The Whistling Season

Ivan Doig, “The Whistling Season” Harcourt Inc, 2006, 345 pp
A particularly good book to read for anyone who has attended a one-room country school house, anyone wanting to know what Sputnik had to do with the closing and consolidation of so many schools in the late 50s, and for anyone who wants to vicariously experience the atmosphere of a small school with many grades in the same room.
The story is narrated by, Paul Milliron, the oldest of three brothers growing up in Montana during the early 1900s. Pauls’ widowed father sends for a housekeeper in Minnesota after reading an ad in the local newspaper that says "Can't Cook; Doesn't Bite". The ever-whistling housekeeper, Rose, moves to Montana with her brother Morty; Morty becomes the school teacher when the current teacher runs off with a local itinerant preacher. These are two very memorable characters.

The story is mostly a flashback to when the narrator was a student. He is now the Superintendent of schools and following the 1950's Sputnik orbit he is preparing to announce the consolidation of the one-room school in Montana. He is troubled about this move as he thinks back to his own boyhood in a one-room school in rural Montana some 40 years earlier. This book is quite worth reading; I spent some time in small schools like the one in the book so probably have more reason to like it. I will probably try and find other books by this author as I like his writing style.