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| The Whistling Season | 
| Author: Ivan Doig
Publisher: Harcourt
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
Buy New: $4.91
You Save: $20.09 (80%)
New (33) Collectible (8) from $4.91
Avg. Customer Rating:  53 reviews
Sales Rank: 43273
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.3
ISBN: 0151012377
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780151012374
ASIN: 0151012377
Publication Date: June 1, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Can't cook but doesn't bite." So begins the newspaper ad offering the services of an "A-1 housekeeper, sound morals, exceptional disposition" that draws the hungry attention of widower Oliver Milliron in the fall of 1909. And so begins the unforgettable season that deposits the noncooking, nonbiting, ever-whistling Rose Llewellyn and her font-of-knowledge brother, Morris Morgan, in Marias Coulee along with a stampede of homesteaders drawn by the promise of the Big Ditch-a gargantuan irrigation project intended to make the Montana prairie bloom. When the schoolmarm runs off with an itinerant preacher, Morris is pressed into service, setting the stage for the "several kinds of education"-none of them of the textbook variety-Morris and Rose will bring to Oliver, his three sons, and the rambunctious students in the region's one-room schoolhouse.
A paean to a vanished way of life and the eccentric individuals and idiosyncratic institutions that made it fertile, The Whistling Season is Ivan Doig at his evocative best.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 48 more reviews...
 Highly recommend this book July 13, 2008
What a wonderful book. Doig knows his subject and characters so well that one feels as if it has to be an autobiography, which it isn't.
The writing itself is also excellent. I highly recommend this book, set in the days of the Montana one room schoolhouse. This intelligent novel,the endearing Milliron family of Motherless boys,and the indefatigable school teacher, Morrie, all come together to make this a book you hate to see come to an end.
 Read this Book! July 12, 2008
Ivan Doig must be the Midwest's answer to Stegner...well written, engaging, great characters that reveal just enough (unlike our People Mag oriented society). One of those books I am so glad to have read and will recommend. Also enjoyed the historical perspective of the United States at that time of one room school houses, etc.
A season of The Waltons? July 8, 2008
A good read. Not spectacular.
The point of view, time period, certain situations reminded me of The Waltons. Not a bad thing, but that's what came to mind.
Well worth reading May 24, 2008
This book is told from the perspective of Paul as an adult, looking back on his youth growing up in Marias Coulee and attending a one-room schoolhouse. The plot ambles along, rather than charges, but the characters come to life and the story is well written. If you're a person who appreciates a well-worded and clever phrase, you will love this book because it's chock full of them. This book felt like an antidote to the crazy, overbooked, super-speed pace of my life.
Great Reading Group Book! May 24, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Our PAGES (Prose-Adoring Girls' Enlightenment Society) Reading Group read and discussed The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig. We absolutely recommend it to book clubs for a very delightful read and a lively, interesting discussion about life in the early 20th century West, one-room school education, and the details of the book, itself. We rate this book 4.5 stars.
A couple of things that may not have come out in the published discussion questions and elsewhere in these reviews:
Did you notice the possible similarities in the two brothers, Paul and Damon, and in Morrie and Casper?
Also, we all felt rather melancholy at the end of this book about the loss of that way of life and the one-room school education. In searching the internet we found that, at the time of the setting of this book, there were about 250,000 one-room schools in the United States. Today, there are fewer than 400. But, the fact that there are some left helped to lift our spirits. Maybe we'll have a reading group outing and go visit a few!
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