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The Whistling Season


by Ivan Doig

List Price: $14.00
6 New starting at: $10.87
11 Used starting at: $7.75
Sales Rank: 289415
Studio: Harvest Books
Binding: Paperback
Number Of Pages: 352
Publication Date: May 07, 2007
Publisher: Harvest Books


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EDITORIAL REVIEWS

Product Description
"Can’t cook but doesn’t bite." So begins the ad offering the services of an "A-1 housekeeper" that draws the attention of widower Oliver Milliron in the fall of 1909. And so also begins the unforgettable season that deposits the noncooking, nonbiting, ever-whistling Rose Llewellyn and her font-of-knowledge brother, Morris Morgan, in Marias Coulee, Montana. When the schoolmarm runs off with an itinerant preacher, Morris is pressed into service, setting the stage for the "several kinds of education"—none of them of the textbook variety—Morris and Rose will bring to Oliver, his three sons, and the rambunctious students in the region’s one-room schoolhouse.



A paean to a vanished way of life and the eccentric individuals and idiosyncratic institutions that made it fertile, The Whistling Season is Ivan Doig at his evocative best.

 
 


CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 53 reviews)

Highly recommend this book  
What a wonderful book. Doig knows his subject and characters so well that one feels as if it has to be an autobiography, which it isn't.
The writing itself is also excellent. I highly recommend this book, set in the days of the Montana one room schoolhouse. This intelligent novel,the endearing Milliron family of Motherless boys,and the indefatigable school teacher, Morrie, all come together to make this a book you hate to see come to an end.
July 13, 2008

Read this Book!  
Ivan Doig must be the Midwest's answer to Stegner...well written, engaging, great characters that reveal just enough (unlike our People Mag oriented society). One of those books I am so glad to have read and will recommend. Also enjoyed the historical perspective of the United States at that time of one room school houses, etc.
July 12, 2008

A season of The Waltons?  
A good read. Not spectacular.

The point of view, time period, certain situations reminded me of The Waltons. Not a bad thing, but that's what came to mind.
July 08, 2008

Well worth reading  
This book is told from the perspective of Paul as an adult, looking back on his youth growing up in Marias Coulee and attending a one-room schoolhouse. The plot ambles along, rather than charges, but the characters come to life and the story is well written. If you're a person who appreciates a well-worded and clever phrase, you will love this book because it's chock full of them. This book felt like an antidote to the crazy, overbooked, super-speed pace of my life.
May 24, 2008

Great Reading Group Book!  
Our PAGES (Prose-Adoring Girls' Enlightenment Society) Reading Group read and discussed The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig. We absolutely recommend it to book clubs for a very delightful read and a lively, interesting discussion about life in the early 20th century West, one-room school education, and the details of the book, itself. We rate this book 4.5 stars.

A couple of things that may not have come out in the published discussion questions and elsewhere in these reviews:

Did you notice the possible similarities in the two brothers, Paul and Damon, and in Morrie and Casper?

Also, we all felt rather melancholy at the end of this book about the loss of that way of life and the one-room school education. In searching the internet we found that, at the time of the setting of this book, there were about 250,000 one-room schools in the United States. Today, there are fewer than 400. But, the fact that there are some left helped to lift our spirits. Maybe we'll have a reading group outing and go visit a few!
May 24, 2008


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