The Milkman's Boy - Hardcover

Based on Hall's own family's dairy business at the turn of the century, this nostalgic New England narrative joins his The Ox-Cart Man (1979) in harkening back to a slower time and celebrating farm and family. Before pasteurization, when milk was delivered directly to doorsteps via horse and wagon, young Paul observes his father and brothers at work--the work of holding on to traditional values in the face of modernization, as well as the physical work of carrying milk and capping bottles. When the youngest, Elzira, contracts undulant fever (but not from their raw milk), Paul's father decides to get a pasteurizing machine, balancing continuity and change. Shed's sleepy, light-dappled paintings freeze in time a series of moments in one family's history. Adults with fond memories of glass-bottled milk delivery may appreciate this more than children of the computer age; just as young readers cannot imagine a time before television, they may fail to comprehend milk before cartons and grocery stores, a fact that could appropriately land this old-fashioned intergenerational story in the hands of social-studies teachers. (Picture book. 7-9) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Grade 2-4?Shed's full-page paintings, soft-edged and golden-hued, are memory images, perfect for Hall's story of a family dairy in the early years of this century. Paul, "the milkman's boy," joins his family in bottling and delivering the raw milk by horse and wagon. Changes come to the Graves Family Dairy when their small town becomes a suburb of the nearby city. Paul's father resists the new process of pasteurization because it spoils the taste of the milk, but when little Elzira comes down with undulant fever, the decision is made to modernize. Hall writes about fictional people, but draws upon his own family history and his knowledge of the dairy business to give children a glimpse of the past. His narrative is filled with the warmth of a family engaged in a beloved business, depicting an era of small town friendliness, and a time when the doctor comes to the house and prescribes willow tea. The Milkman's Boy will help children to understand time and change and to see, in Shed's lovely illustrations, a world now gone.?Shirley Wilton, Ocean County College, Toms River, NJ
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.