A Boy Builds a Barn and a Life

I've been reading several of Avi's books lately, sprightly tales about lively forest creatures with cute faces and distinct dialects. On my last trip to the library, I picked up one of his books that was very different.

The Barn is narrated by Ben, who, as we learn at the end of the book, is 79 years old at the time of the telling. But the action of the story occurs in 1855, when Ben is nine and the most promising student at the school where his father has sent him, making good on a promise he made to Ben's mother just before her death. But Ben is forced to take leave of his education in order to go home to his Oregon farm and help 15-year-old Nettie and 13-year-old Harrison care for their father, who collapsed in a field one day and has been catatonic ever since.

This is a harshly realistic novel about a boy forced to grow up too fast, to switch roles with the parent who nurtured him so attentively all his life. We get to know Ben's father through Ben's memories; the man we are introduced to seems little more than an empty shell. Even when Ben devises a way to communicate with him via eye movements, he can do nothing but indicate "yes" or "no". There seems little hope that his condition will improve.

But then Ben recalls that Nettie said his father wanted to build a barn, and looking over the old lean-to where their animals sleep, it's no wonder why. They need a sturdy, permanent structure where their beasts can be comfortable. Their father needs it, and if Ben can convince Nettie and Harrison to help him build it, he's sure that the father he used to know will return.

The Barn purports to be a story of hope and survival, but it's a pretty grim and gritty account. At only 106 pages, broken into 29 chapters, it doesn't take too long to read, but there's an oppressive feel to it that weighs down the reading, so despite the age of the protagonist, I think most nine-year-olds would find the book a bit much to take, too little light in too dreary a tale.

The book's primary value is educational rather than inspirational. It shows in detail the sorts of problems that frontier children faced, thereby encouraging modern children not to take simple comforts for granted. And not to shirk hard work, which does not always reap the intended rewards but may positively affect the laborer in unexpected ways.