Marilyn's Bookshelf

January 2011

Doig, Ivan, The Whistling Season

            This title was on the reading list for the now-defunct Canyon Readers.  Since there were so few who read it, I decided to add it to the Book Shelf for this year’s reading fare.

            Widower Oliver Milliron, in the small town of Montana’s Marias Cooley, is raising three sons.  To an ad he places in the paper, Rose Morgan responds to act as housekeeper (“Can’t cook but doesn’t bite”), and she comes to far-away Montana. Into the bargain comes Morris Morgan, her scholarly brother.  At the unexpected departure of the local schoolteacher for their one-room schoolhouse, Morris is impressed into service, and what a teacher he is, taking anything and everything as a text for exciting, stimulating, and thought-provoking lessons, to which all eight grades are exposed.  Paul, Oliver’s oldest son is a bookish seventh-grader.  Morris eventually teaches him Latin, either before or after school in order to keep him engaged in learning.  The action of the novel is seen through Paul’s adult eyes as he remembers theses events in contemplation of a movement to close all rural schools.  As he is state school superintendent, we, as the reader, come to realize the value of one-room schooling.  We are introduced to a community of characters, including Brose Turley, the wolf hunter in the community who wreaks terror in the schoolroom and is the embodiment of the animals he hunts.  This book could be used as a textbook course on perfect novel writing.  What a treasure.

Cheers,

Marilyn