Customer Reviews

The Land Remembers: The Story of a Farm and Its People (Wisconsin)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is full of humor and spends wonderful time on how a farm is run, explaining the land, the chores, the wonder of living on a farm. Ben's antics with his brothers are delightful, and his account of his evenings with his family are memorable. I read this anytime I need a lift, and share its richness with anyone who will listen.

One room school house, the changing of the seasons and the farm chores for each one...a memior of one man's boyhood experiences. I liked this book and my husband liked it even more than I did. He was born and raised in rural WI, picking rocks, milking, and going sledding with his brothers. This book is well written and reads like a time capsule...the people & chores on a family farm. I would have given it a perfect 5 stars, but there is too much about bees. Less bee watching and the author would have a classic here. Great that his story goes full circle. We learn what happens to the people we've read and cared about...which is always gratifying to us readers.

This is one of those books I will always remember. My children were young when I read it and I felt that it contained many lessons on how to be a good parent. And all in the context of very enjoyable reading. The story about learning to use the horse drawn cultivator shows how a parents help their child develop self-confidence, which is something I see so many people lacking. I can't say enough good things about this gem of a book.

After finishing this book, I added Gays Mill, WI to my list of places to visit. I could hardly put the book down once I got into it. The stories that Logan tells are thought provoking...some brought tears to my eyes while others filled me with laughter. All will warm your heart! Having grown up on a farm, I could relate to the events that happened as Logan was going up. Although we are years apart in age, there are some aspects of growing up on a farm that all can relate to.

I read this book to my children when they were in grade school and recently read it again to my husband on a long trip. We felt at peace and surrounded by love as we read this book together. My children loved the adventures and laughed at the stories in many chapters, eagerly looking forward to the next night's reading. The ending is both painful and filled with hope. I highly recommend this as a read aloud book instead of watching television.

I'm biased, because I'm from Gays Mills, WI (I used to mow Leita Slayton's lawn!) - but I recently re-read it, and was surprised at how many of the anecdotes and images I remembered were actually from The Land Remembers, and not from Steinbeck or anyone else better-known. Parts of this book will stay with you for years and years. It's like going home again every time I pick it up.

This book paints the life of a boy growing up on a farm in a way that takes you away from all the cares of your own life and brings you into his world of beauty and the wonder of boyhood. Excellent!

Yesterday, I re-read this book again. Talk about a walk through nostalgia for a time and place.

First reading was of the first edition when it came out. It is a book that sticks in my mind, especially since I, too, was born and raised on a subsistence farm in Wisconsin no different than the one on which Ben and his brothers grew up. Ours was a little further north in Wood County, a little colder but given to about the same kind of crops.

I talked to Ben yesterday on the phone; first time I ever did, and concluded I should have done it years ago.

This is a book that will never age.

It is particularly dear to me since I can feel, smell and breath the land he so believably relates as it can only be done by one who lived it.

We are both old fellers now. He is four years older. Sounds young on the phone though. We had a few laughs over what we can't do anymore, which is a heap. Nothing dead upstairs, however, in either case. (I am bragging in my own case.)

Ben has moved back to Wisconsin, donated the fabulous home place, which their hired man called "Seldom Seen" to the state for preservation, but he still plans to live there each summer. I hope we both make a hundred and become good friends.

My own book about being born and raised in Wisconsin, WHERE THE HEART WAS, undoubtedly owes a great deal of its inspiration to THE LAND REMEMBERS. But a reader will see I didn't pirate anything - or at least I don't think I did.

As a Big Stick in writing Ben was surpisingly approachable. Of course, it may have helped when I told him I'd been in the C.C.C. before WWII in a camp at Gays Mills, up in his neck of the woods. I loved every minute of it and it proved to me what a genius he is at presenting the fabulous Western Hill and Valley Region of Wisconsin to a T.

Read it. You won't regret it.

As one who has been lucky enough to know and spend time with Ben and visit; as well as spend time on the Seldom Seen Farm, I can say nothing but good things about the book and the man himself. When he moved back to Wisconsin and began to promote this book, I was working with Stanton And Lee Publishing at the time as a publicist. So I traveled with Ben and can say without ego, he is as true in life as in his writing. I also encouraged the reading on audio, but I feel the mind does the writing more justice. I have read the book many times and I am still moved by the events he describes. I was born in Wisconsin and spent many summers working on farms as a kid/teenager and can relate to the writing even though it was a different time. I personaly think it should be used to teach children, as it has lessons even for our present generation.

Raised on a Wisconsin dairy farm about 15-20 years later than author Ben Logan, I have long since concluded that for me it was the Right Time - Right Place. Logan's living history of family values, relationships and life lessons, told in the context or rural farm life, lets me relive my life through his, and glean our mutual past for the source of our values. I just read The Land Remembers for the second time. I think I'll read it every year.