The Yearling

by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Relive The Wonder Of A Childhood Favorite That Has Been Capturing The Hearts Of Readers For More Than Half A Century.

An instant bestseller when it was released in 1938, this Pulitzer Prize winner has been read and loved by school-age children across the nation for more than fifty years. In this classic story of the Baxter family and their wild, hard, and satisfying life in remote central Florida, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings has written one of the great novels of our times. A rich and varied tale — tender in its understanding of boyhood, crowded with the excitement of the backwoods hunt, with vivid descriptions of the primitive, beautiful hammock country, written with humor and earthy philosophy — The Yearling is a novel for readers of all ages. Its glowing picture of a life refreshingly removed from modern patterns of living is universal in its revelation of simple courageous people and the beliefs they must live by.

This edition, complete with a new introduction by author Ivan Doig, will be cherished for years to come and will make a welcome addition to any booklover's shelf.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Young Adult, Historical Fiction, Animals, Childrens, Coming Of Age

405 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1938

About the author

People know American writer Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings for her novel The Yearling (1938).

This author lived in rural Florida with rural themes and settings. Her best known work, The Yearling, about a boy who adopts an orphaned fawn, won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1939 and was later made into a movie of the same title, The Yearling. The book was written long before the concept of young-adult fiction, but is now commonly included in teen-reading lists.

Reviews

[Diane Barnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

4th reading in March of 2026. I stand by every word and every star I gave this book previously.

I have read this book twice before, once as a child, and again as a young adult. It was presented as the MOD choice on the group "On the Southern Literary Trail" by Tom, so I took the opportunity to start the New Year with a Pulitzer Prize winning novel that I already knew would be a wonderful read. I had forgotten just how great it really was.

The setting is Florida in the 1870's, before concrete and condos and retirees and tourists. Before Disney World and Universal and Gatorland. This was a Florida of wild, lush beauty, wild game aplenty to supplement meager farming, but also bears and wolves and rattlesnakes, and violent storms. The Florida Crackers that Rawlings knew so well were proud, hard-working people that only asked for help from neighbors when there was no other choice, and gave help in turn when it was needed.

The description of this book would have you believe that it's the story of a young boy who adopts a fawn, and while this is true, the real story is the relationship between a boy and his father. It's about the struggle to become a man in a hard world, the difficulty of doing the right thing, or even knowing what the right thing is at times. As Penny tells his son Jody, "Boy, life goes back on you. Life knocks a man down and he gets up and it knocks him down agin. What's he to do then? What's he to do when he gits knocked down? Why, take it for his share and go on."

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings has written a book about the people she lived among and loved, the values they held dear, and the Florida scrub country that she described so beautifully. The dialect in the book is so real it reads like poetry. I found myself reading parts of it aloud just to hear it spoken.

Yes, this book is a classic in more ways than one. The nature writing is unsurpassed, the story is timeless, the characters will stay in your heart forever. We all need this book for the message. Stand up to life, do what needs to be done, but remember to remain a decent human being.

[Julie G · Rating 5 out of 5]

This epic story begins, memorably, in the month of April.

The earth was pale green, the air itself was all but visible, golden with the rain-washed sunlight, and all the trees and grass and bushes glittered, varnished with the rain-drops.

And, just as our young protagonist, Jody Baxter, finds an orphaned fawn and convinces his doting father and stern mother to allow him to raise him as a pet, twin fawns descended upon our neighborhood with their doe mother.

I quite literally read from this book from our deck, over the past couple of months, while these two precious (and sometimes destructive) spotted fawns gamboled and butted about in the background, as though a film crew had shown up and was indulging us with animation.

We experienced spring and summer, almost simultaneously, with Jody Baxter and his family, and just as we started to feel summer succumb to autumn, we shared the Baxter family's winter and the final spring of this story.

And, what a circle it is. It is the proverbial “circle of life,” but it is so much more.

It is, quite possibly, the greatest, most effective story about our intergenerational legacy, or, I suppose I could say, the greatest one not written by John Steinbeck.

This epic story ends, memorably, in the month of April.

A mark was on him. . . so that all his life, when April was a thin green and the flavor of rain was on his tongue, an old wound would throb and a nostalgia would fill him for something he could not quite remember.

In short: 5 billion stars.

[Elevetha · Rating 1 out of 5]

I absolutely hated this book. I'm not even sure that "hate" describes how I feel.

This is based purely on how I felt reading it and not the writing quality, though that was really rather poor as well.

I suppose that most people were supposed to have this reaction:



and then natter on about how amazing this book is. How the "coming of age" story is so poignant and beautiful. How they wept and then fainted from the overwhelming feelings that they had for Jody. And, of course, how they recommended this book to everyone they knew.

But I hated it.

Really the only looks I had as I read were:













My thoughts were that it would have been a FAR better book if what I wanted to happen would have happened. I wanted little Flag to show up on page 1 (instead of 130) and have rabies, thus infecting Jody and his parents. They die and Flag dies on page 2. The end. That would be a five star version of this book.




It probably didn't help that we were supposed to focus on Jody's nonexistent virtues. Like responsibility and respect. He didn't have either of those. He slacked off, never did his chores and when he did, most likely under pain of death. He treated his parents like crap, except when he wanted something. He is an immature brat. And he is lauded for that?

Then he is told to kill Flag because he couldn't keep Flag from destroying the crops. So Jody kills Flag and runs away from home: moping and being, again, immature. He wanders around and finally returns home after realizing that he can't survive without the resources of his parents.

Yeah, he's a great character who really matured.

I did not cry once over this book. Except perhaps for the welling tears of self-pity and pent-up ire at having to read this book.

Also, this is a 400+ page book. This could easily have been edited to less than 100. It would not affect the story in any way except to improve it. I honestly shudder to think what this looked like before editing...

