The first issue of the yellow and teal jacket has a publisher's blurb in four paragraphs on the rear and includes a statement that it is a selection of the book of the month club, but there are no media reviews present.
It contains pages. In , Scribner's released a quarto limited edition with illustrations by N. Each of these slipcased copies were signed by both Rawlings and Wyeth. Review this book for a chance to win.
Show Details Description:. Old Slewfoot, the rattlesnake, and a pack of wolves attack the Baxters or their animals. Penny, Jody, and the Forresters hunt wild life for their livelihood. Death Jody is introduced to death as his initiation into adulthood.
He learns how to face death in incremental stages. The cycle of life and death is closely interwoven in the novel. Likewise, Ory goes looking for new seed after the death of Flag. Not surprisingly the novel traces the cycle of one year. The novel ends with spring following winter as a time of rebirth and renewal.
The Baxters live in the midst of the scrub — an infertile area of low shrubs and stunted trees. Yet the house is situated on a small island of pines within this scrub.
The Baxters have managed to carve a small piece of civilization out of the midst of the wilderness. Ma insists on standards, on the family raising themselves above the level of the backwoods. Life is difficult in the backwoods but they manage to find significance and meaning in it. Many things, he realized, would be terrible alone that were not terrible when he was with Penny. Why, take it for his share and go on. Gordon L. Additional Resources About Pauline Dewan.
I felt I was reading it for the first time. We have here the story of eleven year old Jody, living in Florida not too long after the Civil War. His family consists of Penny Pa and Ory Ma , as well as a few farm animals and three working dogs. Jody feels a great need for a pet: something he can cuddle and play with and call his own. He lives a lonely, hard life, and feels it would be so much more fun if he had something to talk to, a friend who would be with him all the time.
But Ma doesn't believe in feeding extra critters, and the family is so close to barely surviving anyway that the whole idea of a pet is simply not at all practical. But one day a rattlesnake sets in motion the rest of the story, which is that Jody is able to bring home an orphaned fawn and raise him for his very own. We see both the pleasures and the troubles that this brings upon the family, and the final crisis of so many in the lives of the Baxter family sent my younger self into fits of tears every time I read the book.
But isn't it strange how fifty-odd additional years of life changes a person's viewpoints? I did cry in this reading of the book, just not where i expected to. I cried over a person: a person I don't even remember from other readings.
I will now forever wonder if he had been 'condensed', or if it was just the weight of the years that pushed him out of my mind since then. All my younger self could see in the book was the relationship between Jody and his fawn. But this time I saw the severity of life for the family, how hard they worked merely to survive, and how the very existence of the fawn ultimately began to be a danger to them in ways I had never understood years ago.
I suppose I am more practical and realistic these days, maybe even more selfish and hard-hearted. Or maybe, like Jody, I simply grew up a little.
One thing about this book that I remember from years ago and could still marvel at was how the author was able to re-create Florida and the family's lifestyle and make it all so real that I felt that I was right there prowling the scrub land with them; watching for tracks, listening to the noises around us and knowing what they all meant. Penny could read sign like nobody's business and I surely do admire that. I can recognize certain types of paw prints but I can't tell how long ago they passed by or how heavy an animal is or any of the other little details that make the difference between a skilled tracker and an ignoramus.
Every time I read a book featuring a character who is such a woodsman, I always spend a few days wanting to be Daniel Boone. This time is no different. I know that tomorrow when I go out to do a little yard work I will be looking for sign in the back yard. Not that I expect anything as monstrous as Ol' Slewfoot the devil bear of this story, but then again, you never can tell.
The Yearling is a fine coming-of-age novel that I have somehow managed to avoid reading until know. Fortunately, thanks to the fine folks at the On the Southern Literary Trail Goodreads group, I finally had the opportunity to read and discuss it with others who appreciate it.
Uninformed readers such as I will automatically assume that the yearling in question is the fawn prominently displayed on the cover but that is not really correct. It soon becomes apparent that the fawn is but a minor chara The Yearling is a fine coming-of-age novel that I have somehow managed to avoid reading until know. It soon becomes apparent that the fawn is but a minor character in the drama that plays out in the scrub lands of back country Florida. The real yearling is Jody, a young boy growing up in isolation with only his hard-working parents for company.
Despite his father's attempts to shelter Jody from the tribulations of life in the country, Jody finds that growing up is not as fun and easy as he would like. Without revealing too many spoilers, it is a wonderful description of the rocky road to manhood. One final comment: The audiorecording of this novel was magnificently narrated by Tom Stechschulte.
It is a great book to listen to and Tom is the perfect narrator. The Yearling in brought Rawling's the Pulitzer Prize and worldwide recognition as a great talent. I believe it is well written, but some of the dialect I had to reread to understand.
