by Moe Zilla

Created on: March 08, 2010

Dahlov Ipcar was nearly 60 years old when she wrote and illustrated "Hard Scrabble Harvest" in 1976. But she apparently started preparing for this book in 1937 when, at the age of 20, she moved to a farm in Maine with her husband. For the rest of their life, the couple lived as "subsistence farmers," according to Wikipedia (while Ipcar also continued her career as a writer and illustrator). So there's an authentic passion when she finally created this children's book to describe the joys of life on the farm.

"Chickens in the garden scratching up the row.
Run, farmer run! Chase them with a hoe!"

After the farmer plants his crops, he'll face new problems and challenges on every single page. There's crows in the pea patch - requiring the farmer to install a scarecrow - and ducks in the strawberries. ("Chase them with a rake!" the text urges the farmer...) The fences are trampled, leaving the sheep to gobble the corn, and soon wild rabbits have found their way to the farmer's lettuce patch.

There's real-life farming stories, but Ipcar's pictures give them a special feeling. What I love most is its old-fashioned layout, with a limited color scheme and simple sketches of the shapes of farm and its animals. And Ipcar finds lots of animals to draw. In the very first drawing of the farmer's field, I counted 11 bunnies, seven birds, and a squirrel - plus a raccoon, a butterfly and a dog.

But there's also a playful simplicity in Ipcar's rhyming text. ("Horses in the melons, cows in the hay. Run, farmer, run! Chase them away!") The vocabulary is appropriate for even the earliest readers. And yet Ipcar gives them a lively rhythm, filling them with pesky animals and the intriguing farm produce that they'll despoil - again and again.  ("Raccoons in the corn field. Up all night. Chase those coons by lantern light!")

Because of the animal attacks, it's especially satisfying when the farmer finally harvests his crop at the end of the summer. He hurries to pick the tomatoes before they freeze, and starts fattening up both the turkey and the pigs. Food is finally stored and piled, and the family settles down to a Thanksgiving feast. But there's one final joke in the book's last illustration. In the kitchen, there's one more animal attack - as one of the pies is sampled by the family's dog and cat!

Dahlov Ipcar is 92 years old now, but she still lives near her farm in Maine (according to Wikipedia). So it's a delight to know that in 1976, she recorded her experiences in a beautifully illustrated children's book....

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