The Beet Fields: Memories of a Sixteenth Summer

( 17 )

Overview

For a 16-year-old boy out in the world alone for the first time, every day's an education in the hard work and boredom of migrant labor; every day teaches him something more about friendship, or hunger, or profanity, or lust—always lust. He learns how a poker game, or hitching a ride, can turn deadly.
He discovers the secret sadness and generosity to be found on a lonely farm in the middle of nowhere. Then he joins up with a carnival and becomes a grunt, running a ride and ...

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The Beet Fields: Memories of a Sixteenth Summer

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More About This Book

Overview

For a 16-year-old boy out in the world alone for the first time, every day's an education in the hard work and boredom of migrant labor; every day teaches him something more about friendship, or hunger, or profanity, or lust—always lust. He learns how a poker game, or hitching a ride, can turn deadly.
He discovers the secret sadness and generosity to be found on a lonely farm in the middle of nowhere. Then he joins up with a carnival and becomes a grunt, running a ride and shilling for the geek show. He's living the hard carny life and beginning to see the world through carny eyes. He's tough. Cynical. By the end of the summer he's pretty sure he knows it all. Until he meets Ruby.

The author recalls his experiences as a migrant laborer and carnival worker after he ran away from home at age sixteen.

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Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
No stranger to memoir, Paulsen (My Life in Dog Years; Father Water, Mother Woods) returns to a series of episodes he previously fictionalized in the 1977 Tiltawhirl John and now presents the material "as real as I can write it, and as real as I can remember it happening," as he says in an author's note. It is punishingly harsh stuff: 16 years old in 1955, "the boy," as he is called throughout, wakes up to find his drunk mother in his bed and realizes that tonight "something [is] different, wrong, about her need for him." He runs away and lands a backbreaking job on a beet farm in North Dakota, where his wages are cancelled out by the farmer's charges for the use of his hoe, for the tumbledown lodgings and for the only food available, sandwiches made of week-old bread that cost a dollar apiece. Eventually the boy starts working with a carnival, where he learns carny scams and is initiated into sex by the carnival stripper, Ruby. In a mannered prose style, Paulsen serves up strings of studied, impartial observations in paragraph-long sentences. The technique calls attention to itself, as does the occasional circumlocution (e.g., the seemingly endless sentence describing intercourse with Ruby concludes with "sinking into the wetness, the forever-warm wetness of Ruby"). Paulsen fans, however, will probably respond to the vote of confidence in their ability to handle such gritty subjects, and no one can fail to appreciate the author's transcendence of the appalling circumstances he describes. Ages 14-up. (Sept.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|
Children's Literature
Gary Paulsen has the reputation of exciting the most reluctant readers. His greatest books are those in which he tells the truth about what he has seen and experienced. His newest book is his most honest. He explains in his introduction, "Small portions of this book appeared in softer forms, shadowed and sketched and changed into gentler fiction...But here it is now as real as I can write it, and as real as I can remember it happening." Paulsen's sixteenth summer is the year in which he ran away from home and he faces sexual, emotional, and intellectual coming-of-age by himself while picking beets, fleeing police, and working as a "carnie." The memoir escapes harshness because of the extraordinary detail and imagery, which Paulsen uses as skillfully as his truths. He brings you into his world as he remembers eating cold beans and week-old bread from pie pans nailed to a table, ready to be hosed off between shifts of eaters. Readers follow the Mexican workers, whose white shirts always drifted ahead of him, farther and farther out like white birds flying low. These images serve as an anchor as Paulsen recaptures the strange mix of growing awareness and fading innocence. 2000, Delacorte, $15.95. Ages 12 up. Reviewer: Susie Wilde
VOYA
This coming-of-age story takes place during one unnamed sixteen-year-old boy's first summer on his own. His experiences—from thinning an endless beet crop as a migrant worker to the tawdry excitement of a carnival roadie's nights—teach many lessons about work and life. There are days of pain and exhaustion, camaraderie and generosity, and choice and chance, in a period during which the boy changes from man to boy again in an endless struggle with opportunities for lust and love. From the time he runs in confusion from a home made unsafe by his mother's lonely need to his fateful sexual awakening with the carny stripper, Ruby, who has needs of her own, the boy sets out on the road to a manhood shaped by outside forces and by his own desires and dreams, "trying to do and be all the things he had heard... in all the tall tales and lies told by all the boys who would be men." Paulsen says this is his story, one that he has waited twenty years to tell honestly in fiction. It comes alive with fully realized characters—the Mexican families in the fields, farmer bosses, friends and foes he meets on the road, cynical carny geeks, and barkers. Paulsen's poetic, rhythmic prose offers descriptions that make readers taste the spicy tortillas, feel parched throats in the relentless sun, and hear the squeals and hurdy gurdy of the Tilt-a-Whirl. Paulsen portrays the roller coaster of emotions that a boy of sixteen experiences as he tries on every possible look and attitude on the way to manhood. The striking cover art of a barebacked young man against a hot orange sky is compelling. Beet Fields is felt deeply, a realistic and recommended title. VOYA CODES: 4Q 4P S (Better than most,marred only by occasional lapses; Broad general YA appeal; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12). 2000, Random House, 192p, $15.95. Ages 16 to 18. Reviewer: Mary Arnold

SOURCE: VOYA, December 2000 (Vol. 23, No. 5)

