The Beet Fields: Memories of a Sixteenth Summer

by Gary Paulsen

For a 16-year-old boy out in the world alone for the first time, every day's an education in the hard work and boredom of migrant labor; every day teaches him something more about friendship, or hunger, or profanity, or lust--always lust. He learns how a poker game, or hitching a ride, can turn deadly.
He discovers the secret sadness and generosity to be found on a lonely farm in the middle of nowhere. Then he joins up with a carnival and becomes a grunt, running a ride and shilling for the geek show. He's living the hard carny life and beginning to see the world through carny eyes. He's tough. Cynical. By the end of the summer he's pretty sure he knows it all. Until he meets Ruby.

Genres: Young Adult, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Coming Of Age, Realistic Fiction, Historical, Teen

160 pages, Paperback

First published September 12, 2000

About the author

Gary James Paulsen was an American writer of children's and young adult fiction, best known for coming-of-age stories about the wilderness. He was the author of more than 200 books and wrote more than 200 magazine articles and short stories, and several plays, all primarily for teenagers. He won the Margaret Edwards Award from the American Library Association in 1997 for his lifetime contribution in writing for teens.

Reviews

[Hannah G · Rating 2 out of 5]

The end is totally inappropriate.... It wrecked the book for me...

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book by the author of Hatchet will probably appeal to slightly older boys but NOT to their parents. This book is grittier and tells of a young man's coming of age but involves that taboo subject, sex. It also involves working as a migrant laborer, being cheated by white farmers but being aided his fellow laborers, being robbed by a crooked policeman, being sheltered by an old woman who's lost a son and even, for a time, working as a carny.

At just 160 pages, this book is a fast read and will appeal to a number of young men who'd be turned off by books that depict similar themes in a somewhat less graphic way. The writing reminds me of John Steinbeck while most other reviewers seem to mention Hemingway.

Many young men consider losing their virginity a big part of the coming of age saga but never expect to read about in literature. This book defies those expectations. And yet, it's retold in a fairly innocent and natural manner without being overly lewd.

I'd recommend this book highly, that is, unless I was a teacher and wanted to keep my job.

[Josiah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'll say this upfront as a service to Gary Paulsen fans who don't know: The Beet Fields: Memories of a Sixteenth Summer is the same basic story as Tiltawhirl John, a novel by Paulsen published in 1977. Without mentioning Tiltawhirl John by name, Paulsen acknowledges in the Author's Note to The Beet Fields that portions of the narrative appeared decades earlier in a more fictionalized form, but years of honing his craft had given him finer tools to tell the story, and that's why he wrote The Beet Fields. While the central timeline is similar, reflecting the autobiographical nature of the two novels, there's more than enough difference that readers can enjoy both. The boy (as in many of Gary Paulsen's works, the main character goes unnamed) never had a nice home life, but with his father in the military and his mother getting so drunk that she starts making illicit advances on him, he runs away in search of his own future. It's 1955 and the boy is sixteen, but he's ready to work hard for a living to escape his mess of a home. If only he knew the path that would put him on.

Hoeing beets is brutal, boring work. The boy is paid a pittance and gives most of it back to the farmer for room and board, but worse is that he's in this alone, as opposed to the Mexican beet hoers who operate as a team and have one another to lean on when the work gets too rough for any one of them to handle. The boy longs for community like that, and only starts to come out ahead in his job when the Mexicans extend their hand in friendship. They teach him tricks for efficient labor, and the money the boy earns piles up, though the daily grind still takes every bit of energy he has. He spends the rest of beet season traveling from farm to farm with the Mexicans, until another offer gives him pause. Beet season won't last forever, one farmer warns, and he could use a disciplined worker like the boy to help on his farm. It's the presence of the farmer's teenage daughter, in truth, that convinces the boy to bid his Mexican friends farewell. He fantasizes about getting close to Lynette, but there isn't time for flirtation on a farm at harvest season. The boy adjusts to the new variety of backbreaking labor, and the money pours in. This isn't a bad life, not like living with his parents, until a law officer gets wind that the farmer's boy might be a runaway, and hauls him in to find out. Shortly thereafter the boy is a wanted fugitive, and life on the road begins.

