Customer Reviews

Farm Girl

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book by Karen Jones Gowen offers a wonderful view of what it was like to grow up in Nebraska in the 20's and 30's. It is told from the viewpoint of the author's mother who grew up during that time in Nebraska. It is well written and easy to read. It would be a great resouce for teachers who are trying to teach what life was like during that time period. The author also includes excerpts from her grandmother who was an early homesteader in Nebraska. The narrative style the author has used enhances the book and lets the reader feel as if they are living right along side Lucille Marker. I would highly recommend this book.

As a Brit, I do not know much about American history. Reading Farm Girl I have learned so much more about past lifestyles and disasters. About how a race pulled together and how families were divided by the search for work. The author has written a tender memoir via her mother.

I loved learning about the foods, the clothing and how one woman painted her way out of The Depression. How she enabled her family to have a better life despite the odds being against them.

Simply written in a gentle style, this book is ideal for pleasurable memoir moments or classroom reading. The photographs were a wonderful addition.

I loved this book! A captivating Memoir set in the Dust Bowl era, it doesn't just tell a story of an american girl's life (which it does very well); but the real joy here is the way the author and her subject really take you into that time and place. You can hear the buzz of insects, the quiet of a crisp rural night, and the rustle of plains winds through the grass. You can smell the heat, and the dust, and the homemade sauerkraut. You can almost taste the fruit and the bread, and the cool well-water, as we follow this spunky young girl through her every-day, yet sometimes extraordinary life.

This is a great read for anyone intested in early farm life for American settlers. More of just an account of day to day life and living for early farmers and growing up in Nebraska, and offered a unique peek into that way of life long gone.

I really enjoyed this book, as it takes place near where some of my relatives have lived since the 1800's. The book is a fast read and gives a clear perspective on life back when "you grew or made most of what you needed or you really didn't need it that bad". I really enjoyed getting a glimpse into the lives of these families through the descriptions and the interesting photos. The resourcefulness of people in generations long past never ceases to amaze me. A great book for young and old alike.

A review of Karen Jones Gowen's memoir, Farm Girl
By Karen Walker

I just finished reading Karen Jones Gowen's memoir, Farm Girl. I love history. I especially love getting a glimpse of a specific time in history that makes me feel as if I'm right there. That is what I felt reading Karen's account of her mother's life on a 1920s Nebraska farm.

Karen's book is a slight departure from traditional memoir in that it is not a memoir of Karen's life, but that of her mother, Lucille Marker Jones. As Karen explains in her introduction, there were good reasons for this, as she wanted her mother's "voice" to come through, not her own. She succeeded brilliantly.

What struck me most was the authenticity which came through as a result of the family photos sprinkled liberally throughout the book, as well as in the exquisite, lyrical detail in the narrative.

Karen couldn't have bestowed a finer blessing on her mother than honoring her in this way by shining a light on this particular time and this particular place and on this particular young "farm girl." And for me, New York City born and bred, it was eye-opening and profound.

This book could easily be used by history teachers. It's everything that stuffy and pretentious history books are not. It brings the depression to life. It makes you understand on a personal level what people who lived in the dust bowl had to content with. It also shows us how inventive people could be when they had no technology or utility servies. This book is a window into the lives of people who made us what we are today. They are the blood, sweat and tears of the foundation upon which we in the west and mid-west now live.
It is written in a style that made me think I was listening to the main character telling me the story of her life. I loved this book.

This is a book to curl up with and savour slowly. Once I got used to the style of narration - the author speaks as her mother narrating her life story - I found myself transported into a world and an era quite alien to me - 1920's Nebraska. This is personal oral history dictated and transcribed with a literary writer's sensitive skill and devotion. I think Julia Marker (mother of Lucille, grandmother to Karen, self taught artist and all round amazing woman) is worth a whole volume of her own!

I've never been a big fan of bios but this includes amazing pictures from the early 1920s and some pretty cool paintings done my Lucilles mother. She had an incredible eye for photography as well as painting. It makes me wonder where all the paintings she traded to help them through the depression have ended up.

Farm Girl by Karen Jones Gowen was written in 2007 about a girl growing up in Nebraska in the early 1920`s.

This is an autobiography as told by the main character, Lucille Marker Jones, to her daughter, Karen Jones Gowen. Thus, you might call it a biography as the author is the daughter, but the writing is in the first person as Lucille.

I found this book very relaxing to read as it left a wonderful memory to me and probably to others who can relate to this story. There were many plus marks regarding this book beginning with the very interesting life this lady had while growing up in the 20's and 30's in the western part of Nebraska.

Secondly, as with any autobiography, how does anyone tell the story to make it interesting? Nothing the main character did or said made her an international celebrity or a person of interest which would make readers flock to the book stores to purchase this book. Instead, she represents the millions of Americans who made the best of the situation in which she lived.

Not once did I read how brutal, how devastating, nor how terrible life was as a child in the 1920's. There was nothing about over-coming the odds, or proving to anyone that she would make something of herself. She is not a famous person, but in those days, she is the type of person who made this country what it is.

This story reminded me time and time again the importance of family. How often has the older generation been told, "You ought a write a book"? Well, Karen Jones Gowen did just that. Read this book, I did in two days, and closed it with a smile.