Walk Gently This Good Earth

by Margaret Craven

PB

Genres: Fiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Margaret was the daughter of Arthur J. Craven, a lawyer, and Emily K. Craven. After she and her twin Wilson were born, her family, including an older brother, Leslie (born 1889), moved from Montana to Bellingham, Washington. After finishing high school in Bellingham, Margaret went to Stanford University (Palo Alto, California) where she majored in history and graduated Phi Beta Kappa.
Upon graduating with distinction in 1924, she moved to San Jose, California, where she was secretary to the managing editor of the Mercury Herald. Soon she began writing the editorials. After the death of the editor, Margaret moved back to Palo Alto and began writing short stories for magazines like the Delineator. When her father died, her mother came to live with her and they moved to San Francisco. In 1941 her stories began appearing in the Saturday Evening Post. Although seriously hindered by near-blindness caused by a busaccident and bacterial infection, she continued to write. In 1960, an operation gave her sight back, and she began to write novels.
Margaret and her mother moved to Sacramento, California in 1959, where her brother Wilson was living. She learned about the Native-Americans of the northern British Columbia coast, first from her brother Wilson who had visited there, and then from reading published accounts of the native culture. In 1962, Margaret arranged with the Columbia Coast Mission of the Anglican Church to visit Kingcome and other native Kwakwaka'wakw (Kwakiutl) villages on the B.C. coast. Out of this experience came her first novel, I Heard the Owl Call My Name, which was published in Canada in 1967, and then in 1973 in the U.S. where it became a best seller. The same year it was adapted as a television movie for General Electric Theater on CBS. The American edition of the book sold over one million copies and was translated into several languages.
Margaret Craven died at home in Sacramento on July 19, 1980, predeceased by both her mother and her twin brother Wilson.

Reviews

[Bonnie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Birthday Book #52 from my friend Pam. Unfortunately, this book fell well short of my expectations. It had interesting characters and I feel it could have been a great story spanning several decades. But to span several decades in less than 200 pages? Yeah, it was very undeveloped. I hardly felt like I got to know any of the characters at all. Major events such as death in the family, WWII and Vietnam, whipped by, and even in the space of two or three chapters children were born, grown, and married themselves. I consider this far more of a "disappointing" book than a "bad" one.

[K.M. Updike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everything is told and hardly shown, and it is so beautiful.
It's about the past, loving the past, and setting store by the past, loving the past. But it's also about the future, and it's also about the cycle of life. Its pain, its beauty, and its simplicity.

[Julie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't understand why so many people like this book. It starts off decent - not great but decent - and then it just continues and continues with more and more generations with more more characters that are hard to keep straight and it doesn't really seem to ever have a plot.

[Tj · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book…a sweet, comfort read about a family through its youth to old age.

[Karen GoatKeeper · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Wescotts, Dad, the children and Maria experience life in the Seattle area. They go up into the mountains, climb some and learn to respect the Earth, each other and other people. The years pass taking the family into the Depression, then WWII. Dad Wescott is gone now and Maria has left to become a nun.
Neal is captured by the Germans, but is released when the war ends. The family adjusts to a new life in Montana where greed hasn't arrived yet to destroy the land. Vietnam happens.
The book is easy reading. It does get a little preachy, especially at the end. The charm is in the depictions of a long ago time, of a belief in being self reliant and working hard, of wilderness areas still unspoiled.

[Gena Lott · Rating 4 out of 5]

A depression era story about small-town America. A feel good story from the author of "I Heard the Owl Call My Name."

[Laurie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I imagine that this was a true story about the Westcott family starting back in the 1930s in Washington state. The first half of the book was delightful: a widower, attorney dad goes on adventures with his four biological children, adopted son (and adopted son’s cat Tim!) in the mountains in summer with their cook/helper Marie. The feelings, the sights, the gear, the talk were all so familiar, the stories were fun and everyone was engaged and loving, but not in a syrupy way. Wholesome and feel good. As time passes, real life happens, and so do wars, and as future generations emerge there are more and more characters and the author tries to cover too much too quickly. The rating I gave is a weighted average: the first part gets 5 stars and the latter part gets substantially less.

[Wendy Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written in 1977 by a woman in her 70s, this novel has the feel of time passing over generations of a family and of the northwestern United States. It was interesting to me to hear this perspective, of an author born about the same time as my grandparents. The land, Native Americans, and events from the Depression, to World War II, to the Vietnam War are part of the saga. I liked that the overall book was fairly short, giving us just brief, but memorable snapshots from each era.

[Melinda Christensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an admirable story told of Judge Westcott, who with the help of his devoted young housekeeper, raised his four motherless children and foster son. Their journeys take them from the Pacific Northwest to Montana, from the Depression to 1976. This is an excellent family novel!

[Sharon A. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a quick, easy read about an American family from the 1920s through the 1980s. Told in a dispassionate, history book style, I enjoyed the young family’s adventures in the Pacific Northwest. It veered into preachy for the last 1/3 but I still enjoyed it.

[Brock · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nicely written book spoiled by awkwardly political end.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A tender story set in the era when the country was in an economic slump pivoting around the true meaning of family. The story opens within sight of the peaks of Koma Kulshan in Western Washington and finishes on the wide-opens spaces of Montana. Walk Gently This Good Earth, by Margaret Craven was an easy read, although not liked nearly as well as book, I Heard the Owl Call My Name. Ms. Craven brings attention to the depths of family love, but it lost me when she spent too much time describing the landscape akin to a travel brochure.

[Janice]

Walk Gently This Good Earth by Margaret Craven (date?)

[Loretta · Rating 4 out of 5]

A gentle sharing of the life of a family through a number of years in Montana. Final statements about the American Spirit. A very enjoyable read.

[Janna Rice · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little bit sentimental and somewhat undeveloped at times, but overall an enjoyable and comforting book that made me smile. :)

[Holly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good story but her writing style is hard to read.