On the Bookshelf: "The Victory Garden" and the Nearings

• The Victory Garden - A Recommendation

Years ago, back when I was a university administrator, a bright graduate student commented during a party at my home that there wasn't much fiction on my bookshelves. 

Guilty! 

It's true...I'm a non-fiction gal at heart...and random non-fiction topics to boot...Robert Putnam, Richard Florida, Stephen Colbert, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Molly Ivins, Maury Maverick...and, more recently, locavore and locavore-related lit from the likes of Barbara Kingsolver, Heather Flores, Toby Hemenway, and Michael Pollan. (Wait for it...wait...yes, here's another shameless non-sequitor plug for the post about my current fave book. You knew I'd slip it in, eh?)

Ah...but age and motherhood are changing my reading interests, just as they've changed just about everything else.

Fiction has new currency, if for no other reason that it provides a nice escape, a break in the daily routine. Two Christmases ago, I read everything by Jane Austen--years after promising myself that I'd do just that "someday." And then there was a round of "mommy lit" books during the first year of my child's life, when nursing and reading went hand-in-hand and a good friend and I book-swapped a fair amount. (Jennifer Weiner was a big hit that year in my crowd...quick, sharp...contemporary...very easy to read during naptime.)

So, it was with a bit of my past and present reading interests that I picked up a copy of Lee Kochenderfer's The Victory Garden. It's fiction and intended for fourth graders, but it was a sweet and refreshing frolic...plus, it offers a nice glimpse into WWII-era life and Victory Gardening. 

Regarding the plot, the main character, a young girl named Teresa, tends a curmudgeonly neighbor's Victory Garden, organizes her classmates to sell veggies door-to-door, and in the process learns quite a bit about the other folks in her small Kansas town...including the class bully...all while awaiting the end of the war and the return of her brother, a military pilot. 

It's well-written and charming...and would make a lovely gift for a young person in need of a summer read. It could be useful in a classroom, too...maybe as part of a school garden project? Then again, The Victory Garden  is a fun book for any grown-up who needs still more fiction on her shelves. 

For Further Exploration:

• Read a bit about post-WWI era school gardening efforts here, courtesy of Rose Hayden-Smith's Victory Grower site.

• Here's author Lee Kochenderfer's web site. She makes tours! 

• On Another Note: The Nearings

Am wondering if anyone has read any of Helen & Scott Nearing's books? They were a '30s-era couple who leapt off the grid to really live off the land. 

I've ordered two Nearing books and read a bit about them online this week...just wondering if anyone else has been looking into their stuff, which seems to echo a lot of our sustainability notions (lots of '30s-era socialism, too...so my right-tilting readers are warned!). But I haven't seen much about them other than a mention in Sarah Ban Breathnach's inspired (both pro-VGs and very girly-girly!) Simple Abundance. It seems...odd...that their work isn't getting more attention. And compelling. Does that strike anyone else as such? Or am I just reading the wrong stuff?

You can read a bit of the Nearing's here and here, if you want. Tell me what you think.