So if someone asked me if they should read this book:

[Loretta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally! A Pulitzer Prize Winner that I actually enjoyed! Five big stars! A boy's coming of age story filled with great love! Very sad in parts but very spiritual and warm hearted as well. Highly recommended. 🤗

[Chrissie · Rating 4 out of 5]

First time around, I gave this Pulitzer winning classic first published in 1938 four stars. Now, second time around, I again think it is worth four stars. It’s gripping, and it’s moving. It is equally good for adults and children. It’s worthy of being classified as a classic—it speakers to readers generation after generation. It is a well told story with prose that shines.

It is about a fawn that becomes a yearling and about a child leaving childhood behind.

The story is set in the 1870s in the scrubland of Florida near the small town Volusia on the eastern bank of the St. Johns River, about three miles south of Lake George. The area is remote and sparsely inhabited, by people that is, but densely inhabited by a multitude of animals—bears and coons and muskrats, snakes, pumas and wild cats, wild vermin and beasts. The prose is descriptive; it gives you a feel for the land and its denizens. The lush vegetation is vividly described.

The story is about a boy and his fawn and the hardscrabble life of his family. They are farmers, barely surviving. To feed a pet is simply beyond their means. The father is loving. The mother is bitter—six children have died in infancy. Jody, her youngest son, is alive, but she cannot relate to him. The characters are portrayed so you come to understand why they behave as they do.

The nearest neighbors are the Forresters—elderly parents with seven sons addicted to drink, fiddling, dancing, “frolicking”, hunting and tussling with friends and foes alike. One of the sons, Fodder-wing, is disabled but has a great affinity for animals. He and the Baxter boy, Jody, become friends.

An important element of this book is character portrayal. I particularly like that the characters cannot be easily categorized as either good or bad. Each has good qualities and bad and life puts up stumbling blocks that must by some means be overcome.

The tale is about interactions between people and between people and animals. It is about growing up and about some not so nice realities of life. Do not expect a sweet, rose-tinted fairy tale.

Readers are given dialogues that reflect perfectly the persons speaking--another reason to like the prose. There is humor to be found in what is said, and the lyrics of invented songs make you laugh.

Did I mention that the story is exciting? There is a storm, the hunting of a ferocious bear, a fire and more. These are mere subplots to the central story which is guaranteed to rip you apart.

The ending is perfect.

So, yes, I do like this book a lot!

Tom Stechschulte narrates the audiobook very well. He intones the characters so they sound as they should, given who they are and the circumstances which arise. The Forresters speak in a hillbilly fashion, but this is not hard to understand. Four stars for the audiobook narration.

[Lori Keeton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can’t believe I haven’t read this book until now! More thoughts coming when I recuperate.

I’m not sure what planet I’ve been living on to have made it 52 years of life without ever having read this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel (1939). The Yearling is a novel that will transport you to a time and place that does not exist anymore. Thinking about that is quite emotional, especially if you know what a concrete slab the state of Florida has become, it’s sad to think about the environment that used to be prevalent. It was a time of hunting for your dinner, fending off wildlife like bears, panthers, wolves, and a place where remedies for ailments were found from the fauna. It was a very different Florida.

We meet Jody from the first page and naturally fall in love with his exuberance and love for nature. He is an only child of parents, Penny and Ora Baxter, who buried many others before him. Jody’s father is a man who takes his time with Jody’s innate curiosity and is patient with Jody for wanting to stay an adolescent and have no cares in the world. He’s a father but he’s also a friend. Jody’s mother is the opposite. She has no patience for Jody’s desire to wander about and enjoy life. She would rather Jody put all of the things of childhood away and focus on the grown-up things that a farm needs accomplishing. She appears at times to have less love for him than his father does. She certainly shows it differently than her husband does.

Jody so desperately wants to raise a baby animal for his own. However, his mother cannot allow a wild creature into their home. Jody’s opportunity arises to take in a baby fawn and his father helps to convince Ma to allow it. Jody’s bond with this creature is amazing and endearing. Some find it sentimental, and it may be, however, I enjoyed Jody’s devotion. Jody becomes a sibling to Flag in a way.

I won’t go into any details of the story because I fear ruining this delightful yet tearful story for anyone who still wants to read this. It is so much more than a coming-of-age story. It’s about loyalty, family, responsibility. It is about making that leap from childhood to manhood and realizing life is not always about fun and games. Adulthood brings a load of challenges and sometimes they can be harsh.

Rawlings’ prose is exquisite even the dialect is beautiful to read. You read her descriptions of the landscape and can easily visualize its beauty and ruggedness.

In a late afternoon toward the end of August, Jody went with the fawn to the sink-hole for fresh water for supper. The road was bright with flowers. The sumac was in bloom, and the colic root sent up tall stalks of white or orange orchid-like flowers. The French mulberries were beginning to ripen on slim stems. They were lavender in color, close-clustered, like snails’ eggs along lily stalks. Butterflies sat on the first purple buds of the fragrant deer-tongue, opening and closing their wings slowly, as though waiting for the buds to open and the nectar to be revealed. The covey call of quail sounded again…

[Erika · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started this classic novel with only a vague idea of what it was about. I knew the book was supposed to be sad and I knew “the yearling” was a deer. But that was it.
As it turns out, I was partly wrong about both things.
Yes, the novel is sad, extremely so, but its overriding feature is an almost ecstatic love of animals, especially wild ones. And yes, the yearling is a deer but more importantly, it’s also the story’s protagonist; a 12-year old boy caught right in that moment between an innocent childhood and a realization of the pain the world can dole out.
The Yearling was not originally marketed for children, but over the years it’s sort of morphed into a young adult novel in many people’s minds. I think that’s a mistake. For one thing it’s too long and often slow. For another, the themes are tricky and much more subtle than they appear at first.
Jody Baxter and his parents live in the Florida wilderness around 1870. Jody’s father, Penny, is wise and kind and showers him with attention and Jody thrives on a life of hard, honest work and playing in the woods.
Jody and Penny love animals, but seem to always be killing them. Early in the novel, Old Slewfoot, a massive bear, eats a pig the Baxters were counting on for winter and they go out after him, almost losing their best hound when Slewfoot fights them all off.
This starts the thematic arc of the book, which is about the slow, inevitable approach of death and the fact that humans and wild animals can’t really coexist.
Death comes closer when Penny is bitten by a rattlesnake and barely survives. In a desperate attempt to save his life, he kills a doe and places her liver on the bite hoping to suck out the poison. Jody is terrified. While Penny is recovering, Jody remembers that dear had a fawn. He insists on finding it and taking it home to raise like a puppy. The fawn, who he names Flag, is intertwined with Penny’s near-death and Jody worships it like he does his dad.
There is a destructive flood, a plague that hits the animals, attacks from starving wolves, the death of a beloved neighbor, a showdown with Old Slewfoot, and finally the sad events that shape Jody into the man he will become—someone who sees the world clearly, and is honest, and wise like his father.
In between all that death there are also scenes of incredible and surreal beauty, always around wild animals. In one of my favorite sections, Penny and Jody watch from the bushes as a dozen cranes dance together with the moon shining above. Their movements are intimate, unknowable, and the moment is described so well I went down a half-hour rabbit hole Googling dancing cranes.
In another scene, a thin, crippled, young wolf sneaks into the Baxter’s yard at night to play with the family’s dog. The wolf pup is lame because Penny had shot it earlier for trying to eat his livestock. They watch quietly.

“Pore thing,” Penny said. “Hurt and lonesome. Come visiting its nighest kin to pick a play.”
Perhaps the sibilance of their whispers reached beyond the closed window or their scent drifted to the wolf’s nose. Soundlessly, it turned, left the dogs and clambered with difficultly over the fence and was gone into the night.
Jody asked, “Will it do harm here?”
Penny stretched out his feet to the embers on the hearth. “I mis-doubt it’s in shape to catch itself a square meal. I’d not dream of bothering it. A bear’ll finish it, or a panther. Leave it live out the rest of its life.”
They squatted together by the hearth, caught up in the sadness and the strangeness. It was a harsh thing, even for a wolf, to be so alone that it must turn to the yard of its enemy for companionship. Jody laid his arm across Flag.

The Yearling is a classic that belongs on the list of great American novels. Yet it also has its share of problems. As I mentioned earlier, the book is very slow in sections and is often overly sentimental. Yet there is a life to this novel, a lush, urgent, joyous life that for me, made it well worth my time.

[Antoinette · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing, memorable book about Jody, a young boy, who over the course of one year, has to grow up and face the harsh realities of life.

This book takes place in Central Florida in the 1870’s. Jody, his father, Penny and his mother, Ora, are making by on their farm, but just. So much happens over the coming year- bear and wolf attacks, flooding, snake bites and animosities and friction with your nearest neighbors. But also, the love and attachment to a fawn.

Imagine living with no other companion but your parents- A boy needs a special friend and Flag, the yearling becomes his. The beauty of this book was not Jody’s bond with the fawn but the love between Jody and his father. Penny was priceless. He loved to tell his tales; he loved to share his love and knowledge of nature with his son.

The survival of the fittest and the ones who plowed ahead despite adversity seems to be a moral here, as well as finding the joy in the beauty around you. The descriptions are so beautifully drawn whether it be of the surroundings or even the food, it had me totally immersed. I am craving some cornbread after reading this book:)

I listened to this book, read by Tom Stechschulte, who was absolutely perfect.

A definite masterpiece!

Published: 1938

[Michael Finocchiaro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe the shine of reading this as a kid wore off after nearly half a century, but I wasn’t captivated by this Pulitzer-winning classic. Jody lives in the sticks in central Florida in the late 19th century with his Ma Ory and his Pa, Ezra “Penny” Baxter. They live off the land by scrap farming and hunting. Their nearest neighbors, the Forresters prefer drinking and carousing. When he is 10 or so, Jody adopts a young fawn which becomes his companion. The book talks of the year that Jody spends with Flag, the fawn, during which they are hit by a hurricane, beset by a pack of hungry wolves, and are in a epic battle with a huge, old wounded bear.

My votable list of Pulitzer winners which I have read (only have the 40s, 50s, and 60s to finish!):

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Yearling is Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ Pulitzer prize winning novel about the coming of age of Jody Baxter, the son of a backwood farming family that is trying to eke a living from a bit of high land in the Florida scrub shortly after the Civil War. The story is about a boy’s love for a fawn, a man’s love for his son, and the difficult lessons life throws in the path of a boy who lives in a world where he must become a man in order to survive.

There are many wonderful characters apart from the Baxters. The Forresters, particularly Fodder-wing, Lem and Buck, add a further understand of what it was to live in such a harsh environment and how important neighbors and family were to one another. We get a glimpse of the town life and a contrast between the two when the Baxters visit Grandma Hutto and Oliver. But the emphasis of the story is the relationship between Penny Baxter and his son Jody. Penny is a remarkable man, savvy in the ways of the wilderness, kind and humane and somewhat indulgent of his child. Ora Baxter is a harder, sterner person, with a string of lost babies in her past and a tendency toward looking a thing in the eye without turning away. She seems to hold Jody at arm’s length most of the time and never hopes for more than the scrapings she is given.