From getting picked up as a hitchhiker by a Hungarian immigrant (an aside that ends with jarring suddenness and violence), to helping a grieving old woman on a farm regain her sense of self, and then on to the carnies (who offer the boy a lifestyle unlike anything he's known), the boy is on the sort of adventure a bestselling author would want to write about forty-five years later. The world is a rainbow of crazy, strong flavors and no one has a taste for them all, but the boy feels good about carny life, shilling for Bobby the "Wild Man from Borneo", helping Taylor scam customers on the Tilt-A-Whirl, and luring hormonal men to ogle as Taylor's woman, Ruby, puts on a striptease. Coming of age in literature happens in almost as many ways as there are novels, and the boy feels himself becoming a man in the garish glow and noise of the traveling carnival. He's made a living in many ways, but the primal heat of being a carny is his favorite. What a life.

The Beet Fields feels raw and immediate, and its insight into the beauty of Mexican immigrant culture is an asset, but in my opinion the book pales beside Tiltawhirl John. That earlier novel featured confrontations that were more intense, notably the boy's dispute with the beet farmer who holds him practically as a slave and viciously beats him when the boy fights back, and the knife fight at the end between T-John and an old enemy, a clash built up to with deep, visceral foreboding. Tiltawhirl John is a superb commentary on the way anxiety can affect us like a toxin we can't rid our system of, damaging us even as we try to move on from it. "Tasting the thunder" is a thrilling lifestyle, but not everyone can handle life on the edge, and Tiltawhirl John is an enlightening exploration of that truth and others. Maybe The Beet Fields is closer to Gary Paulsen's own true story, but it isn't as exciting or substantive as Tiltawhirl John, and I'm not sure there's much of a point to it. Curiously, the two books share the fact that their titles describe only half the story; Tiltawhirl John indicates the carny half and nothing about hoeing beets, whereas The Beet Fields mentions the farming aspect with no hint of the carny stuff. Overall, I loved Tiltawhirl John and consider The Beet Fields an average book, though worth reading. Gary Paulsen always is. You might not be sure what you were supposed to get out of this book after you finish, but it'll leave you thinking, and I say that's a fair trade for a few hours' investment.

[Evan Hall · Rating 2 out of 5]

GARY PAULSEN CATEGORY
The authenticity of Paulsen's story--which he has admitted to be at least in part auto-biographical--makes it endearing and compensates somewhat for its simplistic nature. "The Beet Fields" is a story about a 16 year old boy who has run away from home. Unfortunately, the nobility of some of the characters and even the protagonist is mitigated somewhat by the novel's obsession with sex. The take-home message of the book seems to be that just when you think guys are deep, complex individuals, you find out you're wrong and they're really just the same predictable, one-dimensional horndogs you always imagined them to be. Most hero journeys follow the hero as he overcomes some great societal or personal obstacle and achieves a greater good. In Paulsen's novel, that greater good is nothing more than bedding an attractive woman, and when the protagonist has done that, the book "triumphantly" concludes.

[ash · Rating 3 out of 5]

My first Gary Paulsen, chosen for taking place in my current home of North Dakota. A nice, quick read with artful and easy rhythmic language. Felt like a book old white guys would be intensely nostalgic about. Enjoyable though.

[Pamela Bronson]

I think this is a good book and I'm glad I read it, though it was painful in places. But while it's about a 16-year-old boy, I would hesitate to give it to a teenager, especially a sheltered one.

The boy (never named, though the book is written in the third person) has run away from alcoholic and abusive parents. He's trying to survive as best he can. He is understandably preoccupied with getting enough food and having a safe place to sleep and getting enough sleep. But he also says toward the end that he thinks about sex all the time, which I realize may be normal. The book is clean, on the whole - there is one sex scene close to the end, but it's not explicit, though that doesn't mean it's fine for a naive person to read.

