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Rating: Five Stars (out of Five)
"My childhood was different from most.” Those are the first words in Berkeley to Beijing, the coming-of-age story of Karen Boutilier Kendall, and, as we learn, they are very true words. Born in 1960 in Berkeley, California, Karen was the oldest child of activist parents. Her minister father worked for the United Farm Workers and a large part of Karen’s early childhood was spent making picket signs and watching her parents organize protests.
When Karen was six her family moved to Washington, DC where her father joined Robert Kennedy’s presidential campaign and bright and precocious Karen participated by passing out leaflets, standing in picket lines and working at the campaign headquarters. When she was ten, Karen became active in a political campaign of her own choosing: the George McGovern’s presidential campaign. It was during this time that she met Shirley MacLaine, who was also supporting McGovern. Karen made a significant impression on MacLaine and in 1973, she was invited to be the youngest member of the First Women’s Friendship Delegation to China. Karen spent several weeks with the movie star and 10 other women touring China and learning about the culture and history of this mysterious country.
There are two distinctive layers to this remarkable story. The first is a simple telling of one woman’s remembrances of childhood. Boutilier Kendall captures the love she felt for her family alongside her childhood traumas with grace and honesty. Though her life was extraordinary, readers will empathize with the loneliness and anxiety that she felt in her youth. The second layer of the book is a firsthand account of the social and political climate of the 1960’s and 1970’s.
Karen Boutilier grew up in the center of the civil rights era, the anti-Vietnam War spectacle and the National Organization for Women’s equal rights push. Her recollections of childhood paint a picture that is clear and vivid and allows the reader to look at important moments in history through the wide-open eyes of a child. For example, she writes of trying to drive home during the riots that followed the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr .: “I screamed and jumped when a man smashed our front window with a bat. Our eyes met and I had to look away. The intensity of his hatred was boring a hole through my eyes. Dad said to just stay calm. No one was there to hurt us. I thought Dad might want to tell that to the man with the bat.”
Anyone with an interest in modern American history will find this book fascinating. The reader will feel as though they have traveled with Ms. Boutilier Kendall from Berkeley to Beijing, and will learn a little bit about the world, and maybe even their own place in it, as a result.
-Catherine Reed-Thureson, Clairon Book Reviews
This is one powerful book. It is the story of a girl's life from birth to her early teens. Karen was born in 1960 to an activist couple who were dedicated to the nascent civil rights and farm workers movements. Her story traces the family's trajectory beginning in the Cesar Chavez United Farm Worker's campaign in the labor camps of central California, into the heat of the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements in the Washington DC area, and peaking in a precedent-setting trip to China with Shirley Maclaine as guests of Chou En Lai. In unsophisticated, simple declarative sentences this author creates the aura of a young girl telling her story in a what-I-did-last-summer style that is absolutely captivating. She effectively communicates the impressions of a child confronted with the suspicion, prejudice, and hatred that was directed at the civil rights movement and those connected with it, and the adherence to their principles of her activist father and his friends who lived the creed of Gandhi even when it hurt. You will cringe at the cruelty of Mrs. Green and Mr. Ladd, and you will gain through the eyes of a child an extraordinary insight into the successive social cataclysms that rocked America in the sixties and seventies. And finally you will see a young girl, endowed with wisdom beyond her years, reconcile her unusual childhood with Middle America.
—George I. Chandler II, Attorney
Karen Kendall’s book stirs the heart. With amazing recall, she tells the story, not just of a young girl’s adventures in the world of activism, but of a loving network of extended family—such an inspiring model of the supportive community we need more than ever in our troubled world.
—Louise Dunlap, workshop leader and author of Undoing the Silence: Six Tools for Social Change Writing/ www.undoingsilence.org.
I urge you to read this book. It is the remarkable, well-written story of a young girl's coming of age in the midst of the turbulent 1960s & 1970s. It is also the untold story of a brave, committed family struggling to stay together while throwing themselves into the heart of Cesar Chavez' farm workers' movement.”
—Rev Chris Hartmire, former Director of the California Migrant Ministry
“Many successful woman leaders have a fascinating story to tell, but few have a story as fascinating and inspiring as Karen's!
You'll be blown away by this incredible book about a young girl growing up while navigating both family and political upheaval; traveling to Mao's China with Shirley MacLaine to explore women’s liberation; and integrating herself into a boy’s physical education class to prove equality required under Title IX was possible.
You'll be amazed as you read about how this young girl stood up and fought for her right to determine her own destiny. It will make you want to stand up and fight for yours too!”
—Susan Davis-Ali, PhD, President, Leadhership1, Inc.,
Author of “How to Become Successful Without Becoming a Man”
...it's a great read and kept me laughing and crying ... now that's a good book.
—Berenice Mora, Concord CA
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