James Agee: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, A Death in the Family, Shorter Fiction (Library of America)

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An American Classic

Rich Reading Experience

An Overlooked-Writer

Let Us Now Reexamine Famous Men

James Agee: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, A Death in the Family, Shorter Fiction (Library of America)
James Agee
Manufacturer: Library of America
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1931082812

Book Description

A passionate literary innovator, eloquent in language and uncompromising in his social observation and his pursuit of emotional truth, James Agee (1909- 1955) excelled as novelist, critic, journalist, and screenwriter. In his brief, often turbulent life, he left enduring evidence of his unwavering intensity, observant eye, and sometimes savage wit.

This volume collects his fiction along with his extraordinary experiment in what might be called prophetic journalism, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941), a collaboration with photographer Walker Evans that began as an assignment from Fortune magazine to report on the lives of Alabama sharecroppers, and that expanded into a vast and unique mix of reporting, poetic meditation, and anguished self-revelation that Agee described as "an effort in human actuality." A 64-page photo insert reproduces Evans's now iconic photographs from the expanded 1960 edition.

A Death in the Family, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that he worked on for over a decade and that was published posthumously in 1957, re-creates in stunningly evocative prose Agee's childhood in Knoxville, Tennessee, and the upheaval his family experienced after his father's death in a car accident when Agee was six years old. A whole world, with its sensory vividness and social constraints, comes to life in this child's-eye view of a few catastrophic days. It is presented here for the first time in a text with corrections based on Agee's manuscripts at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center.

This volume also includes The Morning Watch (1951), an autobiographical novella that reflects Agee's deep involvement with religious questions, and three short stories including the remarkable allegory "A Mother's Tale."

Customer Reviews:

An American Classic.......2006-03-27

This recently reissued collecton of Agee's work includes the brilliant, touching photos of Walker Evans with James Agee, photos made during the Depression Era of the 'thirties. Agee's writings are true Americana, his prose flows and the reader is made a part of the families about which he writes. This compilation belongs in the library of anyone concerned with human feelings in times of hurtin', hunger, and need. If you lived through the time,as I did, you will know it again through Agee's superb reflections on it.

Rich Reading Experience.......2006-02-03

Lately, I find myself returning to literature written before I was born (1956). When I saw the review of LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN in THE NEW YORKER, I became instantly convinced that I should purchase it. I'd known Agee's work since I was 13, when I first read DEATH IN THE FAMILY. I belonged to the Scholastic Book Club and every month my mother gave me change out of her the bottom of her purse so I could buy the books I had faithfully marked on my order form. I was haunted by this book as a teen, and I remain haunted still. I will always believe that few American writers ever achieved anything comparable to the beginning of DEATH IN THE FAMILY, a short italicized introduction which begins: "We are talking now of summer evenings in Knoxville, Tennessee in the time that I lived there so successfully disguised to myself as a child." Agee's sensory details throughout DEATH amaze. Another stunning passage reads: "Supper was at six and was over by half past. There was still daylight, shining softly and with a tarnish, like the lining of a shell;" I could go on, because every page of this book is a treasure. But I would like to turn my attention to LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN, which I had never read until now.

I will preface my remarks by saying that I am a writer currently very interested in the distinction between fiction and non-fiction writing. Agee addresses this issue by saying: "In a novel, a house or person has his meaning, his existence, entirely through the writer. Here, a house or a person has only the most limited of his meaning through me: his true meaning is much huger." It's perhaps this interest of mine in the craft of writing itself that has made FAMOUS MEN so fascinating to me.

Another thing: In the beginning pages, Agee writes with absolute humility towards his own writing and his subject matter. This was stunning to me, because I've also read Agee's movie reviews, and in those writings Agee is witty, merciless, honest, and very confident in his own opinion. In short, they are some of the best movie reviews I have ever read. However, FAMOUS MEN is another kind of writing altogether. As Agee admits, his efforts to capture his subject matter through words were a failure. Words are inefficient, inadequate in matters so huge. He wrote: "If I could do it, I'd do no writing at all here. It would be photographs; the rest would be fragments of cloth, bits of cotton, lumps of earth, records of speech, pieces of wood and iron, phials of odors, plates of food and of excrement."

