Prairie Summer

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

Award-winning author Nancy Hundal’s latest book is about two city kids
who get to spend their summer on their grandparents’ prairie farm,
but, instead of being handed a manure fork, they fill their days eating
farm food, running barefoot through the fields, chasing grasshoppers,
and watching the grain grow. Although this serene life may sound a tad
idyllic to anyone who has actually lived on a working farm, the warmth
of Hundal’s images is irresistible and capable of sweeping even the
most cynical old curmudgeon along for the hayride: “On stubbornly
straight highways, the cars are still big, not the hurtling, honking
compacts of our city. Flanked by waving wheat they skim the prairie, the
sound of their approach coming forever, their retreat stretching behind
them as long. A sudden swerve from asphalt to gravel, and now dust
plumes trail from back tires, marking the path from highway to home.
Screen doors bang, a voice calls hello from the porch instead of a ring
or a knock. There’s time to talk. Beaming grandparents, aunts, uncles,
cousins and talk. Amazed by what these city kids do know, and mostly by
what they don’t.”

Hundal’s superbly lyrical prose is matched perfectly by Brian
Deines’s dreamlike earth-toned illustrations. Highly recommended.