I was about 12 or 13 years old when I read The Yearling for the first time. Back in those days, I had seen the movie with Gregory Peck and Jane Wyman as well. I did not think there would be much that would be added to my memory of this story, but I was wrong. I came at this story with different eyes, of course. At that first reading, I would have been protected and spared, as Jody was, the harder side of life. I have known some sorrow and loss in my life now. I understand the lesson Jody had to learn and that Penny wanted to shelter him from, and I understand Ora in a way that I’m sure was impossible when I was so young.

I’m glad I chose to revisit this moving story. I had thought it might come across as maudlin or sentimental...a kind of more sophisticated Bambi. I need not have worried. Rawlings is not writing fantasy here, she is writing life, and life can always bear another close inspection.

[Justin Pickett · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I jest want something all my own. Something to foller me and be mine.”

A lot in this story resonates for me. I grew up in the south, living out in the woods with my parents and a few distant neighbors, on acres of land, with dogs and critters. I did plenty of hunting as a boy with my father. We never ate panther meat, nor fought with bears, nor did we depend on our crops for rations. Still, The Yearling was moving and captivating, being reminiscent of a life that is simpler, albeit harder, and that lacks city-based “intrusions on the individual spirit.”



In the story, young Jody lives with his ma and pa on “Baxter’s Island” in the wild Florida scrub. His family must grow or hunt their food. Their nearest neighbors, four miles away, are a mixed bag, being hellraisers but also sometimes behaving friendly and helpful. Jody is lonely and longs for a pet. A mutual catastrophe finally brings him one, a young deer.

“The fawn was alone in the night, as he had been alone.”

Jody raises and loves the fawn, which he names “flag.” The story includes tension between neighbors, tension created by nature (e.g. a flood), and tension from the Baxter’s hard way of living—will they have sufficient resources to avoid starvation? Into this mix is thrown the fact that Jody’s ma doesn’t like the fawn, and the fact that all cute young things eventually grow up, creating mischief along the way.

“How come you to grow up so unlawful?”

Other Memorable Quotes:

“A woman has got to love a bad man once or twice in her life, to be thankful for a good one.”

“Well, boy, be glad you got encouragement. Most of us live our lives without it.”

“Boy, life goes back on you.”

“A man’s heart aches, seein’ his young’uns face the world.”

“What’s he to do when he gits knocked down? Why, take it for his share and go on.”

[Charity · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every night for three weeks, my nine-year-old and I would snuggle together under a blanket, tea cups balanced on our laps. I would read aloud in what my spouse says was a pretty good Southern accent and she would read along silently over my shoulder.

After we'd finished the book and blown our noses and she'd talked a bit, I realized that she and I got different messages from the story. She loved it for the outdoors and the animals---both the cute baby animals raised by Fodder-Wing and Jody and the animals who threatened to kill them, directly or indirectly. When she cried, she cried because there was no clear right path for Jody to have followed. Should he have taken the fawn in or should he have left it? Neither seemed like a good plan in the end.

When I cried, I cried because as a parent, there's no clear right path for raising my children. Penny, like many (most?) parents, tried to protect his son from the ills of his own childhood. He kept Jody from hard work and hunger, shielding him always from the ugly ways of people, a buffer between his son and reality. This spared Jody pain when he was young, but it left him unprepared for the life of an adult. The boy couldn't read or write well or light a fire on his own or carry home a carcass after a hunt. Adulthood comes, though, whether we're prepared for it or not. And so when I cried, it was in part for that remembered pain of crossing the threshold between childhood and adulthood and realizing there really was no magic to it after all, but it was even more for the constant and anticipated pain of knowing that no matter what I do for my children, they're going to have to suffer in order to grow. I can't get them out of that any more than I can get myself out of my own growing pains.

Even if I could keep them from feeling pain or sadness or fear as children, that would only leave them as adults with a sense of entitlement toward anything good in their lives and a sense of unfairness for any discomfort. They'd be as whiny as Jody was before his coming-of-age except they'd be trapped in it, perpetual children.

My take-home message from this book is that the way to help my children grow to be capable adults is to get them a wild animal to raise so it can betray them and so open their eyes to the betrayals they can expect from life every step of the way. Or since I live in the suburbs, maybe I can accomplish something similar by allowing them to make their own mistakes and feel their own embarrassment and fear and pain and just be there for them when it happens instead of trying to keep them from feeling it in the first place.

I think getting a fawn might be easier.

[David Eppenstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an American classic that has been on many high school reading lists for decades. Unfortunately it was never on any of mine and I'm nearly as old as this book is now. I guess better late than never is still a valid position to take so when I saw it in the bookstore I purchased it. After sitting on my TBR shelf for some time I picked it up and started reading. Maybe I should mention that I did see the movie when I was probably younger than the protagonist of this coming of age novel. I didn't appreciate the movie's story because I was so young but today my appreciation is probably greater than it might have been had I read it in high school.

Since this novel is nearly 80 years old and has been read by several generations I doubt there is much need to rehash the plot beyond saying that it deals with a boy about 12 or 13 living in central Florida with his parents in the last quarter of the 19th century. Their life is hard but simple and free of serious want at most times. However when survival depends on a good harvest and catching wild game life can become harsh very quickly. The details of the plot are not particularly stirring but here is where the reader will be surprised by the author's talent. The characters and their lives will engage you as will the beauty of their lives and their surroundings. The author use of language and descriptive detail will transport the reader to another time and place that is alien to anything in our lives today. I can only compare this book to another classic I read some months ago that was also a coming of age novel, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. That story concerned a young girl about the same age as Jody in this book but it was an urban setting as opposed to Jody's rural. Both books have very simple messages but it was the skill of the authors that has made both books timeless in their telling. I will never know if I would have appreciated this book in my teens as much as I do in my 70's but it is worth reading whatever age the reader might be. Enjoy.