That FAMOUS MEN is not more popular does not surprise me, nor was Agee surprised, I think, when the book got bad reviews and suffered poor sales. FAMOUS MEN, I think, is not the sort of book that would ever gain wide acceptance. It is a flawed masterpiece that takes a lot of work to absorb, but well worth the effort.

I don't know the extent to which Agee may have been devastated, nonetheless, at the way America turned its back on his masterpiece. I do know that Agee seemed to suggest in the early pages of FAMOUS MEN that the worst thing that can happen to any artist is mass acceptance. Perhaps mass acceptance is something the writer both wants and fears; I don't know. But Agee does say in FAMOUS MEN that he felt that as soon as, say, Beethoven's music is used as a form of relaxation or as a background to the mundane activities human beings inevitably become so wrapped up in, then the music has lost its vitality. That is why Agee suggests:

"Get a radio or a phonograph capable of the most extreme loudness possible, and sit down to listen to a performance of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony or of Schubert's C-Major Symphony. But I don't mean just sit down and listen. I mean this: Turn it on as loud as you can get it. Then get down onto floor and jam your ear as close into the loudspeaker as you can get it and stay there, breathing as lightly as possible, and not moving, and neither eating nor smoking nor drinking. Concentrate everything you can into your hearing and into your body. You won't hear it nicely. If it hurts you, be glad of it."

The same might be said for FAMOUS MEN. You can't read it as you would some other books, even DEATH IN THE FAMILY, which has a nice and clean chronological structure. You have to really pay attention when you read FAMOUS MEN. If you concentrate, you will hear FAMOUS MEN in your whole body. And if it hurts you, you will be glad.

An Overlooked-Writer.......2005-09-26

Let me be clear... I've not read the present volume though I've read the individual books collected in it years ago. "A Death in the Family" remains vivid in my memory, depite almost 30 years since I last read it, and "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" is an absolute classic.

Though I have not yet received the LOA edition, I was compelled to add a review if only to counter the first reviewer here who is intent on seeing only ideology rather than the writing. If the work is looked at without the rose-colored glasses of (conservative) political correctness, you'll find there is an amazing writer and thinker behind the words.

Just read the works for yourself, not through an ideological smokescreen.

Let Us Now Reexamine Famous Men.......2005-09-23

Agee was an outrageous bleeding-heart, a man whose life and work were compromised by posturing, mawkishness and complacency in anguish. The gush of his prose--the hemorrhaging of that bleeding heart--is deeply, plangently, cloyingly purple. His endless rhapsodies betray a stubborn adolescence that will delight those who see an artist as a perpetual kid and repel those who don't.

Immense suffusions of tenderness are not the most helpful or respectful way of responding to fellow human beings, and they signal an obsession with one's own feelings instead of their ostensible object. In this regard, one notes that Agee's tenderness did not prevent him from engaging in serial adulteries and enforced threesomes, devoting his life to personal fulfillment rather than self-denying altruism, and indulging himself to death by the age of 45. Of course Agee felt guilty about all this (his writing fairly reeks of a rotting conscience), but he saw his guilt as a reassuring index of purity, like the parishioner who sees confession and absolution as a license to go on sinning.

Moreover, Agee's tenderness was reserved for the disadvantaged. The obverse of this solicitude was an affected brutality of reference to just about everyone else (except family and friends, his favorite artists and his latest lover). This tough-talking pose, which has not worn well, assumed a moral superiority that the record does not bear out.

Art and morality are not the same thing, but Agee thought they were, and this confusion permeates his work. Again and again he makes moral claims upon us which he thinks that his aesthetic project will validate. It does nothing of the kind: it merely aestheticizes.

Agee did possess extraordinary powers of lyric observation, and a sharp mind when he wanted to use it; but aching sensitivity, metastasizing into ecstatic intoxication, tended to distort his vision, soften his rigor and sentimentalize his voice. He has his devoted followers, or rather his cultists, but one doubts that his place in the canon is as secure or exalted as they might wish, or as this Library of America volume would suggest.

