Jennifer Heise's Reviews > Prairie Summer

Ten year old Rachel is the youngest of three sisters on her family's farm in the midwest in the 1950s. Like her sisters, she is expected to keep up with chores, drive tractors, help herd recalcitrant cattle. But she often is afraid of the cattle or can't keep up. This really, really, bugs her dad, who comes down hard on her for her failings. But when push comes to shove, can Rachel come through in a family crisis, and if she does, will her dad notice?

First of all, this is historically solid (I was doing most of the same things at 10 on a farm in NY state in the 1970s), and the work and the struggles to do the work well Rachel experiences are well-portrayed.
However, the whole thing with her dad really bugs me, especially since there's no explanation of why he behaves this way (view spoiler)[and when he admits she did a big thing and he's proud of her, it's only behind her back (hide spoiler)]. So, yeah, zero points for that. But a good depiction of how girl kids before the liberation era still helped on their families' mid 20th century farms, so points for that.

It gave me nostalgia of the bittersweet kind. I'd give it to my mom to read but then she'd get all apologetic about what we were expected to do on the farm when I was a kid.