging back into the present world after reading the last page, I felt like I had a much better understanding of love, family, and home.