The Strength of the Hills: A Portrait of a Family Farm

Graff, Nancy Price

ISBN 10: 0316322776 ISBN 13: 9780316322775

Publisher: Little Brown & Co, 1989

Portrays life on a small family farm in Vermont by describing a single day in the hard-working but prideful existence of its owners

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From School Library Journal:

Grade 3 Up-- The past few decades have witnessed the startling demise of the family farm. With that comes a mounting fear that we will lose touch with the values inherent in that lifestyle, values of hard physical labor, family cooperation, and the real work of producing food and fiber for oneself and others. Children today, most of whom are at least one generation removed from family farms, may only have stereotypical visions of farms and where food comes from tucked away in their minds. Enter The Strength of the Hills , a sympathetic and engaging visit with a farm family in Vermont. With evocative prose and dominant, well-executed, black-and-white photographs, the book focuses on the Nelsons, who have cared for and worked "one small corner of the Earth" for generations. Skillfully, Graff details the real work of each family member: the father's milking and bookkeeping; the mother's home and off-farm work; young Grant's field work; and even younger Andrew, Hannah, and Betsey's work with calves, show animals, and gardening. It is a natural, unglamorous portrayal of a single day, and captures the determination, luck, and labor it takes to keep a farm going. The book reads well aloud, but perhaps the greatest enjoyment will come to children who can quietly read and search the pictures for details of a life that has become foreign to most of us. Not since Demuth's Joel: Growing Up a Farm Man (Putnam, 1982) has there been such an engaging portrait of a modern farm family. --Lee Bock Pulaski, Brown County Public Libraries, Green Bay, WI
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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