Highly recommend this book

books:


	• The Whistling Season Ivan Doig Harcourt, 2006 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 53 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Read this Book!

Ivan Doig must be the Midwest's answer to Stegner...well written, engaging, great characters that reveal just enough (unlike our People Mag oriented society). One of those books I am so glad to have read and will recommend. Also enjoyed the historical perspective of the United States at that time of one room school houses, etc.

A season of The Waltons?

A good read. Not spectacular.

The point of view, time period, certain situations reminded me of The Waltons. Not a bad thing, but that's what came to mind.

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Well worth reading

This book is told from the perspective of Paul as an adult, looking back on his youth growing up in Marias Coulee and attending a one-room schoolhouse. The plot ambles along, rather than charges, but the characters come to life and the story is well written. If you're a person who appreciates a well-worded and clever phrase, you will love this book because it's chock full of them. This book felt like an antidote to the crazy, overbooked, super-speed pace of my life.

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Highly recommend this book

What a wonderful book. Doig knows his subject and characters so well that one feels as if it has to be an autobiography, which it isn't.
The writing itself is also excellent. I highly recommend this book, set in the days of the Montana one room schoolhouse. This intelligent novel,the endearing Milliron family of Motherless boys,and the indefatigable school teacher, Morrie, all come together to make this a book you hate to see come to an end.

Great Reading Group Book!

Our PAGES (Prose-Adoring Girls' Enlightenment Society) Reading Group read and discussed The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig. We absolutely recommend it to book clubs for a very delightful read and a lively, interesting discussion about life in the early 20th century West, one-room school education, and the details of the book, itself. We rate this book 4.5 stars.

A couple of things that may not have come out in the published discussion questions and elsewhere in these reviews:

Did you notice the possible similarities in the two brothers, Paul and Damon, and in Morrie and Casper?

Also, we all felt rather melancholy at the end of this book about the loss of that way of life and the one-room school education. In searching the internet we found that, at the time of the setting of this book, there were about 250,000 one-room schools in the United States. Today, there are fewer than 400. But, the fact that there are some left helped to lift our spirits. Maybe we'll have a reading group outing and go visit a few!

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