Nonfiction Monday: A seasonal favorite - Truman Capote's "A Christmas Story".

Nonfiction Monday is hosted byAnnamaria at   http://bookstogether.squarespace.com/

Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory is one of the nonfiction readlouds I love presenting to my sixth graders at this time of year.  This beautifully written memoir, remembered  with great delicacy and love, is such a wonderful way to link the spirit of the December holidays with the people who matter most in our lives - our families. 
This is also a memoir that evokes a sense of place beautifully - a long ago southern town, a rambling house and stretches of woods and fields ready to wander through .  Consider this, the opening passage:
"Imagine a morning in late November. A coming of winter morning more than twenty years ago. Consider the kitchen of a spreading old house in a country town. A great black stove is its main feature; but there is also a big round table and a fireplace with two rocking chairs placed in front of it. Just today the fireplace commenced its seasonal roar."  We spend a lot of time savoring descriptions like this - trying to recreate that old kitchen in our own imaginations - trying to envision all its varied details.
Or this, the passage in which Capote introduces us to his beloved cousin Sook:
" The person to whom she is speaking is myself. I am seven; she is sixty-something, We are cousins, very distant ones, and we have lived together—well, as long as I can remember. Other people inhabit the house, relatives; and though they have power over us, and frequently make us cry, we are not, on the whole, too much aware of them. We are each other's best friend. She calls me Buddy, in memory of a boy who was formerly her best friend. The other Buddy died in the 1880's, when she was still a child. She is still a child."

These are among our favorite passages to linger over; they are filled with the small, unspoken and mutually  understood  gestures that people who love each other deeply use to communicate with each other. This finely sketched piece reveals so much about human nature, and about the power of having just one other person in your life for whom explanation is amost entirely unnecessary.  It is a beautiful, timeless book: