From the Publisher
The Boston Globe A gem...This memoir [tells] of a woman's singular determination and impressive achievement.
Reader's Digest Summer tells her story in a quiet, true voice that will make you smile and cry, sometimes both at once.
Chicago Tribune Lauralee Summer writes about her childhood...with no self-pity and only a touch of awe that she not only survived, but thrived.
San Jose Mercury News Without self-pity or pretension, a young girl tells the story of her climb from foster homes, shelters, and dank apartments to the Ivy League.
USA Today
Learning Joy From Dogs Without Collars is Summer's reconstructed diary of a childhood living on the streets and in foster care. Readers who expect a happy ending for our heroine, plucked from poverty to be ensconced in Ivy League riches and success, will find instead an uneven but hopeful path to a more secure and stable life. — Kathy Balog
Publishers Weekly
When Summer entered Harvard in 1994, she stood out: she wore eight earrings, wrestled competitively and had spent much of her life homeless, living with relatives, in foster care and in shelters with her mother. In this affecting but uneven memoir, Summer, now 26, recounts her first 22 years, from being a hungry, helpless child in Oregon and California to graduating from an Ivy League school. It's a comprehensive, chronological account, and it sometimes seems to include every memory of Summer's early life, from seeing her first movie to shoplifting with a friend from her homeless shelter. Conversely, she glosses over some key issues. She doesn't explain why her intelligent, articulate mother, Elizabeth, cannot support herself and Summer. Elizabeth has had hard times and bad luck; she's eccentric and doesn't bow to authority. But except for a cursory mention of her mother's depression, Summer skirts the topic. Similarly, Summer mentions she's a lesbian, but doesn't address her sexuality in this coming-of-age story. Despite these gaps, Summer presents herself as a smart, resourceful optimist who doesn't allow circumstances or self-pity to deter her. She eloquently describes her passion for wrestling and, toward the end of the book, reaches out to her biological father, whom she's never met; the two forge a satisfying relationship. She also shares lively stories about Harvard (though during that time she omits almost any reference to her mother, who lives nearby, in a Boston homeless shelter). Summer's tale is memorable as she writes frankly about poverty, shame and class distinctions. Agents, Rochelle Lurie, Lane Zachary. (June) Forecast: The recent Lifetime movie, Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story, presented an account similar to Summer's, which may help the book get media coverage. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
In this powerful and stylish memoir, Summer recounts her remarkable journey from homeless shelters, temporary housing, and welfare hotels to the halls of Harvard. Raised by a loving if eccentric and endlessly drifting mother, she shares the strength that she acquired from always having to start over and how she learned not to grow attached to unnecessary material things. The story includes her mother's sad decision to place her temporarily in foster care, coming to terms with her deserter father at age 19, and excelling on her high school wrestling team-a feat that won her a Boston Garden Good Sport Scholarship. This led to a feature story in the Boston Globe and instant fame, followed by winning a scholarship to Harvard and still more media attention. Throughout this sophisticated, literary work, readers will admire the author's determination not to dwell on disappointment or live with anger and her realizing how rich her life is compared with those of so many others in similar situations. Summer does the memoir genre proud, both inspiring and informing the reader. Highly recommended for all public libraries and university libraries supporting the helping professions. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 2/15/03.]-Dale Farris, Groves, TX Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
School Library Journal
Adult/High School-Summer, 25, is a Harvard grad who grew up sometimes homeless and often on welfare. Her single mother seems to have been a free spirit with the best of intentions but with a propensity to be tossed about by fate or the consequences of her own failings. Needing a "vacation" from her four children, she dropped them off with her ex-husband with a note saying she'd be back in a week. Upon her return, she was stunned to learn she had lost custody, and that only the youngest child wanted to stay with her. By then, she was pregnant with Summer, by a man whom the author wouldn't meet until she was 19. This is a story of hope, however. Summer's experiences in shelters, of feeling utter panic and anxiety, were counterbalanced by the real love she shared with her mother, by her relationship with an excellent teacher, and by having joined the wrestling team. (She was the only female on her high school and Harvard teams.) Summer informs readers about class diversity; she gives a face and dignity to the homeless person others often shun or ignore. She makes a brief reference to being a lesbian, but does not discuss any effects her sexual orientation had on her maturation. This talented young woman tells her story by moving back and forth across time (and the country) and easily sustains readers' interest.-Carol DeAngelo, Kings Park Library, Burke, VA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Newcomer Summer, a young woman who grew up in shelters and then attended Harvard, movingly evokes the plight of the homeless. A natural writer, Summer begins her story with her 1976 birth in California, where her mother, married to another man, had had a brief affair. Her father paid her mother $4,000 but had no contact with them. Summer recalls how, as they moved from Oregon to California and then finally to Boston, her mother increasingly couldn’t hold a job, and they had to rely on public assistance. She often subsisted on government-issued stale honey and peanut butter while growing up in shelters and public housing. The author is frank about her mother, a gentle, eccentric woman she dearly and loyally loved, though she was often angered by Mom’s inability to take care of her. The numerous moves, inadequate housing conditions, and insufficient food made schooling difficult, and Summer’s grades suffered. Then in her Boston high school she met Mr. Mac, one of those remarkable teachers who change lives. He encouraged her to apply to Harvard. There, knowing firsthand how easy it is for people to become unemployed and homeless, Summer was shocked while attending a freshman meeting to learn that her peers, all educated at elite institutions, thought of diversity only in racial terms. Not one knew any member of the white working class. Though she had difficulties adjusting, she eventually made friends, joined the previously all-male wrestling team, and finally made contact with her father, about whom she writes, "I have learned it is better not to live with anger, not to dwell in disappointment." As well as telling her story with insight and a remarkable generosity of spirit, Summer quietlybut insistently explores the meaning of the word "home," chronicling her efforts to reconcile the intellectual and worldly home she found at Harvard with the one provided by her mother. A rare memoir of hard times that is both forgiving and perceptive. Agents: Rochelle Lurie, Lane Zachary, Todd Shuster/Zachary Shuster Harmsworth