[Heidi (on slight hiatus) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I admit to a love-hate relationship with some books that broke my young elementary school heart (in the best way possible, says the adult Heidi). This was one of those books. Both beautiful and terrible.

Glad I read it and will never forget how it made me feel. Here’s to those books that made us fall in love with literature as young readers!

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I do not understand how anyone can live without some small place of enchantment to turn to.”
― Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, author of The Yearling, Pulitzer Prize 1939

Reading The Yearling over the last few days has given me a small place of enchantment, and I’m grateful for it.

[Lesle · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Yearling in 1938 brought Rawling's the Pulitzer Prize and worldwide recognition as a great talent., she wrote about what she knew, poor life but close to nature. I believe it is well written, but some of the dialect I had to reread to understand.

Penny Baxter chose to leave behind the city to live on an isolated island with his family. Along with that, comes the daily struggle of surviving. Penny has the will to keep getting back up once knocked down by all the incidences that take place on his farm. This has to be handled in a strong and calm way, this is what he tries to teach Jody.
Jody is not as tuned in as his father is, otherwise he would have realized that one cannot tame a wild animal. He should have seen that nothing good could come of it. The loss of his only friend made his desire even more to have Flag as a pet.

The book is about a year (yearling) of the adventures of life on the farm and the lessons one has to learn along the way to go from a young boy to being a man.

It does make one notice how much our pets are part of our family and a loss is very hard to take.

[Susan's Reviews · Rating 5 out of 5]

A boy and his deer (Or was it a doe? Can't remember now!)

Loved the 1946 movie version with Gregory Peck, Jane Wyman and Claude Jarman Jr. The book was good, but I fell in love with Gregory Peck. (His stellar role in To Kill a Mockingbird just sealed the deal for me. I loved his rare smile - so candid and boyish!)



I'm planning on watching a whole stack of old favourites: The Yearling, Far From the Madding Crowd, Of Mice and Men, to name a few.... These are movies that were better than - or at least improved on the story of - the original book. The scenery in the movies usually had me enthralled and itching to pack my bags and check it out for myself!

[Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes you read a book and it is just words on a page, sometimes it becomes a story. And sometimes, when you're very lucky the book becomes so real you feel transported right into the pages. That was my experience here.

I loved Jody and Penny's relationship, how overwhelming Penny's love is for his son, how much he wants for Jody to learn and grow. And how he watches Jody enjoying life.

The Forresters were entertaining and heartbreaking at the same time. There is much to learn from the characters in this book if your heart is open.

I treasured every moment I got to spend with Penny, Ora and Jody, seeing the world through their eyes.

Very good book and now Andrew Peterson, a song writer, has a song about it. It is called "The Ballad of Jody Baxter". All young boys should read this book. It is on the same level as "Where the Red Fern Grows".

[E · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw the film as a youngster. They seemed to always show it on TV as a family classic around Thanksgiving weekend.

I read the novel as an adult.
It is a much more graphic tough read. A heartbreaker.

Jodi was a lonely boy growing up in a rough backwoods Florida farm.

His mother Ora, endured the grief of all her prior children dying young. This was not unheard of in times before antibiotics and clean drinking water.

Jodi's only young friend was a child his age, Fodder-Wing Forrester, who lived on a run-down farm a number of miles away.

He was a dreaming crippled little boy who tamed and loved many forest creatures. His brothers were grown men, so he and Jodi cherished each other's friendship.

Through a series of events, Jodi adopts an orphaned very tiny little fawn with his fathers permission. Jodi's mother is not happy with this.

She knows her young son will soon know what it is to suffer the loss of something you love. She knew this sweet fawn would grow into a large animal that did not belong on a farm.

Jodi names his fawn Flag. He brings it to show Fodder-wing. Jodi and his father learn that the little boy has died of fever. Jodi endures his first loss of his dear friend.

Jodi and flag are bonded as the deer grows. Flag has grown to a yearling. The deer begins to get into the crop the family has planted. It is backbreaking work.

His father wants to use the money to build a well near the house to ease the work of hauling water. Flag becomes very destructive.

His father tells Jodi to take the deer as far away as he can and release him. Flag only knows the farm and keeps returning.

After trying everything, Jodi's father tells him Flag must be killed. The family's lives depend on their small crop.

Jodi can't bring himself to do it, and once more tries to bring Flag into the Florida woods far from the farm.

Jodi wakes to a gunshot. Flag
Is mortally wounded. Jodi's mother had taken a shotgun presumably to scare him off. Flag has stumbled off into the woods.

Jodi's father, who has been long recovering from a serious injury tells Jodi he must find Flag and end his suffering.

Jodi finds his deer and sees the horrific wound of a shotgun blast. He begs for Flags forgiveness and finishes him.

Jodi hates his parents at that moment. He throws the gun down and runs away into the deep Florida forest. He is lost and starving wandering for days.

He is eventually found and returned home, but he learns what hunger and privation is.
He realized how much he loved his father and mother. He understood how losing all her young children broke his mother's heart and learned how she walked for days searching for him.

A tough story. Heartbreaking in places. I took a lot from the book.

How good parents make tough decisions that in the moment you can't understand but do later and are glad of it.

How even having only one
true friend in the world Is a found treasure.

Never try to touch or tame a wild animal. They belong in a forest. Its a rough place where life and death goes on unseen by humans.

Here is a big one. Never go near a newborn fawn. It's mother is always close by. They are big and can be very protective.

A Doe with a young fawn may stomp you into the ground. She can move fast and flatten your head without a second thought.

Five Stars
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oct 23, noon-fifteen ~~ Review asap. Must think just a bit first.

Oct 23, 9pm ~~ My GR friend Werner and I traded comments recently about Reader's Digest Condensed Books. While neither of us would read anything in such a format these days, we both remembered certain books we had enjoyed in our younger days (for me before I understood what the term 'condensed' meant!). His book was Edna Ferber's Giant, and mine was this one, The Yearling.

