Little Heathens

I just finished reading Mildred Kalish's book about growing up in Iowa during the depression called Little Heathens. Although I am not of that generation, the book did remind me of so many things from my own childhood. I can certainly relate to Mildred's experiences of butchering chickens! As the youngest kid in the family, my job was cleaning the gravel out of the chickens' gizzards. Actually, it could be sort of a game scattering all those little rocks, if you didn't think about the reality of what you were doing!

Mildred has captured the essence of farm life--from her descriptions to watching kittens play, to the hard work that everyone expected from all members of the family, and the "old folks" reaction to the kids' antics. In my family, rather than little heathens, we kids were often referred to (non-politically correct today) as acting like a bunch of "wild Indidans!'

If you have any connection to Iowa, farm life, or just wish to understand the heroism of the folks that lived through the depression, take time to read Mildred's book. I am thrilled to report that Mildred has agreed to visit Des Moines as part of our 2009 AViD Author Series on April 8!