Penny Baxter chose to leave behind the city to live on an isolated island with his family. Along with that, comes the daily struggle of surviving. Penny has the will to keep getting back up once knocked down by all the incidences that take place on The Yearling in brought Rawling's the Pulitzer Prize and worldwide recognition as a great talent.
Penny has the will to keep getting back up once knocked down by all the incidences that take place on his farm. This has to be handled in a strong and calm way, this is what he tries to teach Jody. Jody is not as tuned in as his father is, otherwise he would have realized that one cannot tame a wild animal. He should have seen that nothing good could come of it. The loss of his only friend made his desire even more to have Flag as a pet.
The book is about a year yearling of the adventures of life on the farm and the lessons one has to learn along the way to go from a young boy to being a man. It does make one notice how much our pets are part of our family and a loss is very hard to take. Oct 21, Rob Warner rated it it was amazing. A Civil War-era coming of age novel that's a spiritual cousin to Where the Red Fern Grows, but with a broader story and a deeper dive into life's challenges. Reading this book reminds you how deeply people understood the consequences of choice, as sloth translated brutally into starvation.
Indeed, the need to work for one's supper every day, planning for both the moment and the future, contrasts starkly with our present-day welfare state that, for some, rewards indolence.
One other thing that jum A Civil War-era coming of age novel that's a spiritual cousin to Where the Red Fern Grows, but with a broader story and a deeper dive into life's challenges. One other thing that jumps out from this tale is that the family, though living without TV, smartphones, cars, running water, or any of the other niceties we demand as a baseline for happiness, are just as happy as we are.
They find plenty of joys, despite their hardships, and in the process sober us and our propensity to storm about under-whipped lattes and s. The tasks they faced daily would cave many of us, yet they take them in stride and relish in their accomplishments.
The protagonist, Jody, lets us into his thoughts and the conundrums he must un-puzzle as he becomes a man. The dialect, though distracting at times, helps form the context of the life he leads. His father, Penny, grew up with stern parents and had hardly any childhood, saddled with responsibility at a very young age. This is a source of disagreement between Penny and Ma, who feels that Jody is past the age for greater responsibility.
He is, after all, their only child, and if they are to survive let alone prosper Jody must take on a greater share of the work. When Jody and his father meet disaster while out hunting, they are forced to kill a doe with a new-born fawn.
Once they are back home, Jody prevails upon his father to let him retrieve the fawn, who, Jody argues, is an orphan only because of their actions. Jody dotes on Flag and treats the animal as a brother. The difficult decisions that are required show how everyone has matured and grown over the course of the novel. Both are indulged and left free to roam and both have to endure pain and suffering as a result of growing towards adulthood. This made me think that the title was more a reference to Jody than to the fawn.
What really shines in this novel is the connection to nature. I was reminded of the many times I was in the woods with my father, and the way he taught me and my brothers about plants, animals, hunting, and fishing. I feel sorry for modern urban children who have no such connection in their lives. I particularly loved this passage: The cranes were dancing a cotillion as surely as it was danced at Volusia.
Two stood apart, erect and white, making a strange music that was part cry and part singing. The rhythm was irregular, like the dance. The other birds were in a circle.
In the heart of the circle, several moved counter-clock-wise. The musicians made their music. The dancers raised their wings and lifted their feet, first one and then the other. The birds were reflected in the clear marsh water. Sixteen white shadows reflected the motions. The evening breeze moved across the saw-grass.
It bowed and fluttered. The water rippled. The setting sun lay rosy on the white bodies. Magic birds were dancing in a mystic marsh. The grass swayed with them, and the shallow waters, and the earth fluttered under them. The earth was dancing with the cranes, and the low sun, and the wind and sky.
The edition I got from the library was masterfully illustrated by N. Wyeth father of Andrew Wyeth. What a joy it was to examine these paintings. I looked at them and looked at them over and over as I was reading. And nearly two weeks after finishing the book, I'm still looking at them I was not expecting to enjoy this book as I did. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings simply was not an author I had a remote interest in.
I went to the library and happened to see some books for sale for a dime. I had no idea who Max Perkins was and I did not care for Rawlings. But there is something about a thick hardcover selling for a dime that I find irresistible. So I bought it and eventually read it. I am glad I did, be I was not expecting to enjoy this book as I did.
I am glad I did, because by the time I finished the page tome, I was enamored with both Max Perkins and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings; hence this review of my latest finished read, The Yearling. On the one hand, this book is about the day to day survival of families living off of the land in Central Florida in the s and has a lot in common with Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie books.
They both show the joy and hardship of trying to survive by one's own exertion on an often stubborn and unyielding land. The only difference would be location and time period well, the House Books started in the s; I suppose you could say they overlap.
