Eva of the Farm

A Horn Book Magazine
NOTABLE VERSE NOVEL OF 2012

Praise for EVA OF THE FARM 

from Karen Hesse 

Winner of the 1998 Newbery Medal for OUT OF THE DUST

"Eva gathers the reader into her confidence right from the start. She balances between childhood and adolescence with an endearing agility. Her poetry sings and her spirit soars as she leads the reader through life on her parent's fruit farm, a life keenly observed from her Crow's Nest.

"In poems like Hammock Queen and Anything is Possible and Sale Pending Eva dazzles us with her gift.

"This story could be set during any historical period in which economic privation has changed lives, but of course, given the present economy it has particular resonance for today's young reader."

--Karen Hesse

Summary of EVA OF THE FARM

Twelve-year-old Eva DeHart knows her family's farm is the best, most magical place in the whole world. The Farm has apple trees and sun daisies and a thousand sprinklers to run through in summertime. it also has cougars, bears, and a dead tree that Eva calls the Demon Snag.Everything at the Farm, good and bad, shoots out of Eva's fingertips and into the poems she is always writing. She dreams of being a heroine of shining deeds, but who ever heard of a heroine-poet?

When a blight strikes the orchard and a foreclosure letter arrives from the bank, Eva puts all the power of her imagination at work to save the Farm. From a booth at the farmer's market to the snowbound hills where the coyotes hunt, Eva discovers that sometimes we face our fears and find out courage in the most unexpected places.

Written in verse, this novel by acclaimed author Dia Calhoun is about the transforming powers of imagination and hope, which can turn us all into heroes.

One of Eva's Poems from the book:

Hammock at the Farm

Hammock Queen

In the hammock

I am a queen

in a swinging throne of string

borne by two tall knights—

the maple trees.

I toss dried corn

to my grateful subjects—

gray squirrels who peer

and chatter at me,

paying homage.

On my right stands

the boundary of my kingdom—

the tall deer fence.

Beyond it the wild world

of the canyon threatens—

beckons—

riddled with dragons,

promises of shining treasure,

and perilous quests.

But here,

on my side of the fence is the Farm—

with rows of apple trees

lined up like soldiers.

Here, in a throne of string,                  

beside the wild world,

I sway,

stricken to the heart with earth and sky,

knowing,

I belong to this, my apple kingdom.

Photos from the Farm that inspired EVA OF THE FARM

SPRING

The pears in bloom at the Farm

Sun Daises on the Wheat Flat above the Farm

The Haunted Outhouse on the Farm FALL