Strawberry Girl 60th Anniversary Edition (Trophy Newbery) [Paperback]

Lois Lenski (Author, Illustrator)

Book Description

Release date: April 26, 2005 | Age Range: 8 and up | Series: Trophy Newbery | Lexile Measure: 650L (What's this?)

The land was theirs, but so were its hardships

Strawberries -- big, ripe, and juicy. Ten-year-old Birdie Boyer can hardly wait to start picking them. But her family has just moved to the Florida backwoods, and they haven′t even begun their planting. ";Don′t count your biddies ′fore they′re hatched, gal young un!"; her father tells her.

Making the new farm prosper is not easy. There is heat to suffer through, and droughts, and cold snaps. And, perhaps most worrisome of all for the Boyers, there are rowdy neighbors, just itching to start a feud.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Full of the flavor of Florida lake country." -- Basic Book Collection for Junior High Schools (ALA)

About the Author

In addition to illustrating the first four Betsy-Tacy books, Lois Lenski (1893-1974) was the 1946 Newberry Medal winning author of Strawberry Girl.

Product Details

• Age Range: 8 and up
  
• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins; Reprint edition (April 26, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0064405850
• ISBN-13: 978-0064405850
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.5 x 7.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #69,203 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

111 of 119 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Berries for Birdie November 3, 2004

By E. R. Bird HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback

I hereby nominate Lois Lenski's 1946 Newbery Award winning book, "Strawberry Girl" for the Most-Misleading-Cover-Art-And-Title Award of the 20th century. Picking up this story, I was fairly certain that this tale would be a cutesy little number about a girl who picks strawberries for fun. On the cover, after all, you see a little blond barefooted child clutching a cache of yummy red fruit as she walks along in her sunbonnet. I was anticipating Strawberry Shortcake. What I got was "Tobacco Road" for kids. An oddly shocking delight.

Lenski prefaces this book with an explanation of Florida "Crackers". Personally, I've never heard this term used as anything but a base insult. Lenski, however, seems to think that the phrase is deserving of pride. Concentrating on the hardworking rural natives of Florida, she gives a little background on the history of these people in an effort to, "present vivid, sympathetic pictures of the real life of different Americans, against authentic backgrounds of diverse localities". In this case, Lenski interviewed "Crackers" on her own time and used their stories (watered down, as was appropriate) to write this book. The result is a seething concoction of barely contained violence and danger, centered on the lives of two very different Florida Cracker families.

The Boyers have just moved into the old Roddenberry house, and they've got big plans. Originally from Marion County, Carolina, the family attempts to settle into their new life and make friends with their neighbors. Unfortunately, those neighbors include Sam Slater. A nasty man with a penchant for drunkenness, Sam's just the kind of guy who doesn't mind causing his fellow man a bit of trouble once in a while. When the wild hogs and cows of the Slaters start eating the Boyer family's crops, tensions begin to rise between the two households. The Boyers are good hardworking people with pride and bright ideas. The Slaters could be categorized as white trash, never lifting a finger to feed their own animals and jealously coveting those nice things their neighbors have. Our hero of the story, Birdie Boyer, has her own problems dealing with Shoestring Slater, a boy roughly her age who's just as likely to brag or throw a snake on a girl's hat as he is help keep his father's pigs out of trouble or lament his own lack of education.

Lenski does an interesting thing with the beginning of this book. She begins it through the point of view of seven-year-old Essie Slater, leading you to believe that she herself will be the heroine of this tale. As you slowly come to the realization that her father is not the usual wise/good/loving pop found in most 1945 children's books, the text suddenly switches to the point of view of Birdie Boyer and Essie is never heard from again. Lenski's characters aren't as cardboard cut-outish as they first appear either. At the start, the Boyers seem good and the Slaters bad. Then odd occurrences make you begin to doubt this assumption. Mr. Boyer, in an attempt to teach Shoestring Slater a lesson, whips the boy harshly in front of his mother and sisters (who, understandably, are frightened and furious by this violence). Mr. Boyer is also prone to killing his neighbor's pigs if they get in his way, even sometimes cutting off their ears as a sign. He won't even create a path for Slater's cattle herd to reach the nearest water source, instead fencing up the area and getting mad when it's cut down. The Slaters also win your affection at odd moments. Birdie is quick to blame Shoestring for anything he does wrong, but the boy is a good egg in a bad situation. He has to juggle his family's expectations while figuring out for himself what the right and wrong actions he should take really are.

A lot of this book is enjoyable partly because it goes the "Little House On the Prairie" route and explains the day-to-day goings on of the Boyers' lives in interesting ways. In what other children's book will you learn exactly how to grind sugar cane and pull it for fun afterwards? Or the ins and outs of raising strawberries in naturally sandy soil? What other book explains the intricacies of Florida weather in the spring and summer? Or tells you how to create roses out of paraffin? Part of the charm of "Strawberry Girl" is in describing how the old Florida pioneers did it. Less impressive are Lenski's pictures. It was with a heavy heart that I discovered that Lenski considered herself an artist first and a novelist second. That's too bad because the illustrations in this tale are particularly poor. I just couldn't like 'em and I suspect they'll easily deter many a prospective boy reader with their girlyness.