Of course that exchange made me realize just how much time had passed since the last time I read The Yearling (55 years or so) and I bounded off to Thriftbooks to order myself a used copy. You know how it is when you order a book: sometimes you put it on your shelf and there it sits for who knows how long before you open it up. Well, not this time, by golly. I began reading The Yearling just a few days after its arrival, almost a record for me!

I knew the basic story and what would eventually happen, but I couldn't remember any real details. And of course adult eyes saw so much more than my less-than-ten-years=old eyes saw back in the day. So I can safely say this was less of a re-read than I had expected it to be. I felt I was reading it for the first time.

We have here the story of eleven year old Jody, living in Florida not too long after the Civil War. His family consists of Penny (Pa) and Ory (Ma), as well as a few farm animals and three working dogs. Jody feels a great need for a pet: something he can cuddle and play with and call his own. He lives a lonely, hard life, and feels it would be so much more fun if he had something to talk to, a friend who would be with him all the time.

But Ma doesn't believe in feeding extra critters, and the family is so close to barely surviving anyway that the whole idea of a pet is simply not at all practical. But one day a rattlesnake sets in motion the rest of the story, which is that Jody is able to bring home an orphaned fawn and raise him for his very own. We see both the pleasures and the troubles that this brings upon the family, and the final crisis of so many in the lives of the Baxter family sent my younger self into fits of tears every time I read the book.

But isn't it strange how fifty-odd additional years of life changes a person's viewpoints? I did cry in this reading of the book, just not where i expected to. I cried over a person: a person I don't even remember from other readings. I will now forever wonder if he had been 'condensed', or if it was just the weight of the years that pushed him out of my mind since then.

All my younger self could see in the book was the relationship between Jody and his fawn. But this time I saw the severity of life for the family, how hard they worked merely to survive, and how the very existence of the fawn ultimately began to be a danger to them in ways I had never understood years ago. I suppose I am more practical and realistic these days, maybe even more selfish and hard-hearted. Or maybe, like Jody, I simply grew up a little.

One thing about this book that I remember from years ago and could still marvel at was how the author was able to re-create Florida and the family's lifestyle and make it all so real that I felt that I was right there prowling the scrub land with them; watching for tracks, listening to the noises around us and knowing what they all meant. Penny could read sign like nobody's business and I surely do admire that.

I can recognize certain types of paw prints but I can't tell how long ago they passed by or how heavy an animal is or any of the other little details that make the difference between a skilled tracker and an ignoramus. Every time I read a book featuring a character who is such a woodsman, I always spend a few days wanting to be Daniel Boone. This time is no different. I know that tomorrow when I go out to do a little yard work I will be looking for sign in the back yard. Not that I expect anything as monstrous as Ol' Slewfoot the devil bear of this story, but then again, you never can tell. After all, this is 2020: the year of What The Heck Else Is Going To Happen?!

[Tom Mathews · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Yearling is a fine coming-of-age novel that I have somehow managed to avoid reading until know. Fortunately, thanks to the fine folks at the On the Southern Literary Trail Goodreads group, I finally had the opportunity to read and discuss it with others who appreciate it.

Uninformed readers such as I will automatically assume that the yearling in question is the fawn prominently displayed on the cover but that is not really correct. It soon becomes apparent that the fawn is but a minor character in the drama that plays out in the scrub lands of back country Florida. The real yearling is Jody, a young boy growing up in isolation with only his hard-working parents for company. Despite his father's attempts to shelter Jody from the tribulations of life in the country, Jody finds that growing up is not as fun and easy as he would like. Without revealing too many spoilers, it is a wonderful description of the rocky road to manhood.

One final comment: The audiorecording of this novel was magnificently narrated by Tom Stechschulte. It is a great book to listen to and Tom is the perfect narrator.

[Cathrine ☯️ · Rating 5 out of 5]

6 🦌👦🏻🌲🐻👨‍🌾❤️‍🔥
This ties with To Kill a Mockingbird as my favorite coming of age story of all time. Gregory Peck played the father in both film adaptations, leaving indelible memories on my mind and heart and I will be watching it again with my 10 year old grandson this weekend.
For my third reading I decided to go with the audio superbly narrated by Tom Stechschulte.
GR friend Diane just wrote an awesome review after her fourth reading and I can’t say it better. Check out her thoughts here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[``Laurie · Rating 5 out of 5]

At least young Jody was having a wonderful and happy childhood until the last chapter...

[Sharon Barrow Wilfong · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was not expecting to enjoy this book as I did. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings simply was not an author I had a remote interest in. I went to the library and happened to see some books for sale for a dime. There was one containing the letters of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and Max Perkins. I had no idea who Max Perkins was and I did not care for Rawlings.

But there is something about a thick hardcover selling for a dime that I find irresistible. So I bought it and eventually read it.

I am glad I did, because by the time I finished the 628 page tome, I was enamored with both Max Perkins and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings; hence this review of my latest finished read, The Yearling.

On the one hand, this book is about the day to day survival of families living off of the land in Central Florida in the 1870s and has a lot in common with Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie books. They both show the joy and hardship of trying to survive by one's own exertion on an often stubborn and unyielding land. The only difference would be location and time period (well, the House Books started in the 1860s; I suppose you could say they overlap). And while the House books take place over several years, The Yearling happens inside one year. Wilder's family farmed on the plains of the mid west. The Baxter family farmed in woods and near swamps and bayous in the humid heat of Florida. However, many of the animals, bears, wolves, panthers, were the same; although the Baxters also had alligators to hunt. (Interesting caveat: Laura and Almanzo Wilder lived briefly in DeFuniak Springs, near my home town on the Florida Panhandle. The thick humidity drove them away.)

