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The Milkman's Boy
Tells the story of the Graves Family Dairy, whose three horses pulled the wagons delivering milk to families in the years before trucks and shopping centers replaced them.
32 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1997
27 people want to read
About the author
Donald Hall
181 books201 followersDonald Hall was considered one of the major American poets of his generation.
His poetry explores the longing for a more bucolic past and reflects the poet’s abiding reverence for nature. Although Hall gained early success with his first collection, Exiles and Marriages (1955), his later poetry is generally regarded as the best of his career. Often compared favorably with such writers as James Dickey, Robert Bly, and James Wright, Hall used simple, direct language to evoke surrealistic imagery. In addition to his poetry, Hall built a respected body of prose that includes essays, short fiction, plays, and children’s books. Hall, who lived on the New Hampshire farm he visited in summers as a boy, was also noted for the anthologies he has edited and is a popular teacher, speaker, and reader of his own poems.
Born in 1928, Hall grew up in Hamden, Connecticut. The Hall household was marked by a volatile father and a mother who was “steadier, maybe with more access to depths because there was less continual surface,” as Hall explained in an essay for Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series (CAAS). “To her I owe my fires, to my father my tears. I owe them both for their reading.” By age twelve, Hall had discovered the poet and short story writer Edgar Allan Poe: “I read Poe and my life changed,” he remarked in CAAS. Another strong influence in Hall’s early years was his maternal great-grandfather’s farm in New Hampshire, where he spent many summers. Decades later, he bought the same farm and settled there as a full-time writer and poet.
Hall attended Philips Exeter Academy and had his first poem published at age 16. He was a participant at the prestigious Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, where he met Robert Frost, that same year. From Exeter, Hall went to Harvard University, attending class alongside Adrienne Rich, Robert Bly, Frank O’Hara, and John Ashbery; he also studied for a year with Archibald MacLeish. Hall earned a BLitt from Oxford University and won the Newdigate contest for his poem “Exile,” one of the few Americans ever to win the prize. Returning to the United States, Hall spent a year at Stanford, studying under the poet-critic Yvor Winters, before returning to Harvard to join the prestigious Society of Fellows. It was there that Hall assembled Exiles and Marriages, a tightly-structured collection crafted in rigid rhyme and meter. In 1953, Hall also became the poetry editor of the Paris Review, a position he held until 1961. In 1957 he took a position as assistant professor of English at the University of Michigan, where he remained until 1975. While at Michigan, Hall met the young Jane Kenyon. They later married and, when Hall’s grandmother, who owned Eagle Pond Farm, passed away, bought the farm, left teaching, and moved there together. The collections Kicking the Leaves (1978) and The Happy Man (1986) reflect Hall’s happiness at his return to the family farm, a place rich with memories and links to his past. Many of the poems explore and celebrate the continuity between generations. The Happy Man won the Lenore Marshall/Nation Prize. Hall’s next book, The One Day (1988), won the National Book Critics Circle Award. A long poem that meditates on the on-set of old age, The One Day, like much of Hall’s early work, takes shape under formal pressure: composed of 110 stanzas, split over three sections, its final sections are written in blank verse. The critic Frederick Pollack praised the book as possibly “the last masterpiece of American Modernism. Any poet who seeks to surpass this genre should study it; any reader who has lost interest in contemporary poetry should read it.” Old and New Poems (1990) contains several traditional poems from earlier collections, as well as more innovative verses not previously published. “Baseball,” included in The Museum of Clear Ideas (1993), is the poet’s ode to the great American pastime and is structured around t
His poetry explores the longing for a more bucolic past and reflects the poet’s abiding reverence for nature. Although Hall gained early success with his first collection, Exiles and Marriages (1955), his later poetry is generally regarded as the best of his career. Often compared favorably with such writers as James Dickey, Robert Bly, and James Wright, Hall used simple, direct language to evoke surrealistic imagery. In addition to his poetry, Hall built a respected body of prose that includes essays, short fiction, plays, and children’s books. Hall, who lived on the New Hampshire farm he visited in summers as a boy, was also noted for the anthologies he has edited and is a popular teacher, speaker, and reader of his own poems.