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An Engaging Read
For the writing and insights, it deserves the Newbery Award.
Moving and Haunting, a lyrical journey into pain and hope.
Slow to start, but brilliant.
A vivid, well-told tale

The Muffin Child
Steve Menick
Manufacturer: Philomel
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Ages 9-12 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0399233032

Customer Reviews:

An Engaging Read.......1999-07-22

THE MUFFIN CHILD is a beautifully written book about loss andlove. Tanya, the protagonist, will steal your heart quietly andcompletely. It is the kind of story that catches up on you as you find yourself turning page after page. And when you get to the end, you'll find yourself reaching for a tissue...and wishing for more. THE MUFFIN CHILD would make a wonderful gift.

For the writing and insights, it deserves the Newbery Award........1999-04-08

The Muffin Child is a novel of unusual beauty and power. On nearly every page, I found a phrase, a sentence, a paragraph that I read aloud to myself -- "It was one of those days that promises no sun, and then just before sundown the sun finds a crack in the clouds and glances over the countryside. The orange light caught the insects floating over the grass." Yes, exactly!

The story of loss denied was real to me. Tanya denies loss, plans for the return of her parents: "She was basking in the heat when the thought came to her to warm up the oven and make muffins for her parents. They would be hungry when they came. They would welcome a plate of hot muffins waiting for them. They would all have muffins and tea -- Tanya, her parents, and the man driving the cart."

But then there is the painful scene in the village when the cruel words and violence of the villagers brings the truth to her mind:

"They were dead. They had drowned. She'd heard the villagers say it. No one had ever come out and said it before. Now it was true.

"She knew it was true because, in a way, she'd known it amost from the beginning, as a kind of cold frightening thought in the back of her mind. In the back of her mind was a place like the well on the farm, when you leaned over its stone rim and looked down and couldn't see anything, but you felt the chill breathing up at you. Tanya had felt the chill ever since the night the river roared over the bridge."

"Now it was true." The cruel words of the villagers made it true.

Milenka, the cow, worried me at first. A cow that provides affection like a pet could easily have been very sentimental. But it didn't turn out that way. Menick carefully kept avoided that trap:

"Then she thought of Milenka. She should milk Milenka. Tanya went out and crossed the barnyard. The dawn was turning purple, with the silver of the moon like a golden weather vane on the top of the barn.

"It was warm inside the barn and it had that smell Tanya loved, the smell of cow and hay. The chickens rusted in their coop, and the geese in their pens lifted their heads and looked. Tanya heard something up in the hayloft -- the barn owl, home after a night's work.

"'Good morning, Milenka,' Tanya said, and as Milenka turned her head, Tanya felt the cow's wet breath on her arms. She reached down and pulled, and Malenka's milk squirted into the pail and smelled sweet."

A warm relationship, but, still, Milenka is a cow to be milked. And the milk makes possible those muffins.

Historical novels are not my favorite kind of reading. Some strike me as mostly "historical" and, therefore, removed from the immediacy of the lives of living human beings. Others seem to me to be modern sensationalism set uncomfortably in another time. Not The Muffin Child. The author brilliantly creates a world that is clearly very old and very distant; but he also creates a young girl who is so alive that she lives both now and then and other characters, selfish, even evil who also live in their own time but in my immediate world as well.

I understand that the final chapters of the book, where the Gypsies become major players, have caused some negative reactions. I guess I can understand that only if one forgets what the villagers do to the Gypsies, who (Anton, the knife sharpener and supposed friend of Tanya) turns out to have done the evil to the disabled child, Nikola, and why Tanya ends up with them. And, of course, the frame of the story -- a mother today telling a story to her rather disagreeable daughter, also named Tanya -- tells us at the end who the Tanya of the story was and brings the two Tanyas together:

"In the middle of the night the cow got out from under the covers. Tanya brought her back in. Milenka smelled like stale chocolate, or like a dog just in from the rain.

