Fishing for Chickens: Short Stories about Rural Youth

Marc Notes: A Karen and Michael Braziller book;16 writers, both established & new, take us to the backwoods, farmlands, mountains & coastal regions of the US -- and into the lives of young people who are growing up there. Publisher Marketing: Sixteen poignant short stories portray the special experience of growing up in rural America. In this unique collection, sixteen writers, both established and new, take us to the backwoods, farmlands, mountains, and coastal regions of the USand into the lives of young people who are growing up there. Neither sentimental nor nostalgic, their richly plotted and poignant stories dispel the myth of the country idyll to reveal the tough realities of a rural childhood, as well as its rewards. In Rebecca Rule's "Walking the Trapline," a routine trek with her father and brother into the frigid New England woods becomes a test of survival for a young girl. "Sugar Among the Chickens" by Lewis Nordan, a comic tale, features a bored farm boy in Mississippi intent on catching a big rooster with a baited fishing line. When a flock of geese escapes the hunters' guns in North Carolinian writer Tony Earley's "Aliceville," a boy's disappointment is replaced by wonder as he realizes that their breathtaking passage overhead "made our world less small." The authors included are Pinckney Benedict, Nancy Brown, Nora Dauenhauer, Tony Earley, Eric Gansworth, Jim Heynen, Lewis Nordan, Tomas Rivera, Rebecca Rule, Wallace Stegner, Kathleen Tyau, Alma Villanueva, Jon Volkmer, Alice Walker, Vicky Wicks, and Hisaye Yamamoto. Whether rural native or lifelong urban dweller, every reader will come away from this collection with a deeper appreciation of the influence of place upon individual growth and of the special qualities of a country upbringing. Review Citations: Booklist 09/15/2001 pg. 215 (EAN 9780892552658, Paperback) School Library Journal 10/01/2001 pg. 160 (EAN 9780892552658, Paperback) Multicultural Review 03/01/2002 pg. 109 (EAN 9780892552658, Paperback) Hornbook Guide to Children 07/01/2001 pg. 170 (EAN 9780892552658, Paperback) Hornbook Guide to Children 01/01/2002 pg. 170 (EAN 9780892552658, Paperback) Publishers Weekly 07/16/2001 pg. 182 (EAN 9780892552641, Hardcover) Booklist 09/15/2001 pg. 215 (EAN 9780892552641, Hardcover) School Library Journal 10/01/2001 pg. 160 (EAN 9780892552641, Hardcover) Hornbook Guide to Children 07/01/2001 pg. 170 (EAN 9780892552641, Hardcover) Hornbook Guide to Children 01/01/2002 pg. 170 (EAN 9780892552641, Hardcover) Contributor Bio:  Heynen, Jim Jim Heynen teaches at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. He is the author of six previous collections of poetry, as well as the novels Being Youngest and Cosmos Coyote. His book of tales, The One-Room Schoolhouse, earned him a wide and loyal audience, including the praise of astronaut George Pinky Nelson, who took Heynen's stories about the boys into space with him on his last shuttle mission.