Funny - But Unfocused and Dashed Off - Rated 
At this point, I've read most (but not quite all) of Bryson's narrative works, and this is probably his weakest. In interviews, he's admitted that writing his previous book, (A Short History of Nearly Everything) was rather taxing, and he was looking for something relatively easy to tackle after that. The result is that this meandering childhood memoir/ode to the halcyon days of 1950s America feels rather loose and dashed off in comparison to his other books. There's still good writing, good humor (albeit a bit more forced than usual), and good anecdotes, but instead of a solid framework or narrative arc, he relies on a lot of cut-and-paste cultural history to serve as the binding glue.
Bryson grew up in a comfortably prosperous family in Des Moines, Iowa, and clearly enjoys this extended trip down memory lane. Whether or not the reader has as much fun probably depends on their approach to the book. For one thing, you have to realize that Bryson depends a great deal on exaggeration and comedic license to amp up the humor in his recollections -- to the point where it's not clear what really happened and what is just a good yarn. Also, since this is Bryson as a kid, a lot of the humor derives from rather juvenile sources.
Another thing to realize is that Bryson's 1950's middle-American childhood is pretty unremarkable and uneventful (something he readily admits in the foreword). We are treated to well-worn touchstones such as the arrival of the first TV on the block, the promise and threat of the atomic age, the banning of comic books, the lure of the movie theater, the rise of teenagers, etc. The problem is that many, if not most, American readers will have heard most of this stuff before. Another problem is that the chronology is somewhat confused. For example, he goes into detail on how his beloved comic books were sanitized by industry's adoption of the self-censoring Comic Book Code, but that actually happened in 1954, when Bryson was 2 years old! Indeed, most of the hijinks he relates take place in the 1960s, but one would be hard pressed to realize this with all the 1950s background material.
Don't get me wrong, there are a number of memorable anecdotes that will bring chuckles and outright laughs to the reader. My own favorites included the match wars he and his friends would wage in a dark basement, and a rather spectacular beer heist. But the whole enterprise feels rather phoned-in and more like a flaccid first draft than a finished book. Nostalgia seekers and Bryson fans will probably find it worth checking out (especially for the appearances of his traveling pal Stephen Katz), but others will find it somewhat pointless.
Magical 'autobiography' - Rated 
Don't believe anyone who says this book isn't up to the usual high standards. Although an unusual travel book - through time rather than space - it is perhaps Bryson's consistently funniest book of all. And don't believe Bryson either when he tells us: 'Everything recorded here is true and really happened.' Events and characters are monstrously distorted for comic effect. Not that we care - far better to have an 'autobiography' that's fantastically entertaining than one that's merely true, after all.
The book delivers the usual quota of one-liners. Of his mother's cooking: 'You knew it was time to eat when you could hear potatoes exploding in the oven.' His grandfather's barn, with its splinters and nail-studded beams, becomes 'a whole-body work-out for your immune system.'
While elsewhere, we find highly inventive language. The Ashworth swimming pool, for instance, boasted the slimmest, 'tannest'(!) female life-guards, while a passing tornado was 'like a killer-apostrophe'. Equally inventive are the names Bryson tells us he's changed to protect identities. In reality, I suspect the changes are made to reveal another facet of his comic talent. The family physician is given the wonderful name of Dr Alzheimer and the spinsterish teachers at infant school, Miss Grumpy and Miss Lesbos.
The book is also part social history, recording the attractions of living in a nuclear age when whole families would, literally, view nuclear detonations in the Nevada desert as a spectator sport. It recalls the splendour and excitement of an age in which Americans owned 80% of the world's electrical goods while being wealthier than the other 95%of people on the planet put together. The beginnings of the obesity epidemic lie here. But all in all, this is simultaneously a charitable, Rabelaisian and nostalgic view of events in that 'ancient lost world of the mid-twentieth century.'
I want thunder vision! - Rated 
This is my second Bryson book, after a short history of nearly everything, and is making me kean to buy his other books. As with that excellent book, thunderbolt kid is funny, informative, and makes you think or re-read sections in supprise at how much things have changed in the last half century - like nuclear toilet seats, and kids being guilted into buying war-stamps to aid the fight against the reds.
Warm, funny and informative - Rated
In case you think this is an autobiography of Bill Bryson's childhood, I would say it isn't really and given what he has produced thats a good thing. What we have here is a warm, funny and immensely engaging commentary on life in small town America during BB's childhood period.
Never having visited any of the places in the book I felt I knew them quite intimately by the end of the book. The death of small community economies of primarily family businesses at the hands of corporate development is central to the story of the US BB grew up in.
BB has written a number of excellent books and I think this is probably the best and most readable.
Laugh out loud and amaze yourself that this was only 50 years ago - Rated
Full of facts and information about life in the US during the 1950s and beyond presented in a very humerous way, allowing the reader to visualise the world surrounding Bill Bryson as he was growing up, while appreciating the absurdity of the culture and beliefs at the time.
This was a book which made me laugh out loud many times and chuckle to myself a lot. It is the sort of book that you have to read out bits of to those around you when you are reading it (usually to their annoyance!)
I have already read a few Bill Bryson books and will continue to look them out.
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