"Later, Milenka smelled like herself, like Milenka. The sun rose in the dark and burned the insects floating over the meadow. Tanya looked for the Muffin Child but didn't see her. The grass rustled at her feet, and she could feel Milenka's hide under the palm of her hand."

For the writing alone, The Muffin Child deserves a full five stars (six or more if that were possible). For the insights into loss and love, evil, cruelty, and forgiveness, I'd give it the Newbery Award if it were mine to give

Moving and Haunting, a lyrical journey into pain and hope........1999-01-19

A deceptively simple tale, "The Muffin Child" is a powerful story of loss, with its current of inner strength woven seamlessly through Stephen Menick's vivid and poetic writing style. Anyone who loves the magic of language and complexity of character, will love this book!

Slow to start, but brilliant........1999-01-04

Tanya's life becomes entwined in the nightmarish threads of life as she strives to maintain her parents' memory. Complex and many-faceted, The Muffin Child successfully portrays the horrors ordinary people can inflict on others. It is a moving book to be enjoyed on all reading levels. Menick's brainchild is destined for a Newbery.

A vivid, well-told tale.......1998-11-21

Stephen Menick weaves a wonderful tale in this novel for young readers. Set in the Balkans in the early days of the twentieth century, the story tells of eleven-year-old Tanya, a forthright little girl who refuses to give up hope when her parents are swept away by a raging river. At first in hopes of welcoming them back, then to brace against loneliness, and, eventually, to survive, Tanya bakes soon-to-be-renowned muffins, and learns that few things in life are as they first appear. Well-paced, masterfully told and with at times simply beautiful writing, this novel and its engaging characters (a faithful cow, meddling villagers, a blade-sharpener who speaks almost entirely in rhyme and pun, mysterious Gypsies) will surely entertain young readers for a week of rainy afternoons. Adults will admire Menick's deft handling of an intriguing plot and real-life themes that will linger in the mind and heart long after the clouds of adolescence have cleared away.

Average customer rating:

PCE Student Review
Great book for students
The Greatest Book EVER!
Great book for anyone!
A Good Book

Gratefully Yours
Jane Buchanan
Manufacturer: Puffin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Ages 9-12 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0141303158

Book Description

When her family dies in a New York tenement fire in 1933, Hattie is sent on the Orphan Train to Nebraska to live with Henry and Elizabeth Jansen. Yes, Henry needs her help with the farm chores and with Elizabeth, who is still griev- ing for the death of their children. But Hattie knows she is unwanted. Can the Jansens ever love another child? "A blend of Anne of Green Gables and Orphan Train Rider; [readers] who enjoyed either of those will appreciate Hattie's story."

— The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

Customer Reviews:

PCE Student Review.......2007-04-18

Gratefully Yours is an excellent book! The author is Jane Buchanan. The author's words flow very nicely and it makes me feel like I am living the story.
This book is about an orphan. Her name is Hattie. She has no one to love. My favorite scene is when she goes on a train to see if she would get adopted. Hattie is very brave, quiet, calm, and most of all open-minded. The theme of this book is wait and see what truly is. This book is meant for someone who likes sad books but with GREAT endings! I won't tell you the ending because that is for me to know and you to find out!!!! The author writes so well. I just wanted to stay up all night to finish it. The book is good for all ages 10 and older. Once you have read this book you will truly be thankful. Hattie has been though so much but she is still holding up. The genre of this book is realistic fiction.

Great book for students.......2000-11-02

I had to read this book for my Children's Literature class (I'm going to be an elementary teacher) and I loved it. I will definately use it in my classroom. It's a great way to introduce or review my Orphan Train unit :)

The Greatest Book EVER!.......2000-07-27

I loved the book! It was soooooo exciting! It is about a girl named Hattie who was an orphan and eventually got adopted by a farmer whose wife was sick. I think everyone should read this book. Some parts may be sad though.

Great book for anyone!.......2000-04-25

The book Gratefully Yours brings the thoughts of a stubborn New York City tenement orphan into the wide and open prairie of Nebraska. This books main character, Hattie, is charming and loving. She learns the jobs of a farm girl, and keeps her knowledge from New York. I give this book 4 stars because of a suprise ending that I didn't like, but some people might.

