Firewood and Christmas Potatoes, by Robin Carole (Mindstir Media, 2023, 56 pp, $19.65 PB, ages 5-12) Review by Skye Anderson
Living History and Learning Compassion
Delia (the author's mother) and her family left Oklahoma for California in the 30s to find work and with it, better weather. Times were hard and food was not plentiful. Living in a camp for farm workers, the five girls all had to pitch in when their mother was working the cotton fields.
"The Hardest Times Can Teach the Greatest lessons."
Delia thinks ahead and keeps a secret for all the nearby families she knows: she prepares Christmas gifts from the heart, but they take a long time and meanwhile, more affluent girls at school make fun of Delia. The suspense mounts, however, as nobody knows Delia's plan but, one day in Deember, it starts - and ends with the preacher using Delia's gifts as the basis for his sermon. And you just know the bullies stopped calling Delia a 'dumb Okie.'
Families
This large-sized paperback version has a lovely cover* with firewood and potatoes on either side of an old wood-burning stove, radiating warmth, all framed by lovely pine boughs and pine cones on a backdrop of foggy stars, inviting you inside for a little history and also some family history.
Author Robin Carole has included photographs of her family and, in the back, a few pages to teach the younger set about Okies and the Dust Bowl and Great Depression and even includes a recipe for potato soup (what else!).
*Found out the cover artist lives in the town I grew up in, clear across the country!
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