The Strength of the Hills

In many ways this is a rather simple book, city girls moves to old run-down house in the hills of Vermont. When you first pick it up, you sort of expect getting a work such as The Egg and I or it's ilk. This is not the case here. There are no local "characters" with quaint ways, nor is there any of the "stupid city girls trying to be a country girl" stories. This is simply a quite story of a woman, who is more or less, forced into buying a neglected farm. It is the story of her interaction with a pet bird and a series of pet birds to come. It is the quite story of problems she faced and the solutions she came up with. Those expecting a insightful look into the family life of Dr. William Beebe will be quite disappointed (Beebe left absolute instructions in his will that nothing was to be written about him and his wife, Elswyth, has honored that request). One can read between the lines in this work though. Beebe was fifty when he married Thane, who was about 24 at the time. You get the feeling from reading this work that he was not about the old homestead all that much during this time. Those who pick this book up and expect to find some of her fine fictional work, i.e. style, will be a bit disappointed also. That being said, this is a nice quiet read. I particularly enjoyed and was interested in the state of affairs during and after WWII in this country as to how difficult things were to get and purchase, how so many of the "things" we take so much for granted as a part of life today, simply did not exsist at that time. I can remember, somewhat, what it was like at that time, and the author pretty well hits the nail on the head. All in all this is a nice comfortable read, simple, to the point and well written. I enjoyed it.