Born in 1928, Hall grew up in Hamden, Connecticut. The Hall household was marked by a volatile father and a mother who was “steadier, maybe with more access to depths because there was less continual surface,” as Hall explained in an essay for Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series (CAAS). “To her I owe my fires, to my father my tears. I owe them both for their reading.” By age twelve, Hall had discovered the poet and short story writer Edgar Allan Poe: “I read Poe and my life changed,” he remarked in CAAS. Another strong influence in Hall’s early years was his maternal great-grandfather’s farm in New Hampshire, where he spent many summers. Decades later, he bought the same farm and settled there as a full-time writer and poet.
Hall attended Philips Exeter Academy and had his first poem published at age 16. He was a participant at the prestigious Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, where he met Robert Frost, that same year. From Exeter, Hall went to Harvard University, attending class alongside Adrienne Rich, Robert Bly, Frank O’Hara, and John Ashbery; he also studied for a year with Archibald MacLeish. Hall earned a BLitt from Oxford University and won the Newdigate contest for his poem “Exile,” one of the few Americans ever to win the prize. Returning to the United States, Hall spent a year at Stanford, studying under the poet-critic Yvor Winters, before returning to Harvard to join the prestigious Society of Fellows. It was there that Hall assembled Exiles and Marriages, a tightly-structured collection crafted in rigid rhyme and meter. In 1953, Hall also became the poetry editor of the Paris Review, a position he held until 1961. In 1957 he took a position as assistant professor of English at the University of Michigan, where he remained until 1975. While at Michigan, Hall met the young Jane Kenyon. They later married and, when Hall’s grandmother, who owned Eagle Pond Farm, passed away, bought the farm, left teaching, and moved there together. The collections Kicking the Leaves (1978) and The Happy Man (1986) reflect Hall’s happiness at his return to the family farm, a place rich with memories and links to his past. Many of the poems explore and celebrate the continuity between generations. The Happy Man won the Lenore Marshall/Nation Prize. Hall’s next book, The One Day (1988), won the National Book Critics Circle Award. A long poem that meditates on the on-set of old age, The One Day, like much of Hall’s early work, takes shape under formal pressure: composed of 110 stanzas, split over three sections, its final sections are written in blank verse. The critic Frederick Pollack praised the book as possibly “the last masterpiece of American Modernism. Any poet who seeks to surpass this genre should study it; any reader who has lost interest in contemporary poetry should read it.” Old and New Poems (1990) contains several traditional poems from earlier collections, as well as more innovative verses not previously published. “Baseball,” included in The Museum of Clear Ideas (1993), is the poet’s ode to the great American pastime and is structured around t
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
April 25, 2022
I liked it. It’s less of a story with a single point and more of a caricature of various elements and incidents of working on a dairy farm. And then just ends abruptly; at least I thought so.
Told in story form, you’ll learn small facts about milk delivery, undulated fever, pasteurization, and more. And all borrowing from the author’s family history.
Shed’s golden illustrations capture the turn of the century beautifully.
Ages: 4 - 12
Told in story form, you’ll learn small facts about milk delivery, undulated fever, pasteurization, and more. And all borrowing from the author’s family history.
Shed’s golden illustrations capture the turn of the century beautifully.
Ages: 4 - 12
May 26, 2025
The Milkman's Boy follows the story of a family dairy. They received milk from local farmers, bottled it in the mornings, closing the bottles with paper lids, then delivering the milk by horse and cart chopping ice chunks from the blocks gathered and stored from the winter to keep it cool during the summer months. Eventually the town grows, and a rival dairy starts up and then converts to using a pasteurizing machine. The father is resistant to modernization and change, but his boys knew they would have to eventually. Farms closed as the town grows, and they had to travel further to find farms from which to get milk. And so it goes...
In the author's note at the end, he talks about how this is based on his own family's dairy business that ran for decades before grocery stores took over. Today, about 1% of people's milk is home delivered, which number represents a lot more as years go by.