We see the Baxter family as they plant, hunt, get sick, endure hurricanes, and plague and we suffer with them. Reading The Yearling is truly a vicarious experience.

Like the Little House series, which are from the viewpoint of a child, Laura, the limited narrator in The Yearling is Jodi, a boy on the edge of puberty. The overall theme of the book is about Jody leaving childhood and entering into adulthood.

The Ingalls family may have had Native Americans to contend with, the Baxters had the Forresters, a wild, lawless, backwoods family that could be good friends or horrible enemies, often depending on how much they had to drink.

While the Little House books had their charm and poignancy and will always be a childhood classic, and also a classic for adults like me, The Yearling also has its place for sheer power in writing.

I found the descriptions of animals killing each other, killing the Baxter's cattle and the men killing bears and panthers to be disturbing, not because I think it was wrong, they had to do what they had to, I'm just glad we don't have to do that anymore.

And, of course, there is the Yearling. Jody's father had to kill the mother to treat a Rattle Snake bite. Something about the deer's liver drawing out the poison or so they believed back then. Anyway, that left an orphaned fawn. Jody takes the fawn home and it becomes his dearest friend, which is sad in its own way, because it reveals the isolation and loneliness a child can experience when he has no siblings or neighbors as companions.

Jody's mother is no Caroline Ingalls. Caroline had a quiet dignity, self-contained, and almost aristocratic, ladylike bearing. Ory or Ma Baxter, is as tough as leather. She buried five or six children. Jody is the only one to survive infancy. She's learned that it's hard to survive and all too easy to die. But she is not without her moments and every now and then her love for her husband, Penny, and Jody peek through.

The father, Penny, balances out his wife's pragmatic, no-nonsense, philosophy with compassion and wisdom.

While the fawn is mostly peripheral to the story, as the book progresses it creeps closer to the center of the story until he comes crashing down as the climax and centrifugal force that propels Jody into manhood. It is a painful life lesson and one that few people would want to learn today and I'm glad I can live a life of ease and grocery stores.

While some may consider this a boy's novel; I would almost consider it too dark for boys. I would not have read it to my son when he was Jody's age. He cried at the end of "Where the Red Fern Grows."

I'm grateful those hard lessons are not required anymore in my first world existence.

In conclusion? A fine, powerful novel, superbly written and fully deserving of the Pulitzer Peace Prize that it won in 1939.

[Book Concierge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rawlings’s 1938 Pulitzer-winning novel focuses on the boy Jody, his parents Ora and Penny Baxter, their neighbors the Forresters, and their hard-scrabble lives in central Florida in about 1870.

I first heard of this classic of children’s literature when I was about 10 years old, but I never read it. I hadn’t even seen the movie. I had only a vague notion about the plot – a boy and his pet deer, “the yearling” of the title. I’m so glad that I finally read it.

Rawlings tells the tale from Jody’s perspective. He’s twelve years old when the novel opens, and still spends much of his time roaming about the woods, exercising his imagination and connecting with nature. Yes, he has chores – what farm-child doesn’t – but he frequently gets distracted in the middle of hoeing a field, following a squirrel or just getting lost in his thoughts when he takes a brief break to get a drink from a nearby stream.

His father, Penny, grew up with stern parents and had hardly any childhood, saddled with responsibility at a very young age. As a result, he is willing to work twice as hard to keep his boy a “boy” for a longer period. This is a source of disagreement between Penny and Ma, who feels that Jody is past the age for greater responsibility. He is, after all, their only child, and if they are to survive (let alone prosper) Jody must take on a greater share of the work.

When Jody and his father meet disaster while out hunting, they are forced to kill a doe with a new-born fawn. Once they are back home, Jody prevails upon his father to let him retrieve the fawn, who, Jody argues, is an orphan only because of their actions. Jody dotes on Flag and treats the animal as a brother. But as Flag grows to a yearling, his natural instincts coupled with tameness and Jody’s indulgence, lead to troubling behavior. The difficult decisions that are required show how everyone has matured and grown over the course of the novel.

I could not help but equate Flag’s “growing up” to Jody’s. Both are indulged and left free to roam and both have to endure pain and suffering as a result of growing towards adulthood. This made me think that the title was more a reference to Jody than to the fawn.

What really shines in this novel is the connection to nature. I was reminded of the many times I was in the woods with my father, and the way he taught me and my brothers about plants, animals, hunting, and fishing. I feel sorry for modern urban children who have no such connection in their lives.

I particularly loved this passage:
The cranes were dancing a cotillion as surely as it was danced at Volusia. Two stood apart, erect and white, making a strange music that was part cry and part singing. The rhythm was irregular, like the dance. The other birds were in a circle. In the heart of the circle, several moved counter-clock-wise. The musicians made their music. The dancers raised their wings and lifted their feet, first one and then the other. …. The birds were reflected in the clear marsh water. Sixteen white shadows reflected the motions. The evening breeze moved across the saw-grass. It bowed and fluttered. The water rippled. The setting sun lay rosy on the white bodies. Magic birds were dancing in a mystic marsh. The grass swayed with them, and the shallow waters, and the earth fluttered under them. The earth was dancing with the cranes, and the low sun, and the wind and sky.

Rawlings uses the vernacular dialect of the time and place, and there are some uncomfortable uses of the “n” word. It’s appropriate to the time, place, and socio-economic status of the characters, and it’s not frequent (maybe six times in the 400-page book), but it is nevertheless jarring to today’s readers.

The edition I got from the library was masterfully illustrated by N.C. Wyeth (father of Andrew Wyeth). What a joy it was to examine these paintings. I looked at them and looked at them over and over as I was reading. And nearly two weeks after finishing the book, I'm still looking at them ... reluctant to return the book to the library.

