The Yearling

This was my review for The Yearling:

I read this book recently and had mixed feelings that changed all through the book. I laughed, I wondered, and I had a great time with this book. I would definitely recommend it.

This book is written by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and has 428 pages. It is a 1st person story. The main character of this book is a boy by the name of Jody Baxter, living in the backwoods of Florida sometime during the late 1800's. In this book, you see everything through the eyes of Jody. He could be compared to Huckleberry Fin. He's young, clever, and is learning the ropes of life. The intended audience of this book would be anyone able to take the time to read it and is able to understand it. I would say it would be for young adult or adult.

Jody is lives with his parents on a farm passed down through his family and their only neighbors, the Forresters. Jody and his dad, Penny Baxter, are very close throughout this book. Penny is everything to Jody. He's his teacher, his provider, and his best friend. Penny teaches Jody how to get by in life by hunting, farming, trading, and other things.

The Baxter's neighbors, the Forresters, interact with them a lot in this book. They fight each other, they hunt together, and they solve the problems that come along in their area together. Jody's best friend, Fodder-wing, is a part of the Forrester family.

As Jody is working his way through his life as a boy, he encounters many problems. His friends and him face bears, wolves, rattlesnakes, and a close friend dying. To deal with this Jody finds a surprising new best friend. After a doe dies by his father's hand, he discovers that it was the mother of a fawn. Jody becomes a close companion with this deer which he names Flag. Flag and Jody go through so much of the story together, the whole time Flag is becoming a yearling. Flag tends to be rather mischievous and causes problems that make a big impact in the Baxter's lives. In the end Jody must choose either his family or the yearling.

What I liked most about this book is how the author describes each feeling and emotion that Jody has and the setting that he is in. He has very boyish thoughts. On page 3: "It seemed a strange thing to him, when earth was earth and rain was rain, that scrawny pines should grow in the scrub, while by every branch and lake and river there grew magnolias." On page 22: "Jody opened his eyes unwillingly. Sometime, he thought, he would slip away into the woods and sleep from Friday until Monday." What I had a hard time with at first, though, was their grammar and speech. It's very southern and you have to think about it to figure out what they are saying. On page 239: "He asked,"Kin Flag foller along, too?" On page 240: "If you figger on frolickin', you kin stay home, too." After a while of reading this book I got used to it and could understand it.

The main theme to this book I think is that it doesn't matter how life goes, you can always move forward with it. Jody and his dad show this by always trying their hardest and, in the end, they are able to resolve their problems.