He hires Rose Llewellyn to come tend to the house and his boys, who have been missing a woman's care ever since their mother died. The year that Paul is 12, his father sees an advertisement for a housekeeper who can't cook but doesn't bite. As he travels to his childhood home and toward his scheduled meeting with the intent only of softening the blow, he finds himself remembering a seminal year in his education. Paul himself is the product of one of the schools he must now shut down. Paul Milliron is the State Superintendent of Montana's schools charged with closing down some of the last one room schoolhouses in the state now that the advent of Sputnik has focused the whole nation on the state of math and science education and accelerated the school consolidation movement. Spring cleaning, planting, sports, and an incoming comet also add spice to the story, all coming together in the life of a family of boys on the brink of growing up.The one room schoolhouse is an iconic image of the prairie, one which rural farmers' children traveled for miles to attend. Readers are sure to be in stitches when they encounter the celebrated backwards race that put an end to a schoolyard conflict, and they will mourn with the teacher when he loses one of his most surly pupils to a 16th birthday and an illiterate father.

And that is perhaps one of the author’s greater accomplishments – the manner in which so many unique tales tie together. Though the story is purely fictional, purely magical, and purely enjoyable, the manner in which he brings it to life is an absolute masterpiece.Ĭentered around the town’s one room schoolhouse, each of the amusing anecdotes branches out like spokes from a wagon wheel. He is the finest of craftsmen as he brings the magic of boyhood and a turn of the century Montana farming community together. Enticed by a want ad that claims, “Can’t cook but doesn’t bite,” he brings a housekeeper into his family’s life and a slew of unique and captivating adventures follow.ĭoig’s prose is absolutely delightful. Their father, a brilliant man and terrible cook, is trying to be everything he can for his family.

Paul Milliron and his brothers have just lost their mother. Told through the eyes of a child on the brink of manhood, the tale takes shape on the windswept plains of a Montana dryland farming community.

The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig