Beet Fields: Memories of a Sixteenth Summer

Peach’s Picks Rating


Title:
The Beet Fields: Memories of a Sixteenth Summer

Author:
Gary Paulsen

Illustrator:
None

ISBN:
0-385-32647-5

Publisher:
New York: Delacorte Press

Copyright:
2000

Length:
160 pages

Plot Summary:
The time is 1955. The boy, 16 years old, runs away from his alcoholic mother who attempts to have sex with him. He finds himself working the beet fields of North Dakota befriended by illegal Mexican farm laborers. As work at one farm ends, he travels with the laborers to the next farm and on to the next, thinking of them as his family. Finally, they come to Bill and Alice Flaherty’s farm. Bill offers the boy a job and he stays. The boy has saved what he considered a sizeable nest egg. Then one night Alice sends the boy into town to get Bill who is drunk and gambling with his cronies. A fight breaks out; Bill and the boy escape with the money. Attention was drawn to the boy due the bar brawl. A deputy takes the boy away saying that he is a fugitive. The deputy steals his money and puts him in a cell. The inmate in the next cell tells the boy the cell is unlocked, to leave immediately, and offers directions. Fortunately, a man driving a car picks up the boy. The man wants company on the long drive to Portland. They never arrive. The man is killed in a freak car accident caused by a pheasant. The boy survives and begins walking down the highway. He is picked up by Hazel, a worn, old woman. She takes him to her broken down farm and gives him food and clothing. Trouble strikes again when Hazel and the boy attend the county fair. The deputy who arrested him is there. While the boy is hiding from the deputy, a carny worker offers him a job. Life with the carny is an education like no other. The boy loses his virginity when the carnival’s hootchy-kootchy dancer seduces him. The book ends here followed by an epilogue where once again, the boy is taken advantage of by an adult and enlists in the Army’s infantry.

Critical Evaluation:
This is an intriguing book that is easy to read. The ease in reading is not due to simple ideas, but the excellent writing style and use of language created by the author. The language is descriptive and tight with no words wasted. The chapters are short and fast-paced making it difficult to put the book down. The dialogue rings true to each character. All characters are well developed even the man in the jail cell that the boy encounters for a brief time. The author pulls you into the story with a gasp on the first page when the drunken mother sexually desires her son. The author uses an interesting and effective literary device that puts distance between himself and his painful summer. The story is told in first person removed, not using “I”, unless it is it is used in dialogue, with the author referring to himself as “the boy” in the text. The pain of losing his mother to alcoholism runs through the book. This is a poignant picture of a 16-year-old boy’s summer. It will engage reluctant readers and is a good way to try on a different life and feel as though you’ve lived it.

Reader’s Annotation:
This is Gary Paulsen’s story of his sixteenth summer when he runs away from home and his alcoholic mother. The adventures that await in him the Dakotas range from working on farms, landing in jail, and losing his virginity when he is seduced by a voluptuous carnival hootchy-kootchy dancer.

Author Information:
Born 1939
Developed a love of reading when young and a librarian gave him a library card
Held various jobs including: working in a carnival, farmhand, ranch hand, construction worker, truck driver, sailor
Raced in the Iditarod twice, but had to stop after becoming ill
Realized he wanted to write full time when working in California as a satellite technician and walked away from that job never to return
His books Hatchet, Dogsong, and The Winter Room are Newbery Honor Books
His wife, Ruth, is an artist who has illustrated some of his books
The couple divides their time living in a home in New Mexico and a boat in the Pacific Ocean

Genre:
Memoir

Curriculum Ties:
Use in literature class

Booktalking Ideas:
The book tells the true story of a brief time during the teen years of popular author, Gary Paulsen.

Read aloud from the book:
Page 2: “But tonight, even half dreaming, he knew something was different, wrong, about her [his mother’s] need for him, and he rolled and pushed and stood away in lonely horror while she lay there moaning, half conscious, the drunk smell of her filling his shabby room, dark except for the light from a streetlamp a block away. And he ran . . . .”

Page 84: "There was not the slightest sign that the next day the man sitting next to him would be dead”.

Reading Level/Interest Age:
High school

Additional Books by Author:
Dogsong
Hatchet
How Angel Peterson got his name
Nightjohn
Soldier's Heart: A Novel of the Civil War
Winter Room

Challenge Issues:
Sexual situations, incest, language
Deal with challenge by having a challenge policy in place, selection policy in place (ALA policies). Meet with library administration if necessary. Provide positive review(s) from professional publications.

Why this work is included in Peach’s Picks:
This work is included because Gary Paulsen is a popular writer and the book received a positive review in School Library Journal. Five peaches are awarded for the book’s riveting story and its appeal to reluctant readers especially when biographies are required reading.

Amazon link:
http://www.amazon.com/Beet-Fields-Memories-Sixteenth-Summer/dp/0440415578/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272771132&sr=1-1

References:
Paulsen, G. (2010). “About Gary.” Gary Paulsen. Retrieved April 30, 2010, from http://www.randomhouse.com/features/garypaulsen/about.html