Pulitzer Book Club Inclusion Guide
"The Yearling"
by Marjorie Kinnan Rawling
INCLUSION MILESTONES
1939
• Chrysler meets many striking worker demands; solidifies UAW position, contributes to broad labor gains
• Marian Anderson sings on Lincoln Memorial steps
AUTHOR INSPIRATIONS
Rawlings adored her father who grew veggies and kept cows, but was not a fan of mom the social climber or her own early life in NY writing women’s columns for newspapers and magazines. Her editor’s suggestion: “do a book about a child in the scrub.” Rawlings was a northern transplant who loved dogs and learned to bear hunt, fish, and cook like a Cross Creek, Florida local.
GET THE BOOK
Featured Reader Wanted!
Featured Reader
– Share your key take-away about inclusion in this book in a sentence or two.
– Write a paragraph or two (up to 250 words) to describe your thoughts on exclusion/inclusion in the book, why you related or did not connect with the book, and why you think reading, inclusion and dialog about inclusion matter.
– Identify the name and website address of a cause you support with an inclusive mission.
Coming of age via fawn, inspirational dad, farming, hunting, privation.
Rattlesnake strike.
N-word expunged from at least one recent edition of The Yearling.
Feels shorter than 513 pages 14 hours
Interactions with animals and nature make a difference in human development and happiness in a way that humans cannot.
N-word, used multiple times in original edition, removed from at least one recent version (Audible).
Some Civil War rebel attitudes in the book.
Plenty of Florida Scrub/poor rural dialect.
Parents lose many children very young or before birth then have one son.
Father dotes on/mentors son; not-very-maternal mother judges big boisterous neighbor family and others.
Clear male/female role differences/stereotypes.
Differing senses of morality, treatment/respect for animals.
Honesty and misrepresentation, especially as related to trying to get the best outcome while trading.
Community fear bonding (wild animals, weather disasters).
Hunters and hunted. Wanton killing of animals contrasted with awe associated with animal behaviors.
In a fight over a woman, aggressive group of brothers beat down one man.
Willingness to help versus holding a grudge.
People who seem like kin are kin.
Judgement around physical features such as height, weight, hairiness, physique.
Child with physical disability labeled witless.
Doc who drinks; traditional home/herbal remedies embraced.
No formal education; survival skill emphasis.
Get recipes and backstory from Cross Creek Cookery, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ cookbook. Or channel your tidal South inner chef and make a supper good enough for the preacher: poke greens with bacon bits, sand buggers (potato, onion, and wild cooter aka snapping turtle), sour orange biscuits, and sweet potato pone. Don’t even think about roasting panther hearts.
“The day may come when you’ll know the human heart is always the same. Sorrow strikes the same all over. It makes a different kind of mark in different places. Seems to me sometimes it hasn’t done nothing but sharpen your tongue.” “Seems like being hard is the only way I can stand it.”
Rations taste a lot better in the woods. Choose a spot where you can be near the creatures you love so well.
Get comfy on cattail brushes, pine boughs or moss. Storytelling is not optional; singing is.
Is or isn’t there value in reading fiction with racist elements to understand/acknowledge racist history and its influence? How do you feel about editing a work of fiction written by a dead author to remove racist labels/stereotypes/ words taboo in current times?
Is editing appropriate to creates focus on a book’s message or readership/sales of a book that would otherwise be canceled? Is it censorship? White guilt? Copyright violation? Should books have warning labels? Editing labels?
The Florida Scrub is one of the most endangered American ecosystems. What messages pointed to environmental destruction and its avoidance? What solutions are offered?
At what points did you feel awe for nature and horrified by wild animals?
Compare attitudes toward animals and how lives were influenced and connected by animals.
Contrast the nature of relationships with the boy. What made the boy a man?
Compare the parenting and family dynamics. Why did the parents permit having a wild animal as a pet? Why not a dog?
What role did death play – animal and human – in bringing people closer together?
Talk about what it is like for parents to lose unborn babies and young children. How does that shape the relationship with a child who survives?
What did the child with the physical disability teach?
Talk about the body image judgement.
What were the sources of conflicts in the novel? How could they have been avoided?
Why were some characters mean, hard, or alcoholic? What Civil War attitude hangovers surfaced?
How were people treated when they bought or traded?
What was expected of women? Who was respected and why?
The Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Historic State Park, near Gainesville, FL, is a National Historic Landmark where you can visit the Rawlings homestead, barn, tenant house, orange grove, and seasonal garden, and walk a nature trail. No guarantees that you’ll see bear, fox, panthers, a fawn in need of adoption, rattlesnakes, or whooping cranes whooping it up.
The film adaption of The Yearling was shot in Ocala National Forest’s Juniper Prairie Wilderness. That wilderness has been damaged by fire and storms, so check about access.
Alternatively, look for animal tracks and/or birdwatch in a nature trail closer to home.
See the paintings of N.C. Wyeth (who illustrated the first edition) at the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, PA, at the Portland (Maine) Museum of Art, or the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine.
The Yearling (1946), Cross Creek (1983) based on Rawlings’ memoir, and the PBS documentary From Novel to Movie: The Yearling in Florida (2023). The novel was adapted as a Broadway musical in 1965.
When the Whippoorwill (1931), South Moon Under (1933), Golden Apples (1935), The Sojourner (1951), and Blood of My Blood (published 2002; written 1928), plus short stories and non-fiction, including memoir Cross Creek (1940).