Barn Savers [Hardcover]

Linda Oatman High (Author), Ted Lewin (Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 5 and up | Grade Level: K and up

A boy spends a long day helping his father dismantle a nineteenth-century barn so that the pieces can be used in other barns and houses to live another one hundred years.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

PreSchool-Grade 2-A boy and his father work at dismantling a barn. "We'll recycle the whole barn...It'll sell like hot cakes: people building barns, people building houses, people building houses to look like barns, people fixing up barns for houses. This barn will live for another hundred years, in a hundred different places." Lewin's watercolor paintings are evocative of place and mood, and the text adequately relates what the "barn savers" are up to on this particular day. Readers also get the idea that the American countryside is littered with old barns destined for total destruction if they are not recycled or renovated. What the author does not make palpable is the individuality, history, or inherent aesthetic value of the structures and the materials of which they are made. Because of this scanty explication and because of the rather specialized subject matter, this book will probably not find wide readership.
Miriam Lang Budin, Chappaqua Public Library, NY
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Waking before dawn, a boy accompanies his father to an old barn. Their job is to save the barn from the bulldozers, taking it apart board by board so that the parts can be sold. The boy works all day stacking wood as his father carefully dismantles the structure. When they climb into the truck to head home, the boy takes the iron horse from the barn's weather vane to keep in his bedroom. Lewin's watercolor paintings, beautiful in their own right yet energized by the narrative content, sweep wide across the double-page spreads. The illustrations, whether moonlit or washed by brilliant sunshine, reflect the dignity of the plain-spoken, first-person text and portray the old building as a place of history and mystery, of light and shadow. Shining through both text and illustrations is respect for the beauty and integrity of the old barn, respect for the father's work of salvaging its parts for new uses, and the mutual respect of father and son, who share in a job worth doing. Classified in CIP as nonfiction, this picture book deserves a wider audience than it may find among children looking for books on construction. As one of the few picture books to show rural life outside the farmyard, it makes an unusual and effective choice for reading aloud. The lovely endpapers show different barns, as stately as castles. Carolyn Phelan

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 5 and up
  
• Hardcover
• Publisher: Boyds Mills Press; 1st edition (September 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1563974037
• ISBN-13: 978-1563974038
• Product Dimensions: 11.3 x 8.8 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,001,686 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I'm an author of books for children and teens, and I teach writing workshops and do author presentations. For a LOT about me, please see www.lindaoatmanhigh.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Teaches appreciation for history, re-using and recycling, February 18, 2000

By 

A mom (Colorado) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Barn Savers (Hardcover)

This beatiful book subtly helps children see the importance of historical buildings (in this case, barns) and the need to preserve our past. A father and son preserve boards from barns which are too beaten down to restore. During a break in their barn-saving work, the father tells his son, "We'll recyle the whole barn...this barn will live for another hundred years, in a hundreddifferent places." Americans just now seem to bewaking up to what Europeans have known for centuries -- we must preserve our past in order tohave a sense of who we are. This book teacheschildren that lesson. (You might also want to share the video, "Madeline and the New House", with your kids. In it, Madeline convinces the owner of her home to restore it rather than tear it down.)