I liked best the early chapters in the beet fields which give the book it's title. The boy works with undocumented Mexicans hoeing out surplus beets, so the others will grow bigger. It's exhausting, painful work, but pays pretty well, he thinks, only it's paid by the how much one does. In the first weeks he's frustrated because the Mexicans always outwork him. Even the Mexican children as young as 7 or 8 outwork him. A little girl also impresses him by calmly and efficiently beheading with her hoe a rattlesnake which terrified him. I like that he eventually becomes friends with the Mexicans and that one behaves in a fatherly way to him, though it could be argued that he exploits the boy for his ability to climb up and kill pigeons to add to the bean pot.

A few other people he meets behave kindly to him. Most definitely exploit him, including a horrible cop.

This novel, which the author implies in the front matter to be autobiographical, gives some insight into his survival story Hatchet. In that memorable, wonderful novel (which is fine for any teen), the protagonist Brian must struggle to survive against the wilderness. This boy must struggle to survive among humankind.

[Kathryn]

If you know me offline or have followed my reviews for any length of time you know I enjoy rereading nearly as much (possibly more) than reading a book for the first time.

This was one I vaguely remember reading in high school and I enjoyed rereading Hatchet a few years ago so picked this up for a quick reread.

This is a biographical sketch of the author’s sixteenth summer and not for the faint of heart. When “the boy” sets off on his own after a disturbing incident he finds himself in hard situation after hard situation, some a matter of wrong place/wrong time and others a result of unwise adolescent choices. And then the end took an R-rated turn I did not recall! I am pretty sure this was shelved in the juvenile section of my public library and it is firmly an upper YA read. A fast read that leaves you feeling hopeless. Not one I’d recommend without major caveats.

[Wanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, but

Great read with a very abrupt ending. I expected more and do not like being dropped like a hot potato. Poor way to end a story.

[Raeyann · Rating 1 out of 5]

ewww what the fuck. never read a book recommended to you by a teenage boy

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I went back and changed my review to five stars after I thought about this book overnight. I thought it ended too abruptly, but as I lay awake thinking about it, the genius of Gary Paulson began to hit me full on. This is the story of one boy’s sixteenth summer. It it a mature YA novel. It begins as his stumbling drunk mother crawls into bed with him and tries to seduce him, causing him to hightail it out of their sorry home and run far north. It ends with his first sexual experience, and what an experience it was, with the beautiful hoochie coochie dancer in the carnival where he was working, the mystical Ruby, the girlfriend of Taylor, the man who had hired him. I realized the boy had come full circle in his sixteenth summer, and Paulson got it exactly right. Ruby was understanding, gentle, and a very, very good teacher. Thank goodness his mother hadn’t been able to ruin it for him in her blind, selfish, drunken stupor.

The boy first found work in the beet fields in North Dakota. He worked with a large group of amiable Mexicans who accepted the boy, neither overly friendly nor shunning. The boy could never work as fast as even the youngest child in thinning the beets which frustrated him to the extreme. The farmer’s wife brought a skimpy peanut butter sandwich for lunch. He saw that the Mexicans ate beans rolled in tortillas that smelled delicious, and they soon offered to share. In return they wanted the boy to climb to the rafters in the barn and catch pigeons as they slept so they could have meat for their stew. He fell the first night, somewhere in the thirty-foot range, but one of the Mexican women cared for him and pronounced him okay. The boy went right back up the next night. He loved being with the Mexican people. He thought the women were beautiful with their long, dark hair. He thought their skin was such a lovely color, attractive and strong. They moved from farm to farm until beets ran out. The boy had driven a tractor all day while the Mexicans worked the beets. When they left, he decided to stay. Bill, the farmer, was fair to him until the night he got roaring drunk at the bar in town. The boy was sent to get him by the wife, the first time he had been out in public.

I won’t go into more detail, but it turns out that his parents had reported him missing. The boy ended up on the move several more times and experienced things that would had floored a lesser kid. His last job was at the carnival, and you know the last scene there. But it was the denouement that threw me. Whaaaaat? And then I realized that it all made sense. Paulson writes raw and gritty about teens sometimes, but that’s how grew up. He has several books in which he does not name his name his name his main character, “Harris and Me” and this one being two.