In the author's note at the end, he talks about how this is based on his own family's dairy business that ran for decades before grocery stores took over. Today, about 1% of people's milk is home delivered, which number represents a lot more as years go by.
May 26, 2025
The Milkman's Boy follows the story of a family dairy. They received milk from local farmers, bottled it in the mornings, closing the bottles with paper lids, then delivering the milk by horse and cart chopping ice chunks from the blocks gathered and stored from the winter to keep it cool during the summer months. Eventually the town grows, and a rival dairy starts up and then converts to using a pasteurizing machine. The father is resistant to modernization and change, but his boys knew they would have to eventually. Farms closed as the town grows, and they had to travel further to find farms from which to get milk. And so it goes...
In the author's note at the end, he talks about how this is based on his own family's dairy business that ran for decades before grocery stores took over. Today, about 1% of people's milk is home delivered, which number represents a lot more as years go by.
In the author's note at the end, he talks about how this is based on his own family's dairy business that ran for decades before grocery stores took over. Today, about 1% of people's milk is home delivered, which number represents a lot more as years go by.
January 8, 2022
3.5. Although fictional story, this is very educational on historic milk delivery. I loved the autobiographical connection detailed in the back of the story. Illustrations were beautiful. At times the story was a little fragmented for me.
January 25, 2022
A fictionalized version of the author’s family’s legacy as dairy distributors in the early 1900s. Gorgeous illustrations and wonderful story about the good old days of milk delivered to ones stoop. Neat-o!!!
June 16, 2020
3-4 stars
December 15, 2021
A short story about the Graves's family milk business. Hall's prose make you want to live in those simpler times, even though many modern-day comforts were with missing or non-existent.
May 22, 2022
Told the story of how milk was done and why we do it nowadays. Excellent pictures
March 7, 2024
A good story for the littles showing how things change in our lives, and how that becomes history.
September 19, 2016
When I read this book for my cross cultural literature class, the topic was family stories. This book definitely fits the theme, as it is a story of a family owned dairy, back when horses pulled milk wagons and milk was delivered in glass bottles to front doorsteps (early 1900s). Part of the story is a coming of age tale, where the youngest boy in the family dreams of some day being able to help deliver milk. Another aspect of the story is the father trying to keep it a family run dairy despite pressures to take on more workers and customers. Eventually, the family caves on getting a pasteurizing machine for the dairy because it seems like a good choice, and Paul, the youngest boy, does eventually get to help deliver milk. It is a heartfelt and touching story. I also learned a lot about how diaries used to work, because for me, milk has always been something bought at a store, not delivered. Overall, I thought it was a really well-written and engaging story, and it also taught me a thing or too. I also thought the illustrations were fantastic and really added to the story.
March 21, 2016
What I love about Donald Hall's poetry, memoirs, and especially his children's books is that they are so grounded in his experience and his New England family history spanning several generations. Hall's paternal great-grandfather started a milk delivery business, in his older years, sometime after the Civil War. His grandfather continued the business, and his father began delivering milk at the age of fourteen, during vacations, and later, during summers between his spring and fall college semesters. Donald Hall also worked on a milk route as a teenager. Much of Hall's writing is about a world and way of life that has largely vanished.
June 26, 2008
A book set in the past that deals with a subject I never thought to read about before. A simple way to teach children about how people used to get their milk over 100 years ago. I loved the illustrations.
May 2, 2012
Reading Rainbow: The Milk Makers
Pretty heavy on dramatic illnesses and dry details - but a beautifully illustrated insight into the past nontheless.
Pretty heavy on dramatic illnesses and dry details - but a beautifully illustrated insight into the past nontheless.
July 26, 2013
Notes:
gorgeous illustrations
not the most cohesive story
being raw milk fans it isn't a book we'll re-read
gorgeous illustrations
not the most cohesive story
being raw milk fans it isn't a book we'll re-read
October 5, 2014
Recently added this one to a social studies unit on changes over time. Great discussion on how people got milk daily and WHY things have changed, especially inventions, technology, and population.
February 18, 2020
My son had no ideas that this is how milk was produced and delivered.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews