Kata’s Progress – Finishing Up the 1930’s

As I catch up with posting my reading progress, I find it interesting rereading my blog entries. They tell almost as much about my life as about the books. Below is what I have read from the 1930's since I posted here last year. My reactions to the books are on my blog.

• 1935 Now in November  
• 1937 Gone With the Wind 
• 1939 The Yearling

Laura's Review - The Yearling

The Yearling
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
354 pages

The Yearling is a coming-of-age story about a boy, Jody, living in the Florida wilderness during the late 1800s. Over a year's time, Jody grows from a 12-year-old focused mostly on recreation, to a contributing family member working alongside his father to provide for his family. Jody's family lives off their crops, game hunted in the forest, and trades made in a nearby village. It's a tough life full of back-breaking labor.

At Jody's side during most of the year is Flag, a fawn adopted after being found orphaned. As an only child, Jody longs for companionship, and his parents long resisted allowing him to adopt wild animals as pets. For some reason, in this case, they relented. Flag is a devoted pet, often at Jody's side, but as he grows it becomes more and more difficult to keep him on their farm.

This book is well-written -- it won the Pulitzer Prize after all -- and the very descriptive language brought the landscape to life. However, I tired of the graphic hunting scenes, and I was never emotionally invested in Jody and his family. I was hoping for a more compelling read and was disappointed. ( )

My original review can be found here.

The Yearling by Marjorie Rawlings

(Cross-posted from my blog)

The winner of the 1939 Pulitzer Prize, The Yearling by Marjorie Rawlings is a quaint story of a boy, Jody, his life on a Florida farm during the late 1800's, and ultimately, the adoption of his fawn, Flag. Descriptive and enchanting, Rawlings paints a realistic picture of early Florida life and the love humans feel for their pets.

Jody lives on a small farm in the present-day Ocala National Forest with his father and mother. Times are tough. Crops don't grow, bears and wolves prey on their livestock, relationships with neighbors are strained, and the weather is relentlessly hot and rainy. Jody's farm struggles every day to exist in these meager conditions. Jody also combats loneliness with no siblings or friends with whom to pass the time. He yearns for a pet to call his own, and he finally gets his way when he befriends an orphaned fawn. However, as Flag becomes a yearling, the deer exacerbates the family's struggle by eating their crops. Jody is ordered to shoot his pet - and he is torn between doing the right thing for his family and killing the thing he loves the most.

This story is rich with history. You really capture a sense of what it was like to live in Florida during this time period. Many think of Florida as a tourist haven, which it is in parts, but most of Florida is rich with vegetation and animals. Even today, I live among Florida's wildlife, from snakes in my pool to alligators on the golf course. While these animals are really just "pests" in my life, they could make or break a family like Jody's. I gained a new appreciation for what life was like for the pioneers who tried to carve a life in Florida's unforgiving land.

My only complaint about The Yearling is that it is very descriptive - perhaps to a fault. You must really like to read about nature to enjoy this story. If you do, I would highly recommend Marjorie Rawlings's inspirational and historical tale.