And while the House books take place over several years, The Yearling happens inside one year. Wilder's family farmed on the plains of the mid west. The Baxter family farmed in woods and near swamps and bayous in the humid heat of Florida. However, many of the animals, bears, wolves, panthers, were the same; although the Baxters also had alligators to hunt. The thick humidity drove them away. We see the Baxter family as they plant, hunt, get sick, endure hurricanes, and plague and we suffer with them.
Reading The Yearling is truly a vicarious experience. Like the Little House series, which are from the viewpoint of a child, Laura, the limited narrator in The Yearling is Jodi, a boy on the edge of puberty.
The overall theme of the book is about Jody leaving childhood and entering into adulthood. The Ingalls family may have had Native Americans to contend with, the Baxters had the Forresters, a wild, lawless, backwoods family that could be good friends or horrible enemies, often depending on how much they had to drink.
While the Little House books had their charm and poignancy and will always be a childhood classic, and also a classic for adults like me, The Yearling also has its place for sheer power in writing. I found the descriptions of animals killing each other, killing the Baxter's cattle and the men killing bears and panthers to be disturbing, not because I think it was wrong, they had to do what they had to, I'm just glad we don't have to do that anymore. And, of course, there is the Yearling.
Jody's father had to kill the mother to treat a Rattle Snake bite. Something about the deer's liver drawing out the poison or so they believed back then. Anyway, that left an orphaned fawn. Jody takes the fawn home and it becomes his dearest friend, which is sad in its own way, because it reveals the isolation and loneliness a child can experience when he has no siblings or neighbors as companions. Jody's mother is no Caroline Ingalls. Caroline had a quiet dignity, self-contained, and almost aristocratic, ladylike bearing.
Ory or Ma Baxter, is as tough as leather. She buried five or six children. Jody is the only one to survive infancy. She's learned that it's hard to survive and all too easy to die.
But she is not without her moments and every now and then her love for her husband, Penny, and Jody peek through. The father, Penny, balances out his wife's pragmatic, no-nonsense, philosophy with compassion and wisdom. While the fawn is mostly peripheral to the story, as the book progresses it creeps closer to the center of the story until he comes crashing down as the climax and centrifugal force that propels Jody into manhood.
It is a painful life lesson and one that few people would want to learn today and I'm glad I can live a life of ease and grocery stores. While some may consider this a boy's novel; I would almost consider it too dark for boys. I would not have read it to my son when he was Jody's age. He cried at the end of "Where the Red Fern Grows.
In conclusion? A fine, powerful novel, superbly written and fully deserving of the Pulitzer Peace Prize that it won in View all 6 comments. Sep 20, Christian Engler rated it it was amazing. In past reviews, people have speculated that if The Yearling were to have been published in today's times, would it still have been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Literature.
For me, I would have to say that that would be a resounding yes. I say so because the novel captures, with vivid simplicity, a bygone American era via the stark usage of the literaty resources available to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings at the time, quite simply, the values, environment and language which surrounded her.
Being th In past reviews, people have speculated that if The Yearling were to have been published in today's times, would it still have been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Literature. Being the excellent and astute writer that she was, she transposed those raw yet natural elements to her characters, specificially the gruff yet loving Baxter clan.
In a time where people are adrift due to the constant onslaught of materialism, celebrity, technology, vanity, money, you name it, the Baxter clan are a refreshing anomaly, for all of the above was not really available to them, and if it was, it was to a very limited degree.
But because of that humbling deprivation, they as a family and individualistically speaking, were interiorily richer in so many different capacities. Their lessons came from the law of the land, the primal yet earthy philosophy of kill or be killed.
But it was also a deep almost religious respect of the land and its animals that could definitely shape the thinking and the ever evolving twists and turns that are in abundance in The Yearling.
Ezra Baxter-Jody's father-to some extent, could be considered as the Atticus Finch of the Florida backwoods, for he respects the codes that govern the wilderness and for the wild animals who occupy it.
And thus, he kills only when necessary; he imbues that code of ethics in Jody who is of a tremendously malleable age, especially by the Forrester family and their sometimes less-than-stellar behavior. The novel is about being a boy, about growing up and about sacrifice, and when Jody, a lone child, adopts a fawn whom he names Flag, the emptiness of being a lone child abates; the fawn, a cherished pet, is a co-experiencer with Jody of the highs and lows of living in the scrub country, and he is there for Jody's various milestones, his inching along toward the tower of manhood.
But sometimes just doing the day-to-day obligations of life is simply not enough. Sometimes one has to go beyond what is expected, and the latter half of the book illustrates that sacrifice entails pain, large or small, for real love sometimes does hurt. The Yearling is pungent, pure, simple, true and very very giving, absolutely worthy of the Pulitzer Prize.