A Good Book.......1999-09-27

This is a good book about a girl who traveled on the Orphan Train. Hattie found a home with the Jensens and made friends with the cat, Cloud. But she has problems with kids who don't like orphans and some of her friends being mistreated. To find out how it ends, read the book!

Average customer rating:

Golden Kite Award Honor Book
A special book
A moving story

Bluebird Summer
Deborah Hopkinson
Manufacturer: Greenwillow Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Picture Books | Ages 4-8 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

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Blue Sky Bluebird

ASIN: 0688173985
Release Date: 2001-04-10

Book Description

For Mags and Cody, summer has always meant long golden days with Gramps and Grandma at the farm on the ridge, where the wheat fields stretch to the horizon and bluebirds sing from the old wood fence.

But now Grandma has died and Gramps is selling off his fields one by one, and the bluebirds -- no longer at home in Grandma's abandoned garden of tangled weeds -- are gone. How can Mags and Cody bring them back, bring everything back?

This rich picture book -- the collaboration of a master storyteller and an immensely gifted artist -- offers readers of all ages hope, comfort, and the renewal that can come with great patience and love.

Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators' 2001 Golden Kite Honor Book Award Winner

Customer Reviews:

Golden Kite Award Honor Book.......2002-05-09

This book was named the Golden Kite Award Honor Book for picture text for 2001 by the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. It was also named a Notable Book in the Language Arts by the National Council of Teachers of English.

A special book.......2001-07-01

My mother loved to garden and this book makes me think of her. It's a beautiful story for children, but also a special book to give to adults who have recently lost someone. The illustrations are just beautiful.

A moving story.......2001-04-03

This is a beautifully illustrated and touching story to share with kids - and other adults, too. I'm a teacher and I really appreciated the information about bluebirds that is included.

Average customer rating:

GREAT BOOK

Hannah Stands Tall
Shirley Rees
Manufacturer: Bonneville Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Ages 4-8 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 1555176526

Book Description

Hannah York is only fourteen, but she finds herself as the woman of the house as her family creates a home along Santa Rosa Creek during the 1860s. Her mother's death soon after their arrival in southern Utah tests Hannah to the limit, as the family battles crickets, floods, and drought.

Her twelve-year-old brother, Caleb, who has always been her friend, resents her new authority and rebels at Hannah's orders, claiming she must be the "bossiest critter" in the Utah Territory. It takes a mountain lion, renegade Indians, and a domineering aunt to make the Yorks see how much they truly rely on each other.

Hannah's story will keep you captivated as she confronts her challenges, and in the end, truly stands tall.

Customer Reviews:

GREAT BOOK.......2002-08-09

this is one of the best books i have read in a long time. it is very exciting and will keep you reading until the end! i would reccomend it for almost anyone!!

Average customer rating:

Lots of neat stuff in this book.
Family Prevails

Dance, Kayla!
Darwin McBeth Walton
Manufacturer: Albert Whitman & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Ages 9-12 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0807514535

Customer Reviews:

Lots of neat stuff in this book........2001-12-27

I read this book while visiting my aunt. She gave it to my sister for Christmas. I give the book five stars because there are many good lessons kids can get from Kayla besides just enjoying the book. Kayla was brave and funny. I liked the other people in the book a lot. I am a boy and don't usually read girs's books but Kayla had a lot for boys to read about.She had a lot of courage and worked for what she wanted. Lots of girls and boys don't have daddys and could see how Kayla did okay even if her daddy didn't come home yet.

Family Prevails.......2000-03-31

Dance, Kayla! starts out as Kayla does--full of promise. Kayla's life on her grandparents' farm is interesting as are the people in her life, but the story slows down when she reaches the big city. While the characters were sometimes flat, the story fills an important function in that it shows the strength of an extended African American family. It also serves to inspire young girls of color to follow their dreams, no matter how many roadblocks stand in their way.

