Little Heathens, a good read

books:


	• Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression Mildred Armstrong Kalish Bantam, 2008 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 67 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Little Heathens, a good read

Enjoyed the book after it was recommended by my stepson. Even though I may not agree with her religious beliefs, the book was a stroll down memory lane and quite enjoyable. I purchased it for a cousin living in Iowa.

Little Heathens

This well written book shares memories of a woman who grew up in a small town in Iowa during the depression

for more information click here

What Did They call YOU?

Will you enjoy LITTLE HEATHENS? Let's see: did your parents or grandparents ever you one of these names: scamp, rascal, dickens, devil, tomboy, hellion, smart-aleck, monkey, rapscallion? If so, I think you'll delight in HEATHENS. These somewhat dated terms of semi-endearment capture the tone of the book and its era, a time when children were expected to know their place and keep to it, a time when affection was delivered sideways, more often with a swat on the bottom than with a hug or kiss.

HEATHENS is, in short, a book of nostalgia. Organized topically, its chapters recreate in abundant and convincing detail such essentials of Depression farm life as food, church, school, chores, recreation, animals, family gatherings, and much more. The tone is fond without being sentimental, appreciative but alert to ironies--the voice of a woman who lived through it all and is aware of how fully her own success and character were determined by the lessons taught and learned in those hard times.

HEATHENS is a great book to read just before turning out the light at bedtime. It would be a fine companion on a plane trip, a excellent addition to a lazy afternoon at the beach or a rainy weekend in the cabin. It would make an appropriate gift for anyone who lived through the Depression, or who grew up on a small farm and cherishes the memories. And it would surely be an eye-opener to anyone who has no idea about what it feels like to eat potatoes and turnips you have grown, drink and bathe in water you have pumped or carried, warm yourself before a fire you built in a fireplace from wood you chopped with your own grimy little hands.

Mildred Kalish's book was named by the New York Times Book Review as one of the ten best books of 2007. Read it, and you will know why.

for more information click here

Farmers' Almanac

"I have had the good fortune to have absorbed the events that transpired during my childhood years into my very being, as if no boundary exists between then and now, as if the past has not really past."

The epiphany above is the secret to the pleasure of reading Mildred Kalish's "Little Heathens". Kalish is able to recount the routines and rhythms of Depression era farm life with such precision that it hovers in the mind's eye like a nostalgic dream.

What made the farmhouse hum back then was a serious devotion to doing each task well. It was a life that required hard work and "elbow grease", but the rewards seemed to be sharpened senses and enjoyment of a close-knit family and oneness with Nature. Martha Stewart and her "Good Things" philosophy pales by comparison.

Still, without admitting to irony, Kalish confesses that she was fortunate to escape this plain, P. Buckley-Moss picture of simplicity to pursue her adult life. Times change, but hard-won wisdom remains.

for more information click here

I grew up in Iowa...

Even though I'm young enough to be the author's granddaughter, I remember so much of what she writes about --- picking wild plums, grapes, raspberries, elderberries and mulberries and making preserves. Harvesting black walnuts before the squirrels could get them all. Searching out morels before the deer ate them. As I read this book I relived my childhood growing up in a small town in Iowa. My grandparents lived very much like the author and they taught us very similar lessons. Wonderful read!

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

I tell of a time, a place, and a way of life long gone. For many years I have had the urge to describe that treasure trove, lest it vanish forever. So, partly in response to the basic human instinct to share feelings and experiences, and partly for the sheer joy and excitement of it all, I report on my early life. It was quite a romp.

So begins Mildred Kalish?s story of growing up on her grandparents? Iowa farm during the depths of the Great Depression. With her father banished from the household for mysterious transgressions, five-year-old Mildred and her family could easily have been overwhelmed by the challenge of simply trying to survive. This, however, is not a tale of suffering.

Kalish counts herself among the lucky of that era. She had caring grandparents who possessed?and valiantly tried to impose?all the pioneer virtues of their forebears, teachers who inspired and befriended her, and a barnyard full of animals ready to be tamed and loved. She and her siblings and their cousins from the farm across the way played as hard as they worked, running barefoot through the fields, as free and wild as they dared.

Filled with recipes and how-tos for everything from catching and skinning a rabbit to preparing homemade skin and hair beautifiers, apple cream pie, and the world?s best head cheese (start by scrubbing the head of the pig until it is pink and clean), Little Heathens portrays a world of hardship and hard work tempered by simple rewards. There was the unsurpassed flavor of tender new dandelion greens harvested as soon as the snow melted; the taste of crystal clear marble-sized balls of honey robbed from a bumblebee nest; the sweet smell from the body of a lamb sleeping on sun-warmed grass; and the magical quality of oat shocking under the light of a full harvest moon.

Little Heathens offers a loving but realistic portrait of a ?hearty-handshake Methodist? family that gave its members a remarkable legacy of kinship, kindness, and remembered pleasures. Recounted in a luminous narrative filled with tenderness and humor, Kalish?s memoir of her childhood shows how the right stuff can make even the bleakest of times seem like ?quite a romp.?

From the Hardcover edition.

for more information click here

hot