For a surprisingly dour and sharpely written novel about roughing it, definitely try "Strawberry Girl". You might find that the ending suffers from being a little too pat (there's a happy finish there that jars with the realism of the rest of the text) but all in all it's still a very interesting read. For a good Florida based kid's book, both this and Carl Hiaasen's, "Hoot" are excellent choices. A sobering but enjoyable tale.

107 of 125 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars questionable for 3rd and 4th graders January 7, 2000

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

Strawberry Girl seems innocent enough on the surface -- a book about a little girl and her family moving to a new house, planting new crops, and their hardships. However, the book has a strong overtone of fighting and feuding. The neighbors argue through the entire book. This book reminds me of "The Hatfields & the McCoys" for kids. The neighbors are constantly trying to "seek revenge" and "get even" with each other. Maybe I am just conservative, but I thought the book crossed the line a little for young children when the neighbors started killing one another's animals to seek revenge. I know this book was written in the 1940's and won the prestigious Newbery Medal, but not all books are timeless... some of them show their age and I think Strawberry Girl definitely shows its age with a plot that some parents and teachers might find questionable. There is a good "moral lesson" during the last two chapters, but still you will have to explain to your children why the neighbors killed one another's animals and why it is not right to do so and to seek revenge.
Another questionable act in the book is the drunkenness of the neighbor. He throws all of the families money away on alcohol and gambling. He loses his temper with his wife and his children, and he shoots the heads off of chickens one by one with a shotgun when he is drunk. Again, this one might be hard to swallow (no pun intended) with 3rd graders. The two older boys of this drunken man beat up the schoolteacher so badly that school has to be cancelled for weeks.
Another aspect of Strawberry Girl that makes it questionable is the language Lenski uses throughout the book. She uses an extreme southern (almost hillbilly-type) accent with each character in the book. After awhile it becomes tedious and difficult to read. I think it would be all right for 5th graders and advanced 4th graders. However, as a teacher of 3rd grade, I would have to say that most 8 and 9 year olds would find the language too difficult. It is challenging enough for readers this age to get through chapter books and to encounter so many new vocabulary words, but to have to deal with "I takened lessons way back in Caroliny when I was a young un and I ain't forgot yet. Hit makes me plumb happy to put my fingers on an organ again", may be just a little much for a 3rd grader.

My advice is to use this book as a read-aloud. You can read it to your children or your students. This will allow you to pronounce all of the southern dialog and you can explain as you go that there are better ways to solve differences then killing the neighbor's animals and so forth.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Strawberry Girl May 24, 2008

By Meg F.

Format:Paperback

I read "Strawberry Girl" when I was in 2nd grade and found it to be both compelling and disturbing. All of the characters, from the main protagonist, Birdie Sawyer, to the minor characters, exhibited complex emotions and thoughts, which I related to. For instance, Shoestring Slater's ambiguous existence: he felt extreme loyalty to his family and his father, even as he was filled with shame and embarrassment about his father's behavior. Birdie tended to be, at turns, resentful towards and understanding of the Slater's. When her strawberry plants were initially trampled by the Slater's cows, she was enraged and very judgmental. A short time later, when she realized that Shoestring, his mother and sisters had to return all of their new purchases because Mr. Slater squandered away the money he'd earned from selling an animal, she was extremely saddened and felt tremendous sympathy for the family.

Why is Strawberry Girl so readable? It's a simple story of the belief in hard work, the idea that all actions have consequences, and that all of us possess a degree of good and evil traits. At the story's turning point, Sam Slater finds God (with the help of the gluttonous preacher) stops drinking alcohol and is saved, thereby positively changing the lives of his entire family. It's a story of hope- even in harsh realities; sometimes people are rewarded, despite exhibiting a lack of hard work or honesty. Amidst all of this turmoil, both families were still able to behave "neighborly" towards one another. Did the families exhibit forgiveness and acceptance, or hypocrisy? That's for the reader to decide. Nonetheless, Lois Lensky offered up a picture of pioneer life in our nation that was uniquely brutal in its honesty and also comfortingly familiar.

This book is one of the few early childhood books I never forgot. In recent times, the category of 'children's books' has gone from being beneficial to being insulting. With the "dumbing down" of language and plot and the popularity of abridged versions of classic stories, the average child is being cheated out of a strong literary foundation. A story that challenges our children will only motivate thoughtful reflection, spark imagination, improve vocabulary and best of all, inculcate a love of reading that will help in every major area of their lives.