Average customer rating:

Gorgeous book in every way
Beautiful, Moving book
Like Content and Drawings

The Giant

Manufacturer: Walker Books for Young Readers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding

Picture Books | Ages 4-8 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

General | Ages 4-8 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

General | Literature | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0802788378

Book Description

I remembered

Mama had said there were giants,

strong and tall,

and that one was looking after me.

I needed to see one,

to believe.

A young girl, grieving the loss of her mother, strives to find the giant that her mother promised would look after her. But there are no such things as giants-not real giants . . . or are there? She wants so desperately to believe that it seems as if she's always just missed one. Can she dream her larger-than-life guardian into reality? While she dreams, life on the farm with her father goes on. With lyrical prose her story unfolds-the seasons change, crops are planted, summer turns to fall, and the harvest is brought in. Throughout, one constant remains. The young girl does have a giant looking out for her. He's been with her all along.

Customer Reviews:

Gorgeous book in every way.......2004-01-09

The Giant is a masterpiece, combining beatiful illustrations with evocative language to create a book that children will love and adults won't mind reading over and over, even if the final page brings tears every time. The story follows a child who has lost her mother as she gradually comes to recognize her father as "the giant" who is taking care of her.

The book will be loved by all children, but will be especially important to children who have lost loved ones as they come to recognize the Giants in their own lives. It would make a wonderful father's day gift for people of all ages who want to recognize their own fathers as Giants.

Beautiful, Moving book.......2004-01-09

The Giant is a gorgeous book. The language and illustrations work together to create a mood and a story that children will love, and adults will be glad to read over and over again. For any child who may be suffering the loss of someone important, the story brings the additional gift of gently suggesting a way of finding the "true giants" in our lives, those people who are constant and steady for us because they love us. I've read this book many times, and the last page still brings me to tears every time.

A great Fathers day gift for people of all ages who want to let their fathers know they are "Giants."

Like Content and Drawings.......2003-08-06

The Giant is beautifully illustrated and describes past farm life with clarity. My granddaughter loves this book (as do I). I'm pleased it has been added at our local library.

Ida B. ...and Her Plans to Maximize Fun, Avoid Disaster, and (Possibly) Save the World

Average customer rating:

Sorry, just didn't care for this one. Parents should pre-read.
I really wanted to like Ida B.....
Really disappointed after all the hype
Ida B.
The Best Book

Ida B. ...and Her Plans to Maximize Fun, Avoid Disaster, and (Possibly) Save the World
Katherine Hannigan
Manufacturer: Listening Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Cassette

General | Books on Cassette | Audiobooks | Formats | Books

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ASIN: 1400090946

Book Description

Who is Ida B. Applewood? She is a fourth grader like no other, living a life like no other, with a voice like no other, and her story will resonate long after you have put this book down. How does Ida B cope when outside forces -- life, really -- attempt to derail her and her family and her future? She enters her Black Period, and it is not pretty. But then, with the help of a patient teacher, a loyal cat and dog, her beloved apple trees, and parents who believe in the same things she does (even if they sometimes act as though they don't), the resilience that is the very essence of Ida B triumph...and Ida B. Applewood takes the hand that is extended and starts to grow up.

This first novel is both very funny and extraordinarily moving, and it introduces two shining stars -- Katherine Hannigan and Ida B. Applewood.

Customer Reviews:

Sorry, just didn't care for this one. Parents should pre-read........2007-07-10

Boy was I disappointed in Ida B. Just looking at the cover, reading the back, etc. you would NEVER expect the main plot to center around the anger that the main character experiences when her mother is diagnosed with cancer. But the main part of the book is just that. Ida B being (justifiably) angry and sullen at having to return to public school after four years of home-schooling. I normally do not pre-read the books my kids get at the library but this one I did and I don't think I want my daughter reading anything this depressing.

Aside from the overall plot, I found the details in the story totally unbelievable. Little Ida seems to get VERY little supervision in her idlyic world before she goes to school. Does anyone let their kid roam unsupervized and alone for hours on end over sprawling acreage to climb trees, lay in the brook, etc. in this day and age? And I understand that Ida B. is supposed to be a precocious girl, but I seriously doubt any 5 year old would describe her new teacher's smile as "a small sad-happy smile, where your mouth turns up but your eyes look pained, almost all of the time".

