The Yearling (Aladdin Classics)

What a simple story about simple people who lived by very real and often complicated rules. Life, at best, was very difficult during the late 19th century in the Florida scrubs. There was never enough of anything except for others trying to take what was yours. Life was a struggle. Hunger, clothing and safety were always in short supply.There was no time for pleasures. Only time to try to survive from one day to another. Life's pleasures were few and far between. Yet, Jody Baxter found a fawn that became his everyday reason for living. They shared everything because there was little to share and no one to share it with. The fawn added meaning to Jody's life. The fawn was Jody's reason for getting up in the morning. It was the one and only friend he had outside of his mom and pa. And yet, in the end, it was the one thing Jody reluctantly had to separate from his everyday existence. This loss tears at your heart strings and only reflects the difficult times and hard lessons people had to learn quickly in order to survive in the Florida's wilderness. Living in the central Florida forest on Baxter's Island, a young boy, Jody experiences life and death occurrences which are explained to him by his father, Penny Baxter. The taking of game for subsistance is shared not only by the forest animals but also the humans who live in the forest. Everyday is a saga of life versus death. Jody learns serious life lessons when his only friend, Fodder Wing dies unexpectantly and his joy and sorrow of raising a young fawn named Flag. And with the self-imposed loss of Fawn, Jody is forced to accept his life and its struggle for everyone's survival and sacrifice the one and only outside joy he ever knew.The way folks lived and their interdependence upon one another weaves a real story that all readers should enjoy. This is a classic written by a marvelous author. You will cry and laugh while reading the same page and you will marvel at all of life's lessons that these folks had to learn and endure. This is a story that a middle school child as well as adults of all ages should enjoy reading. The last paragraph of the book is especially moving and leaves the reader in a state of euphoria as to the way things were. You will never be too old or too busy that you can't pickup a volume of The Yearling and share the emotions that Jody and his family endured on an everyday basis. A true classic!

Personally, I believe that this is the best American novel. The characters and the language and the setting are so rich and satisfying. It is funny; it is true; it is heartbreaking. Beneath the surface, it is a meditation on loneliness. Jody is lonely and wants the companionship of Flag the yearling. Notably, Jody’s father Penny permits Jody to keep the fawn at first, because Penny recognized the loneliness in Jody and because Penny had felt that loneliness firsthand. It was a breathtakingly foolish decision, knowing how precarious the existence of this subsistence farming family was; a deer could destroy their crops and result in their starvation. That tells you how big and how awful the loneliness was to Jody and to Penny. Eventually, reality intrudes, and the bad decision almost destroys the family. The soft and cuddly thing that was taken into the the family’s home to combat the boy’s loneliness eventually turned into a life threatening monster that had to be destroyed. Our world is a world of addiction, where the pleasing crutch that we use to get through the rough patches often turns into a monster that threatens to destroy us. The wisdom in this book is eternal. What’s the final word on human loneliness? There is no easy answer. Father can only tell son: “What’s a man to do when he’s lonely? Take it for his share, and move on.” There are things in life that must be endured, and sometimes the apparent fix is worse than the original problem. This book is a hidden treasure of wisdom, wrapped in a parable of a boy and a fawn.

This book is a great read. I usually read history and nonfiction, but this book was one that was very hard to put down. Majorie K. Rawlings really hit this one out of the park!

If I were rating this book for the quality of the writing, it would be a hands-down five-star rating, but as a word-by-word measure of the pleasure I got out of reading the book, I have to give it four stars. There are so many compelling elements in this book that make it absolutely worth reading. The author's in-depth knowledge of life as it was in this neck of the woods at the time the story took place is phenomenal, along with her ability to convey it in great detail. It is the attention to detail when it comes to the descriptions of the natural environment that--while impressive and way beyond what I'd be able to do with environments with which I'm most familiar--almost led me to dismiss the book early on, led me to occasionally skim passages (which I would never do in a five-star book), and ultimately led to me to remove one star from my rating.That being said, what kept me enthusiastic about reading the book was above all her ability to convey a sense of wonder in a growing boy, to keep the plot moving enough to make me curious about what would happen next, to tell an amazing story while bringing fascinating characters to life, and to vividly convey a very entertaining dialect. I'd love to be able to hang out for an evening and down some moonshine with these folks just to hear them talk. What continued to blow my mind was the fact that this book focused so deeply on a male perspective while being written by a woman--so much so that if this were written by a man it would now probably be censured for being misogynistic. Most of the women in this book come off as nagging, disreputable, or troublesome, and they are always secondary to the men; however, they are all brilliantly portrayed and believable.I am personally glad that I encountered this book in my late-thirties. It seems like it used to be a staple for younger readers, but there's no way they'd appreciate so much of what is contained in these pages.

La vida familiar en una granja pequeña, los avatares que esto implica, el crecimiento del niño a muchacho, y relación con el entorno .Muy recomendable lectura a muchachos, sencillo Inglés

'Children's classic!! 'Pulitzer Prize winner!! 'UNFORGETABLE for a lifetime!!

I loved this story, very well written with a very moving conclusion.

First I thought it was slow story that might not make me to complete this book,gradually it took momentum and I really immersed into the story.Through the character Penny the writer reveals the the meaning of yearling(not literary).Nice way of presentation.

グレゴリーペック出演の映画を見て、いつかは読みたいと探しておりました。少年の心と現実の苦悩、開拓期のアメリカのおおらかさと厳しさが描かれており、ピューリッツアー賞受賞の実力は本物だと思います。