Customer Reviews

Strawberry Girl

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

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.

I liked this Newbery-Award winning book because it's creative and has old-Fashion English. I think Birdie is a neat character becuase she has breath taking adventures like when there is a forest fire and her sister is in her fort inside a tree. Also, I think it is sort of weird how people acted back then, it's just like now - people drink and bad things happen. If I lived in Birdie's time I think I would have a hard time because back then everyone had a hard time getting and earning money. In this book it is exactly the same. All together I think this book is really good and I would recommend it to people who like to read suspenseful books and who like to read about older times

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.

Strawberry Girl is a great book written and illustrated by Lois Lenski. I think that, because every time I started to read it, I couldn't stop reading! Although there are some parts that has violence,it was still very good. I really recommend this book to children ten and up, due to the violence. Strawberry Girl takes oplace in Florida in about the 1900's. It is about a seven member family, and the neighbors. After about a month of settling, the trouble starts, the neighbors get mad, because Birdies dad puts some fences around the fields so that way, Slater's cattle doesn't go into the property. The vegetation, strawberry fields, and cattle are growing very well, Mr. Slater also gets mad, and jealous. Birdie was very helpful in every way, from watering the strawberry fields, to caring for her small sibilings. I like the end a lot, because both families become very good friends. Also people started to call Birdie, Strawberry Girl, because of selling, watering, and arranging the strawberry fields. The rest of the fun is for me to know and for you to find out!

When I was a child, Lois Lenski was one of my favorite authors. I read Strawberry Girl when I was around 7, and I loved it. I think it introduced me to a rural poverty that was otherwise out of my experience, and left me with a sense of empathy for people whose lives were very different from my own. Nearly 40 years later, I still remember it.

Set in the Florida backwoods of the early 1900's this story is one of several books by Lois Lenski with a specific regional flavor. This author deliberately chose various rural areas of the country in which to live, get to know the people about whom she was writing, make accurate sketches of the objects she found there, and perform detailed research of recent past events. Featuring the dirt poor "Crackers" STRAWBERRY GIRL introduces mainstream American kids to such issues as: the struggle for economic survival, the Importance of being a good neighbor;
and the rural controversy of Fences versus Open Range.

Many sections of nothern Florida were just emerging from frontier status; it was an era when illiterate and embittered men
callously made their own law by indulging in a rampage of selfish spite and anti social behavior. Trouble between the newcomers from Caroliny and the embedded Slaters brews into a life-threatening feud. The kind Boyer family moves into an old house in the piney woods; Birdie's generous parents show courtesy, hospitality and charity to all, as they try to grow strawberries and make a decent home for their children and an honest living from the untamed land and forest. But the Slaters have earned a reputation for lawlessness; Pa encourages his older sons to be vicious and ultimately vows to drive out the newcomers--one way or another! We pity poor, boastful Shoestring--a youth caught between opposing life styles. Birdie wants to be his friend, but she she often winds up hating him.

This story is written in local dialect, but readers will quickly get the hang of the slang. Ms Lenski's B/W illustrations enhance our understanding of the primitive conditions under which her characters operate. Since parents should model family values and peaceful methods of conflict resolution, Pa Slater's brood proves how white trash self perpetuates. Will anything ever cause a change of heart in that scumbag father/miserable husband? Will the country ever be rid of his menace and legacy of revenge? Based on many actual incidents, STRAWBERRY GIRL reads easily and will capture the interest of most elementary children. An excellent springboard for classroom discussion about the dilemma of solving personal problems when there is no legal recourse.

This is a wonderful tale of life in rural Florida in the 1940s. It is the story of "Birdie" and her family after they move to a new home and start a farm.

The book gives a very interesting historical perspective. The plot is riveting and held my children's attention. I also found it entertaining, which is a plus.

Another reviewer mentioned the dialect used in the book - it does take some getting used to [even for myself, a born and bred southern gal :) ]. It is very distinctive of that time period and that particular locale, but once you get used to it, the book becomes much easier to read. The dialect is only used in the dialog, so the rest of the book is written in "plain english".

Parents should be aware however that there are scenes in this book that may be upsetting to younger or more sensitive older children. Birdie's neighbors "feud" with them from the moment they move in, and the father of the neighbor family is a mean drunk who does not take care of his family. He does some horrible things [and Birdie's father does some less than wise things as well]. In one scene, the family's mule is poisoned by the neighbor man. In another scene, he tries to burn their house down. There is also a scene where a boy tries to feed a live rabbit to a rattle snake [the rabbit is rescued in the end] - this could also upset the animal lovers in your home.

Why do I still recommend this book? Because it is an outstanding moral tale - all the bad things are clearly bad. The bad behaviors are clearly bad and they have very real [and realistic] consequences for everyone involved in this story. My kids [who have, thankfully, never been exposed to drunkenness] learned clearly WHY alcohol, when abused, is such a terrible thing. I think it is a lesson they will carry with them for life - this book led to my children having very clear and interesting discussions amongst themselves about drinking and drug abuse and why being a drunk is such a terrible thing. It gave them great clarity.

In the end, this is a moral tale and a tale of redemption - something the world needs more of in my opinion. Reading this book together was a great experience for my children [and me!].

I love this book very much although they use broken English like ain't,biggety,iffen and many other things. But later on,I got used to it. It is about Birdie and her family who have moved to the Florida backwoods. They settle down in the Roddenburry house which is next to the Slaters family. Sam Slater,the father of 6 children always gets drunk and is always angry.

When Mrs Slater and her children come to Birdie's house for the first time,she thinks Birdie's family is superior to theirs. Birdie is planting strawberries and Mrs. Slater tells the Boyers that the strawberries will die but the Boyers do not listen. Meanwhile,Birdie Boyer gets to know Shoestring,Essie and Zephy. One day, Mr. Boyer,Birdie's dad fences up his land as he doesn't want the Slater's hogs to come into his compound and eat the strawberries. But once,the hogs did come in. Mr. Boyer was so angry that he cut off one of the hog's ears as a warning.

Many other squabbles happen to the Boyers and the Slater. Birdie gets to know Shoestring a lot. They try to make their families peaceable but to no avail. One of the incidents was grass fire. Sam Slater purposely set fire to the grass in order to burn the house down. Birdie asked for their help but Sam Slater,Gus and Joe did not budge. Gus and Joe are Sam's children. Mrs. Slater announced that she will help but the husband ordered her to stay in the house. Luckily Birdie's house was not burned but the schoolhouse was razed down to the ground.

Will Shoestring and Birdie manage to make their families be at peace ?

Strawberry Girl is a good book. I enjoyed it because of all the characters and excitment. The characters gave me a good idea of life a long time ago. I don't think I would have liked to lived in those times. Birdie Boyer worked very hard trying to be a strawberry girl. She had lots of chores to do each day plus go to school. The family worked hard too, things changed for the family when the Slaters came to visit. Birdie knew the Slaters would cause trouble for her family. The family pulled together and things turned out fine.