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Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 977.761033092 EAN: 9780553384246 ISBN: 0553384244 Label: Bantam Manufacturer: Bantam Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 304 Publication Date: April 29, 2008 Publisher: Bantam Release Date: April 29, 2008 Studio: Bantam Editorial Review: Product Description: 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. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - In the minority hereI know everyone loved this book. The New York Times Book Review named it one of the 10 best books of 2007. I just don't get it. There are chapters on frugality and outhouse pranks and nut gathering. Cold winters and back-breaking chores abound, but none of it held my interest. Despite the slimness of the volume, I struggled to finish. This memoir reads like an disjointed collection of encyclopedia entries pertaining to country life rather than a living, breathing experience. Rating:  - LOVE this book!This book was so comforting to read. I'd fix a cupof tea, grab the book and go hide in a quiet room to read. With all the hardships she faced on the farm, I still am envious. What a wonderful way to remember your childhood. I'd recommend this to anyone! Rating: - Enjoyed every word.To me this well written book was so enjoyable from beginning to the end; it is the way it was and I almost found myself envying this family. It took me back to basics and a time I remembered so well and identified with their way of life. Rating:  - Some good moments marred by poor writing and suffocating nostalgiaThis book was a disappointment. There were some good moments but overall the whole thing felt very thin-- strangely lacking in analysis and perspective. Nearly every chapter ends with a rhetorical question whose only purpose is to demonstrate how wonderful things were "back then." For example the chapter about gardening ends this way "Do you need to be told, that with the addition of a marrow bone, Mama produced a magnificent soup. ..? Need I add that I adopted this final gathering routine right ... Read More Rating:  - the power of time and placeMy wife read all nine volumes of the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder (b. 1867) to our children, but if that's a stretch for your busy schedule, then Mildred Kalish's (b. 1922) best seller is a fine substitute. Kalish does for the Depression years what Wilder did for the American frontier, which is to give a nostalgic but realistic first person account of a place and time that is now lost to most people. Except for her epilogue, Kalish recounts her early childhood years on her grandparents' ... Read More |
