FISHING FOR CHICKENS: Short Stories About Rural Youth

In his introduction, Heynen states: "I may not know everything about growing up rural, but I know rural folks have scars." This anthology of 17 stories set in country landscapes depicts not only physical scars but also injured or hardened spirits. Tim, the 12-year-old star of Jon Volkmer's "The Elevator Man," works on a grain elevator with deadly milo dust every day, while his mother lies in a hospital dying of cancer. The female narrator of "Burn Pile" by Nancy K. Brown helps her family incinerate the wreckage from a windstorm, but she allows the fire to get out of hand while tending a baby bird. Some of the most heartwrenching selections focus on relationships between protagonists and animals. In Vicky Wick's "I Have the Serpent Brought," a girl's dream of making pets out of a pair of fox cubs is dashed when her father decides that the animals are a potential threat to his chickens and shoots them. Similarly, in Wallace Stegner's "The Colt," a boy's desire to nurse a maimed colt back to health comes to a disastrous end when its wounds do not heal. While tragedies permeate the volume, there are also moments of celebration and growth as children become strengthened by the hardships they face. Readers who have experienced farm life first hand will best relate to the characters, but all will be touched by the cast's internal and external struggles. Ages 12-up. (July)