Ten-year-old Birdie Boyer can hardly wait to start picking the strawberries. Her family has just moved to the Florida backwoods, and they haven't even begun their planting. Making the new farm prosper won't be easy--what with the heat, the droughts, the cold snaps and the neighbors.

Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski was originally published in 1945 and was part of a regional series. This Newbery Medal winner is about a family called the Boyers who proudly call themselves Florida Crackers. They have a farm and grow strawberries and oranges. The author writes this engaging story in the dialogue of the area and captures the times and their way of life.

Part of the story revolves around the on-going feud between the hardworking Boyers and their proud but shiftless neighbours. The story unfolds through the eyes of the main character, Birdie Boyer who is about ten years old. Her straightforward manner and simplistic views give this rustic story heart.

The author was also an illustrator and her drawings help to bring the book to life. She was well known as an illustrator and did the artwork for the original “The Little Engine That Could” and the early volumes of the “Betsy-Tacy” series. Although rather dated today, Strawberry Girl gave the reader an interesting picture of life in the Florida backwoods during the 1940s. ( )

Birdie Boyer's family moves to a farm in rural Florida, but their neighbors, the Slaters, are a bitter and resentful bunch who don't want the Boyers living hear them. The book alternates between illustrations of the pioneer-like lifestyle the rural Floridians lived, and episodes of feuding between the two families. I thought the conclusion of the story was contrived, sudden, and not very believable.
Similar to the Little House on the Prairie series, but better, because it has more of a story. ( )

I have always loved classic children's literature and have read much of it. I especially love the classics that have animals in them. This particular book is one of my favorites and I think it is equally good when you read it as an adult or as a child. The characters are engaging and realistic and the story draws you in. It is a book I enjoy re-reading. ( )

A Newbery Medal-winning novel written and illustrated by Lois Lenski. In this book, the reader meets Birdie Boyer, the daughter of a farmer who has just moved his family from North Carolina to Florida to grow strawberries. At first, Birdie and her family are friendly toward their new neighbors, the Slaters, but their overtures of friendship are met time and again with cruel suggestions that their strawberry crop is likely to fail, and they should go back to North Carolina. The rivalry escalates as time goes on, with alcoholic Mr. Slater becoming increasingly violent and belligerent until even his own family begins to suffer.

Strawberry Girl is the story of the Boyer family and their late 1800s feud with the neighboring Slater family. Set in rough rural Florida, both families are trying to survive as farm families. This Newberry Medal winner does not seem to have stood the test of time for literature. The characters and language are rough and mean. I won't be sorry if I never read the word "peaceable" again. ( )

Strawberries—big, ripe, and juicy. Ten-year-old Birdie Boyer can hardly wait to start picking them. But her family has just moved to the Florida backwoods, and they haven't even begun their planting. "Don't count your biddies 'fore they're hatched, gal young un!" her father tells her. Making the new farm prosper is not easy. There is heat to suffer through, and droughts, and cold snaps. And, perhaps most worrisome of all for the Boyers, there are rowdy neighbors, just itching to start a feud. The land was theirs, but so were its hardships. Teachers, grandparents, and homeschooling families continue to reach for Lois Lenski's Strawberry Girl. As one fan commented, a reason for its continued success is that it's "a touching, realistic tale of the power of neighborly love and kindness."

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I thoroughly enjoyed this well-researched story about poor farmers living in early 1900s Florida. ( )

Birdie is badass, a great role model for young readers. The rest of the book has not aged well.

Not really recommended. ( )

I loved this book as a child in the late 60s, and then re-visited it in my early 50s and was so let down.

The level of animal neglect and abuse, the meaness, revenge, vindictive nature of the characters were a major turn off to me as an adult. I can't imagine why I loved it as a kid. ( )

One of my favorite Girl Stories- and set in Florida, no less! Every time I hear someone called a "Cracker," I think of this book:

Miss Liddy hurried over. "The Crackers are coming," she explained."Just cowmen with their cattle! Hear how they crack their long, rawhide whips. They're driving a big herd to market at Tampa, to ship to Cuba most likely. Probably came from way up yonder by Jacksonville, buyin' up beef cattle all along the way." She paused. "Folks born in Florida or who have lived here a long time are called Crackers- after the cowmen."
"We're Crackers!" said Birdie proudly. "We was born in Marion County!"

( )

In some ways, the piney woods of Florida is just as wild as the Wild West. Birdie Boyer's family is determined to make a go of strawberry farming, but they will have trouble not only with the hazards presented by the natural world, but also resistance from a cantankerous neighbor.

