An online-only bookstore featuring books about Rural and Small Town Life and the History, Heritage and Humor of Scandinavian-Americans

by Mildred Armstrong Kalish
Paperback
According to the New York Times Book Review, this book is "one of the 10 best books of the year". A different sort of memoir that doesn't focus on the hard times, Kalish teaches the reader what life was like as a rural, rigid Methodist Iowan. She never feels sorry for herself although circumstances of her childhood—including a banished father—were quite bleak. Kalish loved her childhood, and one of her most-used phrases is "it was quite a romp". Kalish took the values of her youth right on to college, became a highly respected professor, wrote this award-winning best seller, and has made the rounds on network TV programs. Ted Kooser, former U.S. Poet Laureate, compared this book to Hamlin Garland's "A Son of the Middle Border". If you lived through The Great Depression, this small book packed with joy will awaken your soul. If you didn't live through the Depression, you will glean some valuable history lessons.

Photographs by Everett W. Kuntz; Text by Jim Heynen
Hardcover
If you find yourself getting more and more interested in "recent" history as you get older, if you prefer the clarity of black and white photos, and if you are one of many fans of Jim Heynen's writing, you will truly appreciate this book of wonderful, "lost" photography by Iowan Everett W. Kuntz. I had the privilege of meeting Kuntz' greatest fans, his wife and son, and heard their stories about their husband and father. Just before graduating from Ridgeway (IA) High School in 1939, Kuntz spent his entire savings of $12.50 on a 35mm Argus AF camera and made a case for it from a worn-out boot, scraps from a tin can, and a clasp from his mother's purse. Wherever he went for the next several years, around his parents' farm or to town on Saturday night, his camera was his constant companion as he captured rural and small town life in the 40s. Kuntz, however, didn't have the money to print these photos, but in time he was able to buy bulk film used for movie reels. He then rolled his own camera film, and developed it in a closet at home. Kuntz eventually married, raised a family, and worked as an electrical engineer in the Twin Cities, while over 2000 negatives remained undeveloped in a box. When he became ill with cancer in the fall of 2002, sixty years after he had developed the last of his bulk film, he opened his "time capsule" and finally printed the images from his youth. Kuntz brought his childhood and hometown back to life, just as he was to depart from it. He died in 2003 leaving the rest of us a great treasure.

by Jim Heynen
Paperback
Through 64 short stories, readers meet a group of farm boys who possess all the trouble-making talents of most young boys, yet they recognize and are in awe of the world's tiny miracles. The boys throw tomatoes at passing cars and make coat sails to carry them down a frozen road. Yet, they feed apples to a blind pony, teach a three-legged dog to shake hands, and rescue pigs from an unexpected blizzard. They also build a house out of junk cast aside by adults, "the boys' house". In their adventures, they encounter an unforgettable cast of characters that readers soon meet: the goose lady, the girl at school with six toes, the man who kept cigars in his cap, Spitting Sally, crazy Uncle Jack, and dozens more. Critics have said Heynen's tales are as uniquely American as the writings of Mark Twain, and this book was chosen as an "Editors' Favorite Books of 2001" by The Bloomsbury Review. Nick Fauchald of Minnesota Monthly wrote, "Heynen's book is a masterful peephole into the young male psyche and the family farm culture." Heynen grew up on a farm in Iowa, but now lives in Minnesota and is a Writer-in-Residence at St. Olaf College.