A wider world

Bronx Primitive: Portraits in a Childhood was chosen as one of the twelve best books of the year by The New York Times in 1982. Now we have Kate Simon's honest, moving, and beautifully written sequel, A Wider World, about growing up in the Depression-ridden but vital New York of the 1930s. With a spirited sense of self-preservation and without a trace of sentimentality, the author explores the wondrous flowering and momentary terrors of her adolescence. In that bittersweet time, the boys never had enough money to take out the girls and the girls often had crushes on each other and their…