Talking About Books

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Comment by freida golden on November 9, 2009 at 8:38am

Having grown up in the time Sputnik, and now working with rural schools I can understand some of that emotion Milliron must have felt as he had to close what were probably effective one-room schoolhouses. Sadly, reading the review I was reminded of NCLB. Thanks for suggesting this book. I will also go buy it today!

Comment by Dorothy Menosky on November 8, 2009 at 11:40pm

Lucky you. It's out in paper now. You're going to want to give it as Christmas gifts.

Comment by Don Zancanella on November 8, 2009 at 11:03pm

Wow, this sounds great. I'll get a copy this week.

Comment by Dorothy Menosky on November 8, 2009 at 9:45pm

Don: Hope this helps a bit. This is just the beginning of the review.
From The Washington Post
Ivan Doig writes about a vanished way of life on the Western plains with the kind of irony-free nostalgia that seems downright courageous in these ironic times. A celebration tinged with sadness, his new novel, The Whistling Season, tells a story twice removed from us: It's the late 1950s, and that little Soviet satellite has startled the United States into an educational panic. Paul Milliron, the narrator, is superintendent of the Montana schools, and he's come to Great Falls to make a sad announcement to the superintendents, teachers and school boards of Montana's 56 counties: In pursuit of greater efficiency and rigor, the state has decided to close all its one-room schoolhouses. "What is being asked, no, demanded of me," Paul laments, "is not only the forced extinction of the little schools. It will also slowly kill those rural neighborhoods, the ones that have struggled from homestead days on to adapt to dryland Montana." As the burden of making that speech weighs on him, Paul remembers his own experience in a one-room school 43 years earlier, and that reverie forms the body of this charming novel.

Comment by Don Zancanella on November 8, 2009 at 8:18pm

No, it's one of only two or three I haven't read. But I understand it has something to do with one-room schools. So can you tell me a little more about that?

Comment by Dorothy Menosky on November 6, 2009 at 9:29pm

I have read Doig's other books, and would recommend them all. Have you read The Whistling Season yet? If so, would you agree that it's a story about education?

Comment by Don Zancanella on November 6, 2009 at 7:59pm

Dorothy, I'm an Ivan Doig fan too. I don't know if you've read his other books, but I highly recommend his memoir, This House of Sky (which was his first book, probably about 20 years ago). Of his novels, I think English Creek is my favorite.

Comment by Dorothy Menosky on November 6, 2009 at 5:43pm

My favorite book for the year is Stockett's The Help. Running second, for now, is The Whistling Season. Every teacher should read this book.

Comment by Nancy Posey on October 19, 2009 at 6:53pm

I also enjoyed Stockett's The Help. Jim, at least she 'fesses up to the Bob Dylan anachronism, admitting she took some poetic license to make her point.

Comment by Joan Lange on October 19, 2009 at 3:03pm

Kathryn Stockett spoke at Nashville's Southern Festival of Books, and she was fascinating. I look forward to reading this with my book club.

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