Northern Passages : Feisty Tales of "Growing Up North"

by Jerry Harju

Ever wonder what it would be like to sneak onto a ski jump when no one was looking? Ride a fire truck when it's 28 below zero? Repair a coffin in the middle of a funeral? Teach your mother how to drive a stick-shift Model A with bad steering? Jerry Harju tells how it happened in these four hilarious books about the trials of growing up in Michigan's Upper Peninsula in the 1940's.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0932212867
• ISBN13: 9780932212863
• Release Date: January 1995
• Publisher: Avery Color Studios
• Length: 147 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.

Customer Reviews

So funny you'll finish it in a day!

Being a Michigander, there is a certain nastalgia about our Upper Penninsula. That shared nastalgia and love/enjoyment of life comes out it all of these books. You'll laugh so hard that your wife will think you've gone crazy.

hilarious!, yet you can still identify with it

this is only the 3rd book in a series of five and i can already guaruntee that no matter where you'e from, you'll love this book! living near Flint, Michigan most of my life and going to the UP a few times makes it even easier to identify with this book. i've been through the town where the writer grew up(in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan) and its a lot like my hometown. especially in the first story, the Kindergarten Chronicles, i can really agree with the writer. it felt like you were the dumbest kid in class on the first day of kindergarten, but it also felt like you were already tons smarter than everybody else and you were the only sane one there! at one point in the story, when the writer's class' assingnment was to draw a ball and color it, they could only choose from red, yellow or black. the writer uses a turquoise(sophisticated!)crayon that he brought from home and a tinkertoy can to make a perfectly round circle while the teacher isn't looking. since the kid next to him was having trouble, he thought he would help him out and tell him his secret. when he finished explaining, it said,"He gave me a blank stare." AMEN! this same thing happened to me a lot, and still does. another example of feeling like you're the only smart one there. and when their teacher tells them she'll pick the best one and the artist will be the winner. when she "judges", she says "they're all so good i can't decide! so you're all winners!" AMEN! again! i hated this when it happened to me! the writer then writes, "It was clear the school system didn't appreciate independent thinkers." this is how i always felt. then the same kid he tries to help does something that i was much too chicken to do as a little kid for fear of getting into deep trouble (that i shouldn't mention directly because i'd be spoiling it for you) to the fat kid who takes over all the toys, the writer gets blamed for it. so when the teacher keeps him after school, the kid who did it says it was him, not the narrator. after he(the narrator) is let off, the teacher tells him that his ball was actually the best, and she just didn't want to hurt the other kids' feelings. i can identify with this, too. i couldn't stand the suspense. gee,i hope i didn't spoil too much for you, but it was necessary to help get my point across of why i love this book. besides, this was only part of the first story in a book of 9 short stories. again, if you want a grab-it and read a great, quick, funny, book(with modestly clean humor), this is the book for you! do not pass this one up!!

Growing Up In Rural America

Northern Passages is the third book in Jerry Harju's chronicles of growing up in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. It is chock full of adventures of his boyhood. Even if you grew up in the city, when reading this book you can experience growing up in rural America. Northern Passages is filled with humor, nostalgia, and sometimes sadness. Every child's first day of school is a memorable one, but in Jerry's life it was even more than that. Imagine a five-year-old explaining to his mother why he was kept after school. This book also commemorates piano recitals, the annual Fourth of July bonfire, the poignancy of changing schools in the middle of the year, Jerry's introduction to and coping with segregation, the rigors of catechism class, home economics without the girls, and finally his night out with the boys, visiting a wide open Wisconsin border town at the ripe old age of sixteen. From beginning to end, each page of Northern Passages will bring a smile and a chuckle.