Lone Star Book Blog Tour: The Gulag P-Pa Diaries by Preston Lewis (Review)

“We had enjoyed them so much in the present we hadn’t looked to the future. That makes us all the more glad to share these fun times while such things are still magical for them and for us.”

The Gulag P-Pa Diaries by Preston Lewis is definitely a bittersweet memoir about grandparenting. While many grandparents visit with their grandchildren throughout the year, Preston Lewis and his wife, Harriet, have taken this a step further and created Camp Mema/Gulag P-Pa for their grandchildren’s yearly summer visits. Humor abounds as Preston chronicles these vacations, along with the epic pre-visit preparation and post-visit cleanup. These visits are bittersweet for two reasons: Their first grandchild, Benjamin, lived for but a brief moment after birth and attends in spirit only, and each summer with their five surviving grandchildren show they are growing up way too fast.

As someone who did not have much of an opportunity to spend significant time with my grandparents for various reasons, I have continued to be enthralled by all things Camp Mema/Gulag P-Pa long after I finished reading. The love Preston and Harriet have for their grandchildren pours from the pages like honey.

The overall construction of this book is mostly taken from Preston Lewis’s Facebook posts, with each year separated by a bible verse and the detailed, heartbreaking account of losing their first grandchild and the sadness and longing that have never really abated. The subsequent grandchildren (Grands as they call them) include four girls and one boy, and they are incredibly fortunate to have grandparents who cannot wait to shower them with so much love and attention every year. If you have read any of Preston Lewis’s books, you know his legendary humor, which shines as bright as a new penny in this memoir when describing each summer’s antics. Harriet is Mema, and her camp is filled with cooking, sewing, and all sorts of summer fun, whereas Preston is P-Pa, and his gulag is filled with humorous activities for those five little inmates, including suspected escape attempts and complete anarchy. Overall, the memories they are all building are darling and priceless.

One of my favorite parts of this memoir is that during the yearly camp/gulag experience, each child gets to be girl/boy of the day, which includes choosing the theme, flag for the flag pole, movie, bible story, and activity. For gulag P-Pa, the inmate of the day is a bit more restricted, and P-Pa’s strict rules are totally cheeky. Again, Preston’s humor is off the charts, and the love and pure adoration between Mema/P-Pa and the Grands know no bounds.

At about the half-way mark, Preston suddenly takes a flying leap onto a soap box that may throw some readers off, but take heart. That tangent is still funny and flippant and brief enough to not detract from the main theme of the diaries too much.

Don’t be surprised if you find yourself longing to attend Camp Mema/Gulag P-Pa because it sounds like endless fun, including LEGO^® mania, hilarious home movies with scripts/improvisation and props, and decadent cookie pizzas. A special treat for the Grands is that every child celebrates his/her birthday during those visits, with lots of presents and Harriet’s homemade outfits. Children and grandchildren are so precious, and Preston and Harriet are doing it right and having the time of their lives in the process. Their Grands will carry these memories and good times into adulthood and will no doubt share them with their own children and Grands. We can all emulate the Lewis family, even if we do not have children or grandchildren of our own. What is stopping us from building memories and enhancing relationships with everyone we love and are close to in our lives? All it takes is imagination, patience, a sense of humor, unconditional love, and a bottomless bag of chocolate chips.

Enter the giveaway below on or before August 14, 2020, for a signed copy of The Gulag P-Pa Diaries by Preston Lewis.

I received a free copy of this book from Lone Star Book Blog Tours in exchange for my honest review.