[Christian Engler · Rating 5 out of 5]

In past reviews, people have speculated that if The Yearling were to have been published in today's times, would it still have been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Literature. For me, I would have to say that that would be a resounding yes. I say so because the novel captures, with vivid simplicity, a bygone American era via the stark usage of the literaty resources available to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings at the time, quite simply, the values, environment and language which surrounded her. Being the excellent and astute writer that she was, she transposed those raw yet natural elements to her characters, specificially the gruff yet loving Baxter clan.

In a time where people are adrift due to the constant onslaught of materialism, celebrity, technology, vanity, money, you name it, the Baxter clan are a refreshing anomaly, for all of the above was not really available to them, and if it was, it was to a very limited degree. But because of that humbling deprivation, they as a family and individualistically speaking, were interiorily richer in so many different capacities. Their lessons came from the law of the land, the primal yet earthy philosophy of kill or be killed. But it was also a deep almost religious respect of the land and its animals that could definitely shape the thinking and the ever evolving twists and turns that are in abundance in The Yearling. Ezra Baxter-Jody's father-to some extent, could be considered as the Atticus Finch of the Florida backwoods, for he respects the codes that govern the wilderness and for the wild animals who occupy it. And thus, he kills only when necessary; he imbues that code of ethics in Jody who is of a tremendously malleable age, especially by the Forrester family and their sometimes less-than-stellar behavior.

The novel is about being a boy, about growing up and about sacrifice, and when Jody, a lone child, adopts a fawn whom he names Flag, the emptiness of being a lone child abates; the fawn, a cherished pet, is a co-experiencer with Jody of the highs and lows of living in the scrub country, and he is there for Jody's various milestones, his inching along toward the tower of manhood. But sometimes just doing the day-to-day obligations of life is simply not enough. Sometimes one has to go beyond what is expected, and the latter half of the book illustrates that sacrifice entails pain, large or small, for real love sometimes does hurt. The Yearling is pungent, pure, simple, true and very very giving, absolutely worthy of the 1939 Pulitzer Prize.

[Rob Warner · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Civil War-era coming of age novel that's a spiritual cousin to Where the Red Fern Grows, but with a broader story and a deeper dive into life's challenges. Reading this book reminds you how deeply people understood the consequences of choice, as sloth translated brutally into starvation. Indeed, the need to work for one's supper every day, planning for both the moment and the future, contrasts starkly with our present-day welfare state that, for some, rewards indolence.

One other thing that jumps out from this tale is that the family, though living without TV, smartphones, cars, running water, or any of the other niceties we demand as a baseline for happiness, are just as happy as we are. They find plenty of joys, despite their hardships, and in the process sober us and our propensity to storm about under-whipped lattes and 404s. The tasks they faced daily would cave many of us, yet they take them in stride and relish in their accomplishments.

The protagonist, Jody, lets us into his thoughts and the conundrums he must un-puzzle as he becomes a man. The dialect, though distracting at times, helps form the context of the life he leads.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

What can I say. This is simply one of the best books I have ever read.

[Gaye · Rating 5 out of 5]

What language. It was dense and thick and like poetry. The story, The Yearling, is of a young boy named Jody and his life in the hardscrabble backwoods of northern Florida in the late 1800's. Jody and his parents live a solitary life and one where frivolous things don't belong. Yet all Jody wants is something that belongs just to him; a pet. When his father is struck by a rattlesnake in the deep woods, a doe is shot and killed for her healing organs, leaving behind a tiny fawn. This fawn now becomes Jody's pet.

Oh I loved this story. It was the recipient of the 1939 Pulitzer Prize and was written for children or young adults. I would be hard pressed to put this into the hands of a child today, though middle school patient kids who love long and carefully crafted deep stories might be candidates. The pacing is slower than most of today's novels and the author infuses so many details about hunting and farming that one would think she lived the same lifestyle herself (she did not!)The dialect was also thick and I found myself having to read some phrases over and over to 'figger' them out in my mind!! I loved the phrase, "don't go gittin' faintified on me!" The descriptions of the woods were full of words like loblolly pine, saw grass, red bay, sweet gum, and palmetto. I still don't know what a ti-ti or a blackjack pine looks like but they sure are fun to say. I looked up words like milch, sorties, feist, crony, brogans, boles, and cooter and they meant nothing like what they mean now! I remember - I was supposed to be speaking "southern"!

Lots of homeschool kids read this book and there are lots of study guides on the internet, yet I also saw reviews by many teenagers who just didn't like this book because they were forced to read it. Once again it supports my thoughts (what I tried to tell so many parents at Barnes and Noble) just because your child CAN read at that level doesn't mean that they SHOULD. Having some life experience behind us gives us a frame of reference, more meaning. This book requires some patience to uncover the gem that it is.

This book had me reading and enjoying it for a day or too after book group and I keep looking for a chance to say, "He's sure got a low eye for a high fence."

[Donna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Update:

This was a reread for my IRL book club tonight. I still loved this one. I loved it even more than the first time.......if that was even possible. We are so eager to grow up but then we find out that growing up hurts. It changes us and there is no going back. We learn to love. We learn to forgive. We learn to grow.

I loved how the setting, both the time and place, was like its own character. The author created depth that elevated the characters in such a way that made them truly unforgettable. She gave life to the little nuances that were incredibly pertinent to the story. Still 5 stars.

=====================================================
This is a young adult Pulitzer Prize winner. I loved this book. I know readers seem to have a love hate relationship with this one, but I loved it. I loved the setting, the language, the characters, the life and the way the relationships were depicted.

Survival is such a strong theme in this book. It has it's tentacles in everything....decisions, choices, relationships and thoughts. I like that the characters were put in situations where they had to make the hard choices even when it was the last thing they would want to do. So 5 stars.