In keeping this review short, this book left me sad and depressed. I wouldn't want my third grader reading it. Perhaps if we discussed it beforehand so she'd know what to expect then it could be okay.

I really wanted to like Ida B............2007-06-08

*SPOILERS*

Ida B. Applewood has the life: no siblings, no sitting through agonizing hours locked in a classroom to learn, no smoggy city apartment. Instead, she is homeschooled by her loving parents in their ranch home, hangs with her slobbery dog Rufus, and talks to trees as she skips through the family's large prized apple orchard with a smile on her face and adventure in her eyes.

Sounds adorable. That was exactly what I thought, too. I would just die to feel the warm summery breeze blowing through the trees while I wrote essays on how to keep nature alive instead of being stuck in a stuffy room with a bunch of kids who don't want to be there, either. But once I started reading "Ida B", I realized something about her was just not turning me on.

The book is well-written with sections of amazing description and carries and typical, easy-to-relate-to moral...that change is hard. But Ida B, for me, did not turn out to be the cutesy nature-lover I hoped. I tried to like her. Really. But it just didn't click. As others have mentioned, the author almost seemed to push you too hard on the narrator. She was a Ramona Quimby, an Opal Buloni, and a Junie B. Jones on an apple orchard who seemed to know she was creative. The scenes were pressing for you to like her, as if little Ida B was waving a "Look what ELSE I can do!" sign.

The one scene that made me wince was a dinner table scene. Ida B and her parents were sitting around the table eating, and they were quizzing her on math. Her mother told her she gave her $20 to buy flour at the store, and immediately Ida B blurted out about which store it was and if she was walking, and her mother just pulled an "Oh, Ida B." And, of course, a page later Ida B had to throw in that she tallies up her mother's money at the store and the cashier coos over her genius. *wince*. Her parents were an annoyance sometimes. The fact that they pulled her out of school two weeks into kindergarten because she complained that she wasn't having "fun" was a bit strange. And when Ida B finds out she must return to this "Place of Slow but Sure Body-Cramping, Mind-Numbing, Fun-Killing Torture" due to her mother's cancer, instead of recognizing the fact that her parents are going to the extent to send her to a public school for both social and academic help, Ida B sulks and complains the chapter afterwards and tells herself she must hate this school and made the plan that she would have "no friends, no play, no smiling, no happy" and stick to her plan no matter what happened. Although Ida B's nicknames for the bus and school itself were humorous, I couldn't help but think how utterly depressing the book was turning. The book seemed to stress that Ida B was creative and optimistic at the beginning of the book, but that didn't seem to be happening later; sometimes, this little girl did not live up to her character.

The ending was satisfying--complete and well-written, where Ida B comes to her senses that she really could have been a bit selfish during the transition period between paradise and nightmare. Give her a shot; maybe you'll enjoy her antics more than I did. Overall, good, original story, but the main character really wasn't all I'd hoped.

Really disappointed after all the hype.......2007-06-01

I have to agree with my fellow reviewers who did not like this book. I don't think I made it past the second chapter, I found Ida to be so sappy and annoying (she talks to trees? What???)
Before you order your own copy I would borrow one from the public library and see if the book turns you off as much as it did me.

Ida B........2007-05-03

Lesley Benson Ida B
By Katherine Hannigan

The book I read is called Ida B. It was an awesome book. The book was about a girl called Ida B. She lives on an orchard farm. Her dad is very into nature. One day the apple trees tell Ida that trouble is coming. She goes to the brook and asks him if this is true but he doesn't answer. Then she goes to the old tree and he tells her that hard times are coming.
Ida B is home schooled. She went to school for two weeks and three days. Her teacher was Ms. Myers. She was mean. One day Ida B's mom came to school. That was the last day Ida B went to school.
Before the school year starts Ida B's mom gets sick. She is diagnosed with cancer. Now Ida B's dad is forced to sell some of the land. That meant cutting down some of the trees. Ida B also had to go to school.
Ida B comes up with lots of plans to make her life, as well as everone's around her, miserable. The only one she will talk to is her teacher Mrs.Washingon. There is a fun twist at the end of this story.
I think everyone should read this book because it is fun to read is has lots of suprizing thingss that you don't think are coming. You never know what Ida will do next. It is a woderful book that everyone can read.

