In Carrying the Banner, Jean Salter Roetter eloquently shares a bit of her young life, recounting events akin to those many people store only in their memories. There is a little piece of everyone in this well-written and humorously told chronology of one woman's coming of age, encompassing three generations of an eccentric and unusual family bound by threads of exuberance and love. A more lovely reminiscence will be hard to find in the ocean of personal memoirs available today. Though this book will be catalogued as autobiography, it reads as expressive reverie.