Shaker Lane [Paperback]

This book tells a sad tale of "progress and civilization" overtaking a peaceful rural town.

The town originally began when two widows started selling plots of their vast land a half acre or so at a time, when they became unable to tend the fields themselves. The ladies "sold them cheap." Slowly but surely, the town grew bit by bit, with kindly rural folk moving in. Eventually, a smell rural town developed.

The people, most with little education, lived simply, and tended to strew their property about their yards: old iceboxes, wheel-less cars, assorted broken down farm vehicles. Soon the surrounding folks began to heckle the place. Still, the people of Shaker Lane were good, honest, decent folk. Multi-generation families lived there. They helped out anyone who needed it, and looked after one another. Everybody knew everybody. It was a peaceful place to live.

Inevitably, the Powers That Be decide to build a dam on the nearby pond, which will flood Shaker Lane. The people will have to move. One by one, they go. Sadly.

Once the dam is built, and the lands adapt, the new building begins. Concrete, stucco, and asphalt in place of wood and metal. Brand new modern homes, with manicured yards, backyard patios, basketball courts, and built-in swimming pools. "Single family homes" without the grandparents, cousins, uncles, etc the previous residents had. Lots of loud, new, fancy automobiles. Progress.

What had been an idyllic, peaceful town full of kindly neighbors who helped one other is now a "modern" semi-suburb lived in by an entirely different sort of people. The old (and elderly) residents have given way to the young. Seeing it now, "You wouldn't know the place," we are told.

**
A well-told story, not for younger children, even though it looks like a children's picture book. The story is quite sad, poignant because of the harsh reality of these situations, as they have been happening as "suburbs" creep farther out and out. Progress.

The illustrations are beautifully rendered in a soft way. The book is hard to classify, although recommended.

My son and I found this book and I was attracted to the folksy drawings (other favorite books with similar art were "Miss Rumphius" and "The Ox-Cart Man", both also highly recommended). So I bought this book without reading it. It was hysterical because it was so completely unexpected and so detailed in the account of this small town succumbing to the whims of eminent domain, even down to the recreated letter from the government and the visit from the "man"! I'm reading it to my son wondering "oh-oh, where is this going?" but it was all done in very good taste, very appropriate for youngsters. It is basically a story about a farm that sold off land "cheap" which became a small community that then became a little trashy and finally was turned into a reservoir. I thought it so funny and odd that we were reading a story about such an odd history. Not like any kids' book I've ever read before and VERY interesting. My son, who was 5 when we bought it, got something completely different out of it. The book not only tells the story of what happened to this little community, it introduces you to just about everyone who lives there, showing you their homes, giving the names of their children and even mentioning their pets. He loved learning the different people and how they were related. And counting the animals and children. He loves the one old guy who sort of collects dogs and junk and is the last to remain in the area "I like the water" he says from his new houseboat on the last page. How great! The main reason that I recommend this for smaller children is that it really does teach compassion -- it talks about the people in this poorer neighborhood and you like them. Then it mentions that outsiders saw them as nuisances and there is even a scene where school-kids tease them from the bus that goes by. What a wonderful opportunity to say "See, honey? That wasn't nice, was it?" and instill a sense of kindness toward the less fortunate, if nothing else. As he grows older though I can see that he would get more and more about it and even learn about eminent domain. The pictures are wonderful. Just wonderful! This book needs to go back into print! It is a favorite in our house. I wish the Provensens would write another in a similar style.

My kids are now in their 20's but I still remember this wonderful story book about people in a neighborhood and what makes up a community. We all loved the illustrations of individual, slightly eccentric yet perfectly normal families one might see around our own countryside -- those who live in beat-up mobile homes, in little bungalows and so on, and how when a road or dam or reservoir is built, these homes and farms are destroyed to make room for the new and often less interesting. We loved the family pictures and liked to speculate beyond the story -- what the children's names might be, what their pet's names might be, and like the first reviewer, I also loved the man who lives on the water with his dogs and collection of glass bottles displayed to catch the sunshine, much like people used to fill plastic milk bottles with colored water and hang them on many-armed plant holders in their front yards in the PA and NY countryside where we once lived. A marvelous book -- find a copy, new or old, to treasure and read again and again. Fascinating, fabulous, and evocative. Beautiful book to feed mind, heart and imagination!