Seasons in Manana tells the story of Alan Cook’s childhood years in Hawaii during the early 1970s. It mixes memories of baseball, schoolyard lessons, friendships, and family life with the shadow of darker cultural forces at the time, including counterculture unrest and the infamous Patty Hearst kidnapping. Baseball runs through the book like a backbone, but so does the tension of being a young outsider learning how to belong in a place that’s both paradise and something more complicated. What begins as a nostalgic recount of sandlot games and Little League gradually unfolds into a narrative with loss, trauma, and the bittersweet pull of memory.

Reading it, I felt a lot of warmth for the way Cook captures childhood. The thrill of hitting a ball over the fence, the pride of finding your place on a team, the confusion of first crushes and cultural clashes. The writing is simple and straightforward, yet it carries weight. At times, I laughed out loud, especially at the awkward moments with teachers, neighborhood kids, and those backyard fields of dreams that turn into battlefields. Other times, I found myself sitting with the heaviness of tragedy, the way innocence bumps up against a world that isn’t always kind. The book doesn’t try to polish everything. That makes it more real, and it pulled me in deeper than I expected.

What I also appreciated is the honesty in how Cook admits his own shortcomings and misconceptions as a kid. It’s not just sports fiction, though the baseball parts are excellent; it’s also a reflection on identity, on being the “haole” outsider, and on the cultural shifts of the 70s. The mix of humor, nostalgia, and darker threads keeps the story from ever being flat. Sometimes the pacing wanders, but even then, I didn’t mind. It felt like sitting with someone who tells stories the way they come, with tangents and side notes that only add to the charm.

I’d recommend Seasons in Manana to anyone who loves baseball stories, but also to readers who enjoy coming-of-age tales set against vivid backdrops. It’s great for people who grew up in military families, or who know the strange feeling of belonging everywhere and nowhere. If you like fictional memoirs that balance nostalgia with honesty, this book is worth your time.

Pages: 257