[Raylee Gifford · Rating 2 out of 5]

This novel follows the story of the boy as he works during his first summer on his own. He runs away from home when he is 16 and finds a job thinning beats. He learns a lot from the migrant workers that he works with as they take care of eachother and he finds a family of sorts. As a group they move from farm to farm until he finally leaves them for a tractor job. After working on this farm for a while he is taken in by the local police for being a runaway. After stealing all of his money the deputy leaves him alone to discover that the jail isn't locked. The boy escapes the law and finds his way to an old run down farm where a lonely mother living in the past dwells. When they go to the local carnival the boy stays and becomes a carny. He soon adopts their hard carny ways until he meets Ruby the wife of his employer who dances for the local farmers. The boy loses his virginity with Ruby and then the man lies about his age to enlist in the army. I wouldn't recommend this book to very many people, maybe very mature teenagers.

[Art · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! Youth, Coming of age, Farm Work.
Several of the words that I would use to describe this book.
I like how Gary talked about the people he met in life, while working as a migrant farm worker during the summer of his sixteenth year.

Made me think of the girls, farms and farmers that I met in Pennsylvania and Minnesota.

[Tel VanderMay · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book for someone to experience the first hand life of a young boy in the 50's. He has a troubled life and alcoholic parents, he leaves home late one night. The story follows him along his journey from working, running from the law, falling in love, and serving the country. A great read and I recommend to everyone who wants an exciting and heart-felt story.

[Devon Kelley · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Beet Fields
The Beet Fields is a good book about a sixteen year old boy who is on his own, and spending his summer working hard laboring work and learning new things on his way. The main character in this book is the young migrant worker, being cheated out of his pay, working many hours and trying to make enough to live off of. Later on, the boy is introduced to the carnival and learns carny scams. The boy came a long way in work coming from the beet fields where his pay in cancelled from the use of the owners hoe and the price of meals. My favorite character is “the Boy” because he is a very hard working man and is just doing what he can to survive.
I can relate to the boy in many ways. I come from a family of hard working farmers and spent most of my childhood working on and around the farm. As long as i can remember, i was milking cows, driving tractors, and helping on the farm without pay. For most of the time i wasn’t really worried about pay because i was young and did not have any bills to pay but as time went on, i wanted to be able to buy my own stuff, make a little money but it was nearly impossible considering it was a family farm. I have worked hours on end in extreme heat just like the boy in the beet fields.
I really enjoyed this book by Gary Paulsen. I liked how i could relate to the boy and know how he feels. My favorite part was the part when he joins the carnival and is introduced to the carnival stripper. The author did a very good job relating this book to its time period and conditions. There was very good descriptions of the characters, and was full of fun. I dont think he could have done a better job.
I would recommend this book to anyone. The book pulls you in fast and keeps you interested. It was an amazing book and i encourage you to read it!

[Brooke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gary Paulsen’s The Beet Fields is a quick read, with simple sentences that hit fast and hard. Paulsen is a master of “show don’t tell” in prose. Situations and feelings that I could never fully describe are hinted at through a collage of senses.

The emotion of being confused and embarrassed and curious all at once.
Then horror and dread combined with the will to live anyway. The feeling of nostalgia but also regret, or perhaps even relief that it is over.

A lot of people say this book is not appropriate to be YA, but I would argue that it embodies everything YA stands for. “Young Adult.” The boy in this book is becoming a man, but he’s not quite there.

There is an undercurrent of sex throughout the book, and then an overt sex scene at the end. A lot of growing up is about sex. I could go so far as to say that growing up is about developing mental sexual maturity, to go along with pubescent physical characteristics.

It seems to me that a lot of people are in denial about the existence of sex. That is it something we must shield teenagers from until they turn 18, when they suddenly turn into mature adults. That’s just not how it works—changing and growing is a messy uncomfortable process that we all go through.

It’s strange to me that violence is considered by many to be more “child friendly” than sexual content. Paulsen’s most popular book, Hatchet, has a man shit himself and die in front of the main character in the first chapter. Later, the main character finds his rotted body. Hatchet got a Newberry Honor award (rightfully so, it’s a great book).

The Beet Fields has an equal amount of violence as Hatchet, plus an older main character. Being 16 means he notices the sweat on the farmer’s wife’s breasts, and he notices how beautiful some of his fellow field workers are. The literal climax of the book is the loss of his virginity.

