THE HOUSE I GREW UP IN

You don't need a photograph to see it. You need the right sentence.

The telephone was attached to the wall. The good chair belonged to one person. You came home when the streetlights came on.

THE HOUSE I GREW UP IN is a large print memory book that walks you back through an ordinary American childhood, one room and one season at a time. 101 short pieces, one to a page, written in warm plain English - and under every single one, a question and two blank lines for your own answer, in your own handwriting.

There are no photographs in this book, and that is the point. A photograph shows you somebody else's kitchen. Words let you see your own.

WHAT'S INSIDE

- 101 remembered things, one per page, in generous large type with plenty of room to breathe

- Seven parts: the front room and the kitchen; upstairs and downstairs; the yard and the street; school days; Saturdays, Sundays and the long summer; nickels and chores; sounds, smells and small ceremonies

- A question at the bottom of every page, with lines to write on - this is a book that gets written in, not just read

- Ten closing pages for the memories that belong only to you

- A "Pass It On" page to name the person who gets this book after you

WHO IT'S FOR

- A mother or father in their seventies, eighties or nineties who says "you should have seen it back then" and is never asked to keep going

- Anyone shopping for a milestone birthday, Mother's Day, Father's Day or Christmas gift that isn't another candle

- Grandchildren who want a way to start the conversation instead of hoping one happens

- Anyone who finds most nostalgia books too small to read comfortably

WHY THIS ONE IS DIFFERENT

Most nostalgia gift books are picture books. They look beautiful on the sample page and then arrive printed grey and flat, and the reader flips through in four minutes and puts them on a shelf. This book has nothing to go wrong in the printing, because it is all words and all large type. It takes weeks, not minutes, and by the end it is partly written by the person who received it.

No dates to argue with. No statistics. No claims about what everybody did. Just the things that were true on most streets, in most houses, written so that you can say "not at our house - ours was different" and then tell somebody how.

Give it, then sit down beside them and ask them to read one page out loud. That's the whole idea, and it's the only part a book can't do for you.