The Best Book.......2007-04-04

I have read the book Ida B. by Katherine Hannigan and it was a very good book.
Ida B. always talked to the trees and the brook. She played with them every evening. Then one day Ida B.'s mom got a lump on her body.She went to the doctor and found that the lump had Cancer. Before Ida B. had been home schooled by her mom and dad, but Ida B.'s dad couldn't take care of the farm, school Ida B. and take care of mom.Ida B.'s dad ended haveing to sell a little bit of the valleys and mountains thay he owned and he had to send Ida B. to school. A school buddy, Claire, moved into the land that had to be sold. Ida B. got into a fight with her and can't find a way out. Then when the school year ended mom got better, but did Ida B. end the fight with Claire? Find out in this book.
I was stunned when I found out that Ida B.'s mom had Cancer. It would not be fun to have to sell some of your families land and go to school and have your mom sick and tired. I also think that it would not be fun to not have any friends at school and be in a fight with someone in your own class. It was a hard time for Ida B. Therefore, if you want a good book, read Ida B.

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The Life and Death of a Family Farm
David H. Day
Manufacturer: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Agricultural | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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THE LINDEN TREE
Quiet and true

The Linden Tree
Ellie Mathews
Manufacturer: Milkweed Editions
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Ages 9-12 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 1571316736

Book Description

When eleven year old Katy Sue loses her mother, Edna, to meningitis, she and her family must adjust to life without her. The rural farm in the 1940’s provides a natural backdrop that is rhythmic and routine — and unforgiving, even when a family member dies. The house’s haunted emptiness is only filled when Aunt Katherine, Edna’s youngest sister, comes to the family’s aid, as does Jake, an ornithologist and long-time family friend. As Katy Sue, the youngest of the three children, watches Ingrid take on her mother’s domestic tasks and Ben help Papa on the farm, she struggles to define her place in the family and understand what the loss of her mother means for her now. With the guidance of her teacher Mrs. Breton, Katy Sue begins to contemplate the shape of her family and the farm through drawing, a process that allows her to accept her father’s soon-to-be wife, the farm life without her mother, and eventually, her own role within the family.

Customer Reviews:

THE LINDEN TREE.......2007-09-05

THE LINDEN TREE is just about a perfect example of the gentle, thoughtful, nostalgic story of an old-fashioned family; it is set in the 1940s on an Iowa farm, told from the viewpoint of the ten-year-old youngest sister. At the story's outset, the children's mother has died suddenly, of meningitis. She has been buried under a linden tree on a hill on the family farm. The tree and its setting provide a reference point for the family's loving memories of her and their good-hearted efforts to find some happiness in the shadow of their loss.

The sadness of losing a wie and mother is a constant in the story, but the movement of the narrative is toward healing and incorporating the feelings of love and loss into a wholesome appreciation of the present--of the family's blessings, as they put it.

Apart from the account of the mother's death, there are no moments of high drama or sensational plot-twists in THE LINDEN TREE. Rather the story moves patiently and steadily along, telling of Aunt Katherine's joining the family, the arrival and departure of a charming transient hired man, the family's managing to have a merry Christmas in a sad time, their going to a church social, the county fair, the birth of a calf, doing the chores, canning the garden produce, and other homely, realistic details of life on the farm.

It is an ideal book for young readers interested in the way real people live and have lived, and who take satisfaction in imagining a way of life both similar to their own and subtly different in its tenor. THE LINDEN TREE is a sane, well-crafted novel.

Quiet and true.......2007-08-07

This is a beautifully written, poignant story that takes us into the heart of a grieving family after the unexpected and sudden death of the mother. The prose is crystalline and strong; the grief tender and real as slowly, small transformations of healing begin to occur.
A great story for adults as well.

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