Willa Cather's My Antonia
I asked for recommendations for books involving plucky girls recently, and a friend suggested this one. It's easily been twenty years since I last read it, so figured I'd see how it holds up--which, of course, it totally does, and Antonia does turn out to be pretty plucky as these things go. It's the story of a boy growing up on his grandparents' farm, totally enamored of the (older) girl next door (well, next farm over), part of a family of new Bohemian immigrants (Bohemia is currently part of the Czech Republic). Cather has some really evocative descriptions of farm life and the Nebraska scenery. I'd compare the works of modern writers like Jane Smiley or Kent Haruf to this--they also both have a sort of no-frills but tender look at farming and farming families. Good stuff.
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