Many parts of this book are uncomfortable, especially as an adult reading it. It is a book I wish I would have read as a teen so that I could come back with a new perspective to see how I have changed.

In the book, there is a line that mentions “looking back, he would not be able to remember if Ruby was actually beautiful”. It’s admitting perspective and that the boy LACKS that perspective throughout the story. He is not a man yet.

The book is full of uncomfortable moments. When the cop steals all the boy’s money. When the Hungarian driver dies a horrible, sudden, gory death. When Bobby in blackface bites the chicken’s head off. When Ruby, an adult carnival stripper, has sex with the boy. When the military recruiter is doing his schtick, ready to put the boy in the Infantry. The most uncomfortable (to me) is the opening scene with the boy’s mother. She is drunk and handsy and off-putting, and the boy runs away. It sets the tone for the entire story.

Paulsen doesn’t beat the reader over the head with morals or pontifications. He tells the story and it speaks for itself. Sometimes it yells and sometimes it whispers.

If you’re thinking of reading this book because you read Paulsen’s most famous work, Hatchet, you may or may not find what you are looking for. It is an entirely different kind of survival story, but no less thought provoking.

[Eric Tollefson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Beet Fields by Gary Paulsen, is about a boy who runs away from home and tries to make a life by himself. The boys reason for running away from home is that his parents are alcoholics and when they’re drunk they kick, hit and hurt him. The boy can't stand being afraid of his own parents anymore so he decides to run. He runs a couple miles out of town to a Beet Field. He lands a job on that Beet Field hoeing the beets along with twenty mexican workers, some men and some women. He works for months hoeing beets with the mexicans going from beet field to beet field. Eventually a police officer finds the boy and takes him into headquarters. The police officers robs the boy of his well earned and hard worked money. Once the officer leaves the boy runs again and hitch hikes from North Dakota to Oregon. He lands a new job as a “carni’ (Carnival employee). He travels the nation with the carnival and knows nothing except for the “carni” life.
I thought this book was very realistic. I also related to the book in someway. The boy worked very hard for his money and gets nothing given to him. This book goes in my top 3 best books i've ever read.I can easily visualise what's happening in the book and i didnt wanna stop to take a break at anypoint. The story that this book told was very true and i loved it. If i could change anything it would be where the boy ended up after the carnival and weather or not the boy ever met his parents again.
I’d recommend this book to people who like an easy read and like a good true realistic non-fiction book. If you've liked other books of Gary Paulsen you'll definitely want to read this book as well.

[Peter Adler · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book the beet fields is about a younger gary paulsen, when he was in high school and he talks about how his family was rough with him and how he ran away and had to hide from cops. He jumped from job to job when where he would hitchhike all over the country just looking for work. Then he gets a job harvesting beets where he learns what true hard work is, he works with Mexicans and can not keep up with them at all, they work harder and faster than him right in the beginning and his hands hurt all the time, But the mexicans accept him as one of their own and they feed him. He talks about how much culture they had and how their food was amazing. But that job ended and he had to get a new job so he went to the carnival and got a job as a carny where he meets this beutiful girl that is one of the carnivals dancers and they have a romantic relationship. This book that Gary Paulsen wrote was great I could not put it down at all. I hope everyone gets the chance to read this book.

[R. Reddebrek · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting quick read. I've checked this out from my local library several times over the past two years. There's something about the way the story is structured that grabs me. On the surface its a simple coming of age story, but it also touches on abuse, attitudes to sex, race and discrimination.

I found it very appealing in how the "boy" is able to make friends with social outcasts simply by treating them with respect and dignity and it was interesting to follow him on his journey through rural South Dakota to meet the next unusual character.

It is however extremely cynical. While the boy is able to befriend and rely on migrant workers, traumatised widows and the like, virtually every example of legitimate society he meets right up to the epilogue is cruel and exploitative. The farmers who hire labourers are racist and exploitative, and the local cop is corrupt.

[Jacob Baggot · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book when I read it last year. It follows a teenage boy, after running away from home, in his search for a good job and a way to make a life for himself. He starts off with working in the beet fields of Montana in 1955, first being seemingly cheated out of his earning by his boss and not being able to make almost any money. Later, the large group of Mexican workers take him in after they find out that he can climb to the top of the barn rafters to catch pigeons to make into stew. He later moves on to other jobs and travels throughout the north central states. I loved this book because of how descriptive it is and how it paints the picture of how his life was in the story.

[Tim Field · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gary Paulsen tells and retells and refines the story of his childhood (in fact, one of his last books, Gone To The Woods, retells it yet again). In The Beet Fields: Memories of a Sixteenth Summer, Paulsen delivers what he says is an unblemished and unfiltered account of his life.
As someone who spent a summer hoeing sugar beets near Fargo, I could relate to Paulsen’s account of this arduous and boring task. I liked the rapid succession of events once the unnamed boy departs from the Mexican workers especially the unexpected and deadly encounter with a pheasant in South Dakota.
Gritty and ribald, The Beet Fields is an entertaining bildungsroman of the young man who would become the beloved young adult author Gary Paulsen.

[Rachel N. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Narrated by a nameless 16 year old boy who runs away from home when his alcoholic mother tries to molest him. He ends up thinning beets on a farm, the first of several jobs he holds in the story. Towards the end of the book the book changes from farm work to being about carnies, kind of an abrupt switch. I'm not sure how much of the book was autobiographical. I read this solely because I needed a book set in North Dakota and didn't want to read anything too long. It was an okay book but nothing special in terms of coming of age books.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is memoir of author Gary Paulsen's sixteenth summer. Well written, thought-provoking. Rated PG-13, definitely intended for an older-teenage or adult audience. Ends a bit abruptly. He runs away from his alcoholic parents and initially finds work thinning beet fields with migrant workers. Later he joins a traveling carnival. Finally, he forges his parents signatures to enlist in the army. It ended rather abruptly.

I'm reading this in preparation for an author study I'll be doing in my daughters 5th/6th grade class. They are reading NightJohn as a class.

[Sylvia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cautiously I give it a four. The writing is stellar. My reservations are twofold: first, with the beginning where the story hints that the boy's alcoholic mother tries to have sex with him. Based on this incident, he runs away. Descriptions of the heat, the beet fields and life with Mexican workers have the reader wanting to get into the shade. The boy's (always nameless) adventure continue with a crooked cop, hitchhiking with disastrous results, and working at two more unusual jobs. After his first sexual encounter, (my second reservation )the boy continues running. Definitely not a middle school book, but one for a mature reader. The writing makes the book a fast, although thoughtful read. Reminiscent of Steinbeck.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written, lyrical book with a lot of quiet passion and desperation. What I loved most about this book was what wasn't revealed. All the holes in the narrative and the character were deliberately left unfilled in a way that not only allows the reader to take the place of the nameless main character, but to follow the narrative like retracing the steps of a dream. Lovely read. Great for young boys, as well.

[Chase · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about a kid who ran away from his house. He joins up with some mexicans and works on some farms. Then he gets caught by the police. He runs away from them and joins a carnival. The boy reminded me of myself, becasue he is wild. There is an old lady that reminds me of my old neighbor they act the same. The cop reminds me of my brother because they are greedy. I really liked this book and I really recommend it.

[Jolie · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a very interesting book, and it had a lot of things happening, so I felt like things were moving forward. I like how it portrayed his struggles, with being a teenager as well as new economic struggles he had to take into account. It's a quick and easy read and would recommend it.

[Bruce · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not for children or boys. This is a story of a good and kindly boy in a confused and not so kindly world. Gary Paulson is one of the finest writers in America, and I am disappointed that he needed to write this real story.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an amazing book. It is NOT for middle school-age kids. High school would be fine unless the student lives in an extremely fundamentalist household. There is sex in the book, but written very well and high schoolers see more sex on television and movies.

[Caroline Cromwell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Would not read again. About a boy going from weird thing to weird thing ending in him finally having sex. No character development or interesting ideas. Just a strange story with un interesting characters.

[Connie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not one of my favorites by this author. Teenaged boys will probably like it, if it hasn’t been banned by their school libraries. It’s a “coming of age” story about a 16 year old boy that doesn’t leave much to the imagination.