Little Heathens: Hard Times & High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Depression

by: Mildred Armstrong Kalish

Published by: Bantam Dell

Reviewed by Connie Anderson

Listed as one of the ten best books of the year by the New York Times Book Review, Little Heathens takes us back to the time when family was “everything”–and everyone worked toward the survival of the family.

Written from the point of a view of 8-year-old Millie who grew up during the depression, we learn about food, planting/harvesting, games, natural medicines/cures, washday, outhouses, chores and all aspects of life that each age person helped with.

My dad was a teen during the Depression and his older sisters who I spent a lot of time with (their farm, the family homeplace was across the road from our farm), never lost the feeling gained from the Depression: work hard, use everything (no waste-and keep it, jut in case), and play only after you work.

Little kids seems to become big kids about age 10. So reading this book was like listening to their stories. To this day when we have large groups of people together to eat, we separate by ages–grown-ups, big kids and little kids.

Author Millie was raised along with two brothers and a baby sister by her mother and maternal grandparents. The father was banished for some major indiscretion, never to be spoken of again. Divorce was rare then, but it happened.

Grandpa had a farm and they lived on one from spring planning to fall harvest, and lived in town the rest of the year. We learn much more about the farm than small-town life.

If you have had family that lived during the Depression, you will really feel a strong connection with this family. If you are much younger, you will get a first-row view of the “olden days” when people didn’t have much–but they had all they needed. Her story really showed the difference between want and need, and how they compensated and had a time that sounds like great fun to me, together with family, friends and neighbors.

This book will become sort of a “classic” about that time and place, well written with real characters–when one’s own grit and struggle was part of everyday survival.

Well done, Millie Kalish.

Armchair Interviews says: This book will give you a sense of our nation’s history and the kind of strong people who made it great.

Author’s Web site: http://www.Little-Heathens.com