This book reminded me strongly of the Little House books, both in content and in writing style. Characters speak in the vernacular, which may present a challenge for some readers. The ending seemed rather deus ex machina to me. Still, I would probably recommend this to readers of all ages who can't get enough frontier fiction. ( )

Not bad - the history was mildly interesting, and so was the ethnography. I would *not* have liked this as a child - much too implausible characterizations and interactions. Work hard, read your bible, avoid strong drink, and get advice from goody-two-shoes neighbors, and you'll be all set no matter what the weather or how many sandrats you get your 'pore' wife to produce. Right.

I will read others by the author and I will recommend other stories in the vein, like [b:Thimble Summer|10835176|Thimble Summer|Elizabeth Enright|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1300714259s/10835176.jpg|840256] by [a:Elizabeth Enright|3420|Elizabeth Enright|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1196262204p2/3420.jpg]

Part of the 'American Regional' set:

Bayou Suzette.
Strawberry Girl.
Blue Ridge Billy.
Judy's Journey.
Boom Town Boy.
Cotton in My Sack.
Texas Tomboy.
Prairie School.
Corn-Farm Boy.
San Francisco Boy.
Flood Friday.
Houseboat Girl.
Coal Camp Girl.
Shoo-Fly Girl.
To Be a Logger.
Deer Valley Girl. ( )

This book is about a girl named Birdie. She livs in Florida. She wants to plant strawberrys. Alot of praople thinks she can't do it but she does anyway. Her nabers the Slatters interfere alot but birdie never givs up. I liked this book. One thing I liked about this book is that Birrdie never gave up. An other thing that I liked about this book is that the diolige. ( )

One of my favorites as a little girl. ( )

1946 Newberry winner about the Boyer family, who move from the Carolinas to rural Florida and buy a farm. They immediately begin to feud with their neighbors, the Slaters, a poor, rural family with a drunken, domineering father and rowdy, disrespectful children. The Slaters run their cattle and hogs over the Boyer property, destroying strawberry plants and the orange grove. Mr. Boyer retaliates by killing some hogs, and the feud continues. Of course everything works out in the end. I liked the descriptions of rural life and farming, and understood the anger of the Boyers family towards the Slaters, who so quickly destroyed the things they worked so hard to grow.

Spoiler alert: I didn't enjoy the fact that the drunken Slater father was saved so quickly by the self-righteous, gluttonous preacher who ate all of the family's chicken, leaving none for the hungry children.
( )

Strawberry Girl was originally published in 1945 and won the 1946 Newbery Medal for the most distinguished contribution to American children's literature. This was the second book in Lois Lenski's American Regionals series, 17 books about the lives of children in different regions of the country, published between 1943 and 1968.

This story takes place in Polk County, Florida (in the center of the state, east of Tampa), in the early 1900s (according to the author in her foreword, although that could mean the first half of the century). It centers on two Cracker neighbor families, the Slaters, squatters who raise cattle on open range, and the Boyers, newly-arrived landowners who want to raise strawberries and oranges. The main characters, ten-year-old Berthenia Lou "Birdie" Boyer and twelve-year-old Jefferson Davis "Shoestring" Slater, epitomize the conflicts and (sometimes) cooperation between the two families. The conflicts include killing each others' animals, and setting a fire hoping to burn the neighbor out.

In her Newbery acceptance speech*, Lenski said, "Because these are true-to-life stories, I have included...certain incidents which...authors, perhaps following some unwritten taboos, have not often used in children's books...We have not often put drunken fathers or malicious neighbors into a book for children. I have done this, and I would like to tell you why. These incidents are...true and authentic. They have happened not once but a hundred times in this particular locality, and have been experienced by the children as well as the adults. To leave them out and to pretend that such things never happen would be to present a false picture" (page 284).

Lenski spent two winters in Lakeland, Florida, meeting the people who would become characters in her book, and experiencing their lives. She also did extensive research, as she did with her earlier historical fiction, including Newbery Honor Books Phebe Fairchild (1937) and Indian Captive (1942). Much like the "lightning artist" in her story, Lenski carried her sketchbook with her in Florida. "Always a crowd of children gathered, eager to watch a drawing grow on a sheet of paper - and eager to tell me many things I wanted to know...My drawing helped, as nothing else could, to break down the barriers of suspicion. Drawing is a universal language which everybody understands" (page 281).

