“So full of honor, dignity, and goodness I could hardly hold it all in. This isn’t one of the best books I’ve read this year, it’s one of the best I’ve read in my lifetime. It’s magnificent.”
“A beautiful, kind, even heartwarming novel that does not ever stray from rigorous honesty and clarity. And it is, besides a true evocation of modern ranch life, a life rooted of necessity in community and love, a life seldom written about with such grace and authenticity.”
“Heart of a Shepherd is a perfect book not only for the middle grade reader but for every reader. Isn’t it wonderful that there are books like this—about good people, about striving and about doing the right thing!”
A review from Kirkus – 1 December 2008
(STARRED) Parry, Rosanne
HEART OF A SHEPHERD
Sixth-grader Ignatius—he goes by “Brother”—faces a hard year as his father is deployed to Iraq, and he, the youngest of five boys, is left with his aging grandparents to manage the family ranch in Oregon. The episodic presentation, with each chapter a vignette from one of the months his father is gone, effectively portrays the seasonal changes of farm life. The spare, evocative language of his first-person narration immediately captures readers’ interest and never falters in describing a year in the life of this eminently likable boy trying hard to be the man of the house, facing up to one believable challenge after another. From raising orphaned lambs he names after hobbits to delivering a calf to rescuing a farmhand and the stock from a raging prairie fire, each event moves Brother toward a new sense of his own emotional strength. At once a gripping coming-of-age novel and a celebration of rural life, quiet heroism and the strength that comes from spirituality, this first novel is an unassuming, transcendent joy. (Fiction. 10 & up)
Hornbook Magazine, May/June 2009
(starred) Parry, Rosanne
HEART OF A SHEPHERD
With his artist mother living in Italy, his four older brothers away at school or in the service, and now his Army-Reserve father off to serve an extended tour in Iraq, sixth-grader Ignatius (thankfully nicknamed Brother) is the only one left to help his grandparents run the family ranch. “I get to thinking about the long line of soldiers that have marched away from this table, which is great if you’re the patriotic type. But it’s not so great if you are the one waiting for your dad to come home.” Distinctively set in the cattle and sheep country of eastern Oregon, this first novel chronicles Brother’s year of hard work (lambing, calving), danger (a rattlesnake, a fire), worry about his father’s safety, and pondering what direction his own future will take. (The conclusion he comes to is surprising only because we haven’t seen anything like it in children’s books in quite a long time.) Brother’s honest voice conveys an emotional terrain as thoughtfully developed as Parry’s evocation of the Western landscape. r.s.
A Review from the Washington Post-Book World section 18 January 2009
HEART OF A SHEPHERD By Rosanne Parry Random House. $15.99. (ages 8-12)
When his father is deployed to Iraq, 11-year-old Brother holds tight to his parting words: “A man’s life is not so much about courage. You just have to keep going.” So Brother does his best to “keep going” during Dad’s 14-month absence. He helps his grandparents on the family ranch, raises orphaned lambs and delivers a calf. When a prairie fire threatens their home, the boy not only braves the blaze to rescue stranded sheep but bears loss and starts to rebuild.
Does Brother sound too good to be true? His spunk, occasional self-doubts and cowpoke skills make him a believable, engaging character, as do his clear-eyed observations on schoolmates, church and his chess-playing Grandpa. Brother also explores spiritual issues with a depth and honesty seldom seen in contemporary children’s literature. Rosanne Parry’s first novel is something to celebrate: a big-themed book with a big-hearted boy at the center.
