ANNOTATION

A woman fondly reminisces about the experiences she shared with her family throughout the various seasons on their Vermont farm.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Chopping wood in the fall, hauling sap buckets in the spring, and weeding, howing, and weeding again in the summer: That is life on a farm in the north. It is also seven months of snow; sloppy, impossible mud season; and hot days of haying. Who would miss growing up in such a place?

A love of life and a love of place shines through in Natalie Kinsey-Warnock's richly imagined prose. Illustrated with Mary Azarian's beautiful woodcuts, this book reveals how chores lead straight to the best kind of fun: night-swimming in the pond, skiing off the barn roof, and finding new gray kittens in the haymow with their eyes still closed. And at story's end, readers from cities, towns, and the country will ask themselves, What would we miss most about our home?

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

As her brothers and sisters argue about where they want to move when they grow up, the narrator asks her siblings to think of all the things they'd miss. When her brothers retort, "Who'd miss sugaring?" Kinsey-Warnock (A Farm of Her Own) describes the steps involved in collecting the sap and making it into syrup while Azarian's (Snowflake Bentley) full-spread woodcut illustration shows the family in the sugarhouse, snacking on aunt Eunice's doughnuts as they wait for the sap to boil. Season by season, the author (who bases the volume on her own memories) recounts the activities they share-looking for newborn kittens in the haymow, rescuing neighbors' trucks during the "mud season"-each one conveying a sense of family and community togetherness. The brothers' quips keep the narrative from becoming sentimental ("Even you wouldn't miss picking stone," her brothers say, reminding her of their least favorite spring chore). The author and artist remain on this side of nostalgia by grounding the story in a great deal of specific details about farming and the rhythms of nature. Concluding photos underscore the story's authenticity. Most readers will be not at all surprised to learn, at story's end, that the author and all of her siblings have remained in Vermont to carry on their family traditions. Ages 5-9. (Oct.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Farm work, hard work. But there is also lots of fun in this rememberance of growing up 40 years ago on a Vermont Farm.

School Library Journal

Gr 1-3-"My brothers and sister and I grew up on a farm of steep, wooded hills and fields with rocks as big as your head." During the long Vermont winter, the young narrator and her brothers argue about moving away when they grow up. The discussion begins during a gathering around the wood stove and ranges over days and nights and through the seasons as the girl recounts things they all do during the year, some that they might miss, and some that they'd be glad to leave behind. Maple sugaring numbs the hands and feet with bone-chilling cold, but they all love the taste of the maple candy and their aunt's doughnuts. The muddy spring followed by fence building and clearing stones from the field, hot days of haying and evenings of fishing for supper, the planting of vegetables and the harvest, and skiing right off the barn roof all unfold in the spare narrative and hand-tinted woodcuts. Azarian uses both facing scenes and full-spread views to create a fine sense of people and place. The cheerful view of family and farm comes round to the Christmas pageant at church, and a final page reveals where the siblings and cousins live as adults. It's all a bit nostalgic but the story will surely strike a familiar chord in many families, and it should be eye-opening to readers for whom life on a farm is quite different from their own experiences.-Margaret Bush, Simmons College, Boston Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Rooted in the Vermont countryside, Caldecott-artist Azarian's (Snowflake Bentley, 1998, etc.) signature woodcuts brighten Kinsey-Warnock's (Lumber Camp Library, p. 572, etc.) pedestrian account of growing up on a Vermont farm. After hearing their mother's stories of Scottish ancestors, the children wonder why their forebears moved to the land (Vermont) that demanded much hard work. Through the seasons, from dawn till dusk, reminisces of difficult work, as well as the storytelling, eating sweet maple candy, and fishing are enumerated. The idyllic childhood routine: long-hot days of summer, sugaring time in the spring, mud-filled afternoons, Sunday drives; building fences, picking stones from the fields, mowing grass, baling hay, making apple cider in the autumn; and a myriad of other activities helps to build a family narrative. The sturdy woodcuts complement the text, despite the fact that a few, particularly the night scenes, seem too dark and somewhat uninspired. Selected photographs from the author's and illustrator's family albums, appended at the end, reinforce the notion that this is a very personal story of the simple pleasures of a rural life gone by. While not Azarian's best work the illustrations are nonetheless a significant factor in making this unexciting but comfortable tale one that readers will enjoy reading. (Picture book. 6-9)