Lenski used local dialects in her American Regionals books, to provide
authenticity. Some reviewers, past and present, have criticized this. In her acceptance speech, Lenski said, "Speech is so much more than words--it is poetry, beauty, character, emotion. To give the flavor of a region, to suggest the moods of the people, the atmosphere of the place, speech cannot be overlooked...In the simplest of words, with only a minimum of distortions in spelling, this is what I have tried to convey. There may be some children who will find it difficult reading. But I am willing to make that sacrifice, because of all that those who do read it will gain, in the way of understanding 'the feel' of a different people, and the 'flavor' of a life different from their own" (pages 286-287).

An audiobook is an excellent way to experience this story. Narrator Natalie Ross was outstanding with the dialect, and even did a little singing. In the foreword of The Life I Live, Collected Poems, dated December 1964, Lenski said, "During the writing of the early Regionals, 1943-1949, I made a special study of American folksongs, in which I had long been interested, as well as a study of local dialects, and quoted some of these songs in my books."

The audiobook has two other positive features. At the end, Kathleen Horning, director of the Cooperative Children’s Book Center, "talks about the context in which Strawberry Girl was written, and how the problems and conflicts we see in the book relate to our world today." Also, the audiobook clearly indicates the beginning and end of each disc with banjo music, and even has some overlapping text at each end.

The dialect might be hard for younger children to handle on their own,
so for most elementary students, I'd recommend this book as an audiobook or a read-aloud. Lenski's descriptions are so good that I felt I did not need her illustrations to picture the action and setting in my mind.

I really enjoyed this book. I learned a lot about life in central Florida in the early twentieth century, with its underground lakes, sinkholes, and artesian wells, scrub oaks and pines, and palmettos. Not to mention the variety of critters they eat (like cooters, a soft-shelled water turtle) and encounter (alligators on the road, grasshoppers on the flowers, robins in the strawberries). Daily life on the farm (and the range) is described, as well as life in town - I loved Miss Liddy noting (on page 61) that "the millinery business shore is lively - you got to lend money, tend babies, make wax flowers, and stop dog fights!" And "quarrels did not keep people away from frolics" (page 82) - cane grinding led to candy pulling, while a drunk Sam Slater's shooting off his chickens' heads led to a chicken pilau feast.



The only thing I didn't like was the ending--but I won't spoil it here. I would like to read more of Lenski's American Regionals, and I can certainly see why Strawberry Girl won the Newbery.

© Amanda Pape - 2012

[*Lois Lenski, "Seeing Others as Ourselves," in Newbery Medal Books: 1922-1955, edited by Bertha Mahoney Miller and Elinor Whitney Field, The Horn Book, Inc, 1955, pages 278-287. This book, as well as the Strawberry Girl audiobook and a print copy, were borrowed from and returned to my university library.] ( )

This is a wonderful book. I'm delighted to find it in a version that I can read on my Kindle. It has all of Lois Lenski's terrific illustrations. A realistic view of "Cracker" life in Florida. As always with these older books a happy ending. I loved this book as a child and love it again as I reread it in my 50s. ( )

Near the turn of the 20th century, 10-year-old Birdie Boyer's family buys a vacant farm in Florida's lake district. Birdie's father plans to grow strawberries and ship them north. Each family member must do a share of the work. They face several setbacks, particularly from their antagonistic neighbors, the cattle-raising Slaters. Through her parents' example and her own experience, Birdie learns how to react to adversity, how to manage conflict, how to cooperate toward a common goal, and the importance of values like kindness, hospitality, and forgiveness. I might hesitate to give this book to young readers who struggle with spelling since the story is dialogue heavy in a regional dialect with non-standard spelling. Otherwise, it's an inspirational story that will appeal to fans of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books. ( )

Strawberry Girl is about a ten year old girl whose family moves to Florida and has to navigate the challenges and rewards of starting a new farm. I enjoy this book because it is a very well told story (very deserving of its Newbery Award) and would want to teach about it to introduce and/or explore historical fiction. This book is suitable for Grades 3+ with themes about farming, overcoming challenges, the differences between good vs. bad, and historical fiction (as stated earlier).

"1984 called, Val. It wants you to read this book again."

And so I did, and what a bittersweet experience it was. I loved every moment of Strawberry Girl. Lois Lenski wrote in a realistic way for children. She did not pander to them in any way, nor did she try to insult their intelligence. What you have here is a story about children who lived lives of hard work, but they also had a connection to family and community. Where there is strife amongst neighbors, there's also the lesson of forgiveness and redemption.

Recommended for the hardy children who cut their teeth on Laura Ingalls Wilder.

(Can we get the rest of Lenski's works back in print please?) ( )

Rounded up from at least 3-1/2 stars. It's very good but if you're very far from the target age group you might need to have a particular interest in children's lit to think as highly of it as I did. ( )