Uncle Percy's Wonderful Town

Joan McGrath is a Toronto Board of Education library consultant.

A direct descendant of Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, Bruce Hutchison’s cluster of sun-warmed vignettes of life at the turn of the century in Emerald Vale, British Columbia, and of a boy’s affection-filled life with his Uncle Percy and Aunt Minerva, is the kind of story telling sometimes condescendingly described as “heart-warming.”

These are the tales of a worldly-wise man who observes the flaws and follies of his fellow man (and woman) with a kindly and indulgent eye; who is more inclined to sympathy than to censure; and who is eager to celebrate the amazing good-heartedness that makes towns — and people —  neighbourly. Hutchison conjures up a simple time, when people seemed to have more fun and fewer, less complicated worries, whether about politics, the arts, religion, or the state of the world in general. It is uncommon and refreshing in these difficult days to discover a book that leaves the reader feeling better, not worse, than if he had never opened it. This is one of those rare and therapeutic volumes.