Customer Reviews

Our Farm: Four Seasons with Five Kids on One Family's Farm

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Our Farm: Four Seasons with Five Kids on One Family's Farm is a densely packed, 144-page nonfiction book portraying the many aspects of day-to-day life on an Ohio family farm. From raising chickens and cows, to delivering calves, disposing of manure, showing pigs at a fair, hunting, cleaning and cooking animals for their meat, putting together square bales of hay and much more, Our Farm gives a living, breathing, look at the hard work, good food, fun, and challenges that flows by in the yearly turn of a farm's seasons. Chapters are narrated in quotes of various family members, and illustrated with beautiful color photography on virtually every page. Highly recommended, especially for public and school library collections, Our Farm is a vital educational resource particularly given how today's American society is increasingly estranged from its agricultural roots.

I really loved reading this book! The book is written for children but I enjoyed reading it and I am 41 years old! The book made me think about the dreams that I had as a child of living on a farm when I grew up. That dream never came to fruition but reading this book helped to give me a more realistic idea of what living on a livestock farm would be like. I immediately got into the story and I read in amazement all the kinds of experiences the children have lived through. As a parent, I enjoyed seeing this family working together - everyone has a job and they all seem to enjoy helping to make their farm a sucess. What a wonderful childhood these children are having! Thanks to their family and Michael J. Rosen for letting us share a bit of it.

With hundreds of photographs and the narration of five kids between the ages of 4 and 18, OUR FARM packs a world of reality into 144 pages. It's a funny, accessible, truly heartfelt visit with a small-farm family that should be a mirror for any farm kid or rural family, or a window for kids who can't quite imagine a life outside a city...a life where chicks grow up in your living room, your backyard is filled with calves and your own swimming hole/fishing pond, your barn is filled with every sort of farm machine (all of which your border collie tries to herd!). Divided into four seasons, the book is a thoughtful chronicle of what it means to grow up living on the land, living with animals (wild and domestic), living without close neighbors or shopping malls, living in a community of generous people, many of whom, have spent their whole lives in the area.
And for middle-grader readers, there's plenty of intriguing and somewhat startling details about the challenges of farm life: animal losses, hauling tons of manure, providing meats for the table--all in the farm kids' voices.
A fascinating book for kids from...third grade through high school, I'd say. A perfect gift for anyone who's connected with 4-H, FFA, or any sort of farm. It's a great addition to classroom curricula on ecology and conservation, communities, Ohio or Appalachian culture and history.

This book is very well written, and is perfect for my 10 year old son. Living near downtown Los Angeles, there's not much in the way of true, rural farm life out here. So in our quest to help him satisfy his curiosity about what real life on a farm might be like for children, we were so blessed to come across this book in our local library. My son does not particularly care for reading, but once he got his hands on this book, he's not been able to put it down! He has read the book cover to cover four times now, and he's asked us to make sure we purchase this book for him so we can finally return the original to the library. The authors have successfully portrayed rural farm life, and all the struggles and blessings each season brings. It gives a true picture of what it's like for children to grow up on a farm, and is a fun read for children and adults alike. We highly recommend this book to all who have even the slightest curiosity about farm life!!

I had ordered this book over a year ago when my son was born. I just got around to reading it. I loved it. It is packed with so much interesting information (for us city kids). I've never read a book that was written from the kids point of view that still kept it interesting for the adults as well. I read it to my 14 month old so he can enjoy the book as he grows.

Wife read it after daughter got it from library. Really liked it & thought it was interesting to see what the family grew/killed on their farm to eat as well as discussion of all the equipment they use to do their farming job(s).