“Exacting, unsentimental, and profoundly humane”– Anne Pierson Wiese, author of Floating City: Poems
Mistaken for a King evokes the life of a small-town boy in the middle of the last century. The book distills the essence of childhood in a series of finely honed and often funny essays, recounting memorable events and adventures that occurred between the ages of five and twelve.
Kids roamed free as sparrows in Marion, Iowa, during the 1940s. Untouched by television, they created their own amusement wherever they found it, in backyards, side streets, alleys, and pastures. Some readers will be transported to their own childhoods; others will be charmed by the recollections of young lives lived so spontaneously. Many will ponder what has been lost.
The book “sings with crisp wit and gentle wisdom” writes poet Anne Pierson Wiese. Author Kellams patrols his old haunts, recalling memorable