Jan 10, Donna rated it it was amazing Shelves: classic. This is a young adult Pulitzer Prize winner. I loved this book. I know readers seem to have a love hate relationship with this one, but I loved it. I loved the setting, the language, the characters, the life and the way the relationships were depicted. Survival is such a strong theme in this book. It has it's tentacles in everything I like that the characters were put in situations where they had to make the hard choices even when it was the las This is a young adult Pulitzer Prize winner.
I like that the characters were put in situations where they had to make the hard choices even when it was the last thing they would want to do. So 5 stars. Oct 01, Sue K H rated it liked it. This was a nice wholesome story with an emotional ending. It was too slowly paced for my taste but it's a good YA book. Aug 13, Peggy rated it it was amazing Shelves: favorites. I love to lose myself in amazing characters, places and times so captivating and exciting. Jody -n- Flag shall remain in my hear always!!
Oct 18, Mary Slowik rated it it was amazing Recommends it for: everyone. Shelves: classic , borrowed , fiction , nature , coming-of-age , southern. A classic I had never been assigned to read or really had recommended, this novel was suggested to me by a librarian and I read it chapter by chapter over a number of weeks. Taking place on "Baxter's Island" in post-Civil War Florida, this follows the bond formed between a boy, Jody Baxter, and a fawn he rescues from the wild and attempts to domesticate.
I found it surprisingly touching, with some beautiful passages depicting the ineffable link we may feel between ourselves and nature, espec A classic I had never been assigned to read or really had recommended, this novel was suggested to me by a librarian and I read it chapter by chapter over a number of weeks.
I found it surprisingly touching, with some beautiful passages depicting the ineffable link we may feel between ourselves and nature, especially in the opening and concluding chapters. A great deal of the dialect used is impenetrably Southern, but this just proved something of an interesting challenge rather than anything too formidable. However, at times I found myself clueless as to what a character had actually just said.
These rare moments became comic instead of frustrating, such as when Jody's mother scolds his incorrect grammar with flaws in her own speech. It's a classic for a reason. Complete and earthy and challenging, I'd recommend it for She told a story for children that is highly enjoyable for adults. Rawlings told stories about the poor people of her time. They were people whom she understood. They are close to nature, hunters and fishers, living off the land. The dialect is true to the time and place and sometimes hard for this modern day woman from the west to understand.
So, I bought the audiobook and listened while I read and it was such a beautiful and enriching experience. I fell in love with Jody and his family. This book is about a young boy named Jody who lives an isolated life with his family. They live off the land and struggle to survive. Jody's father, Penny, knows the land and its inhabitants well.
He is determined, strong and calm. He teaches Jody how to take care of the family. I like that Penny is determined. No matter what comes his way he continues to remain calm and focused.
He takes the hits and gets up to face it again. Jody is not quite the same, and I liked this too. Because he is a child and shows the scattered, self-centered innocence of childhood.
He is sweet and kind and good-hearted. But he is still a child and Rawlings allowed him to be a child rather than writing him with too many adult traits. Jody finds a fawn which he makes into a pet. Naively he doesn't understand that as the fawn grows into a buck it will be more wild and will cause problems for the farm.
He thinks that if he loves the animal that it will be tame. As an adult reader I knew what Jody didn't, and still I hoped for a different outcome than the one I foresaw. I am a child of the s and yet I never saw the movie or read the book prior to now. I can only imagine my grief over certain events in this book at that time. As it was, I knew what was coming and yet I found myself with tears stinging my eyes at the climax of this story.
The book is sweet and sad. It is also smart, funny, peaceful and joyful. I loved it. What language. It was dense and thick and like poetry. The story, The Yearling, is of a young boy named Jody and his life in the hardscrabble backwoods of northern Florida in the late 's.
Jody and his parents live a solitary life and one where frivolous things don't belong. Yet all Jody wants is something that belongs just to him; a pet. When his father is struck by a rattlesnake in the deep woods, a doe is shot and killed for her healing organs, leaving behind a tiny fawn. This fawn now bec What language. This fawn now becomes Jody's pet. Oh I loved this story. It was the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize and was written for children or young adults.
I would be hard pressed to put this into the hands of a child today, though middle school patient kids who love long and carefully crafted deep stories might be candidates.
The pacing is slower than most of today's novels and the author infuses so many details about hunting and farming that one would think she lived the same lifestyle herself she did not! The dialect was also thick and I found myself having to read some phrases over and over to 'figger' them out in my mind!! I loved the phrase, "don't go gittin' faintified on me!
I still don't know what a ti-ti or a blackjack pine looks like but they sure are fun to say. I looked up words like milch, sorties, feist, crony, brogans, boles, and cooter and they meant nothing like what they mean now!
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