The Yearling

Rating:
Summary: The Most Boring Book EVER! DO NOT READ IT!!!
Review: I had to read this book in my class and I felt like I was being tortured. I usually enjoy reading, but my goodness this book was sooooooooooo boring!! It was so hard to understand because it was way way too descriptive. The teacher made us take a test on the book after we finished it, and I totally, completely FAILED!!!

Rating:
Summary: More to the story than just a deer
Review: I grew up on books that told stories of rural children who found kinship with nature and the animals within it. However, for some reason, I never read The Yearling until I was in my 20s. I am sorry that I waited so long. This book enveloped me to the point where I almost became part of the story. Maybe that is because I grew up rural, and found my happiness and contentment among nature, like Jody and his father do. Jody's father is a very admirable character. He struggled through terrible adversity while growing up, yet is a very caring and soft-spoken father to his only child. He wants to give Jody an enjoyable childhood because he never had one. That is the basic premise of this book. A young boy making the bumpy transition between childhood and adulthood. He wants both, but in the end, must choose. Even before reading the book, you know that the boy will have a pet deer, but that doesn't enter the story until at least halfway through the book. And I feel that is only a small part of the main plot. There is much more to reflect upon than just the boy-deer friendship. One final note: Another fun part of this book is locating on a map all of the landmarks in Central Florida mentioned in the story. That makes the story seem even more real. The Florida in this book is much different than the Florida of today though.

Rating:
Summary: Boring Alert- Use Extreme Caution
Review: My English teacher made us read the Yearling. Our school didn't have enough teachers who wanted to read the books, so we got stuck with books from 1963. It is the most BORING book ever! Since there were not enough copies for everyone to have, we had to read it outloud. It took us 3 months to finish all 427 Boring pages. If you do not like boring books, I definetly DO NOT recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliantly written & just as brilliantly edited
Review: Majorie Kinnan Rawlings had a great deal of talent, and did a *lot* of research for this book that takes place in 1871-1872. She also was blessed with the most brilliant of editors, Max Perkins, who was an editor for 20th century literary giants like Fitzgerald and Hemingway. It was Perkins who kept Rawlings on track with her novel, reminding her that the novel should not be just written 'for a boy' but also 'about a boy'. He was the one who pointed out to her that her writing genius lay in stringing together episodes rather than hatching out intricate plots. In addition, it was Perkins who reminded Rawlings that the setting was full of tough times and tough people & she should avoid the theatricality and romanticism that sometimes crept into the novel and really strive to emphasize, even increase the naturalism. Finally, Perkins remained dissatisfied with Rawlings' early title: The Fawn. He suggested that she find a more symbolic title. When she came up with titles like The Flutter-Mill or Juniper Island, he held her to her task, saying that there was not enough human suggestion. When she sent him a list including the eventual title, Perkins was satisfied that this was the right one. Shortly after that, Rawlings decided what she'd written was inferior & threw it out. Perkins prodded her to get going again. This book IS a classic, Rawlings WAS talented, unbelievably so, but neither would be as true if it were not for the dedicated brilliance of Max Perkins. Read THE YEARLING & also the excellent biography of Perkins by A. Scott Berg.

Rating:
Summary: Sun's view of the Yearling
Review: Definately a very descriptive and touching old yeller kind of book. It's about this hillbilly boy who lives with his redneck parents and neighbors in florida. 41 percent (yes i have calculated) passes before the story acctually gets to the point and he finds the fawn whos mother his dad killed to use the liver for a snakebite. This was possibly the most boring book i have ever read. Luckily i was blessed with patience and it was required. If you can talk like hicks and can't really understand normal english here's a book in your own language. Unless your life consists hunting for bears and deer and planting crops you will never really connect with the story. Average kids dont live in the middle of a marsh eating their bear jerky. The characters are confusing since at first i though his dad was a girl (his name is penny)and details about both of them are often confusing. This book is also repetative mostly talking about hunting and him playing with his fawn. I'm not a disrespectful person and i think that the author has talent that not many can reproduce. Also this story did tell of family values and a boy's journey growing up. But i really dont recomend this book unless you have time to go though and understand the whole thing.
C.S. age 12

Rating:
Summary: Best book ever
Review: I'm 11 years old and I just finished reading the Yearling, with tears in my eyes. Sure, it's got some sad parts, and also adventure, action, and love between a yearling and a boy. This would be your favorite book if you read it. So, on a "different" scale of 1-5 stars, I would give it 7.

Rating:
Summary: Snore-Ling
Review: I am only 12 years old but, hey, if I thought this book was boring, you should listen to me. Unless you enjoy listening to other people's boring lives, this book is not for you. Jody, a young kid living with his Ma and Pa, is lazy and hates doing his chores because he gets easily distracted. Eventually, Penny, his father gets bitten by a snake and kills a mother doe to use the liver to suck out the venom. Jody learns that the fawn is still alive and oddly wants it as a pet. He names it Flag and gets even more distracted from his work with Flag around. This goes on until Flag ruins the corns crops and dies. If you really were attached to this fawn, of course you would be sad, but Jody just easily blows it off, like it is nothing. Parts of this book were good, but many few. Jody could have been a stronger character and Penny was probably the smartest out of all of them. Of course, not very many people in Florida at that time were not very educated, (especially with that crazy accent). Ok, that is about it.

Rating:
Summary: The Bore-ling
Review: I remember when I was in junior high-school I had this 'liberal-minded' teacher named Mr. Lovelace who made my class read this long book. Talk about torture! I remember going home and reading page after boring page of this boy and this deer and the farmlife on the meadow, etc. My teacher made us read this and made us write daily papers on it, and I remember how utterly weak this story was and how hard it was for me to write anything about it that I liked. ...
But now it makes more sense to me why he made his entire 6th grade class read this book: 'The Yearling' reflected his twisted views on life and morality. In 'The Yearling', after the boy befriends a deer, he slaughters it for some convoluted moral reason to save his father. This book is like all those lame LA TV dramas that focus on and almost glorify dysfunctional families and tweaked social problems- it is like that because it insists on focusing on a plot which starts out 'normal' and decent, then ends up morally twisted and tweaked. Worse, it takes place on a backwater farm and is just plain long and boring. I could care less about this little boy petting his deer in the golden meadow of banal town, USA, only to succumb to some lame and twisted idea that by slaughtering his new found animal friend his poor sick papa will live. ...

Rating:
Summary: A great book for people of all ages
Review: This book is a great book for anyone. It inspires people to know what it's like to live a life as a farmer like Jody. It also teaches us how to bond with pets and people. I really enjoyed reading this book. It made me feel like I was Jody and that I was going through everything that he went through. I really enjoyed reading this book and think that everyone should at least once in their lifetime.

Rating:
Summary: Good book
Review: Well, this book was very good. It has an unusual ending and I did it for my ELA class. It describes the relationship between a boy and his pet, but it also describes a boy's passage into childhood. Good for animal lovers, but it has a sad ending. The book's southern accent is slightly difficult to understand. Nevertheless, I would definitely say you ordered it as it combines nature, animals and humanity.