School Library Journal
Gr 9 Up-Twenty years ago, Paulsen told the tale of an unnamed boy who ran away to work as a migrant laborer and carnival hand in Tilt-a-Whirl John (Puffin, 1990). As a story for younger adolescents, it had few of the rough edges that one would expect in a portrayal of a young man on the run. In The Beet Fields, some of those characters and incidents resurface, but this time, the story is a memorable and powerful one. The unnamed protagonist leaves his drunken, amorous mother in the middle of the night and takes on the backbreaking work of thinning beets by the acre on a North Dakota farm. He respects the optimism and resourcefulness of the Mexican field hands, and is welcomed into their community. The teen is keenly aware of his burgeoning sexuality and longs for the attentions of a farmer's daughter at his next job, but never gets to speak to her. While there, a corrupt sheriff comes looking for a runaway, and steals the boy's earnings. When he joins a carnival, one of the "carnies" educates him about women by day and performs in the "geek" show at night as a wild man who bites the heads off live chickens. Lust abounds when the boy meets a confident older beauty who performs a strip show in the carnival and who seduces him. A short epilogue tells of the young man's enlistment in the Army. Consistent with his trademark short sentences and fragments, Paulsen's simple but hard-edged prose strengthens this addition to his autobiographical odyssey.-Vicki Reutter, Cazenovia High School, NY Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|
Kirkus Reviews
Using his lyrical voice, Paulsen (Alida's Song, 1999, etc.) presents a true-to-life, thinly veiled biographical portrait of a boy's 16th year. This boy (all that Paulsen names him) runs away from his alcoholic mother when she makes sexual advances toward him and he finds a job thinning beets for North Dakota farmers. He befriends the Mexicans with whom he works, and learns how they make their hard lives bearable with friendship and the simple pleasures of food and music. When offered a steady summer job by one farmer, he takes it because he's attracted to the farmer's daughter. He never spends his money and accumulates hundreds of dollars, all of which a sheriff's deputy takes. Hitchhiking to escape from the deputy, he eventually signs on with a traveling carnival and learns how to fleece the rubes. The book ends with an account of his first sexual experience. Paulsen's simple prose gives the story a dream-like quality that smoothes the edges of its harsher events. It's the truth of memory rather than unrelenting realism, although the truth of the events comes through. The sexual content may make the book inappropriate for less mature readers, but it's essentially an optimistic, coming-of-age story and a new take on the life of this popular author. (Fiction. 12-15)
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780375873058
  • Publisher: Random House Children's Books
  • Publication date: 2/8/2011
  • Pages: 176
  • Sales rank: 631,001
  • Age range: 14 - 17 Years
  • Product dimensions: 5.40 (w) x 8.10 (h) x 0.50 (d)

Read an Excerpt

The Beet Fields

By Gary Paulsen

Delacorte Books for Young Readers

Copyright © 2011 Gary Paulsen
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780375873058
The North Dakota sun came up late.

They were already in the beet fields and had taken up their hoes with the handles cut off so they could not be leaned upon to rest; had already eaten cold beans and slices of week-old bread from the metal pie pans nailed to the table to be hosed off between shifts of eaters; had already filled themselves on rusty water from the two-handled milk cans on the wagon at the end of the field; had already peed and taken a dump and scratched and spit and splashed cold water in their faces to drip down their necks.

Had done all of these after sleeping the short night on feed sacks in sleeping sheds near the barn; after they had come in to a new day, then the sun came up.

The Mexicans always outworked him.

They spread out at the south end of the sugar-beet fields and began to work, and the Mexicans always outworked him. At first he tried to understand how that could be. It was all so simple. They were to walk down the rows of beets and remove every other beet. The farmers--he always thought of them as the farmers--planted more seeds than they needed, to ensure proper germination, and the seeds all came up and had to be thinned to allow the beets to grow properly.

So they worked down the rows, cutting left and right, taking a beet, leaving a beet, and it did not seem possible that one person could do it that much faster than another, but always the Mexican men and women, and even children, outworked him. Even when he worked hard, hacked back and forth without looking, worked in a frenzy until his hands bled on the handle, he could not keep up. Their white shirts always drifted ahead of him, farther and farther out like white birds flying low, until they were so far ahead they were spots and then nothing.

Rows of beets a mile long. Left and right for a mile and then turn and start back, halfway up to meet the Mexicans coming back.

Eleven dollars an acre. Four rows to the acre, a half acre a day, all day the hoes cutting, left and right, the rows never ending, and even trying to catch up with the Mexicans was not enough to stop the boredom, nothing to stop the awful boredom of the beets.

The sun was hot when it came up late. There was no early-morning coolness, no relief. An early heat came with the first edge of the sun and by the time the sun was full up, he was cooking and looking for some relief. He tried hoeing with his left hand low, then his right hand, then leaning forward more, then less, but nothing helped. It was hot, getting hotter, and he straightened and spit and resettled the straw hat he had bought in Grafton. It had a piece of green plastic in the brim that looked cool but wasn't. He had bought the hat because all the Mexicans had them and he wanted to look like them, blend in with them in the field even though they were a rich dark color and he looked like white paper burned around the edges. But the hat did not seem to fit right and he kept readjusting it to get the sweatband broken in. It was the same with his hands. They did not break in. He had been working three days now, but blisters had rebroken and left pink skin that opened and bled. He bought leather gloves from the farmer who sold them the hoes. The farmer sold them hoes for three dollars and gloves for another two dollars and they had to pay a dollar a day for a sandwich and he had worked three days and had only hoed an acre. Not counting the hat, which he'd bought with money he'd found in his pockets when he ran, he had now earned eleven dollars, with three taken out for the hoe and three for sandwiches and two for the gloves and four and a half for three dinners, and fifty cents a night for three nights. After three days' work, he owed the farmer three dollars.

He did the math while he worked.

"I pay eleven dollars an acre," the farmer had told him. "You can hoe an acre a day easy--eleven dollars a day."

When he'd started hoeing he dreamt of wealth, did the math constantly until the numbers filled his mind. Eleven dollars an acre, an acre a day; after ten days a hundred and ten dollars, twenty days the almost-unheard-of sum of two hundred and twenty dollars. More than a man made per month working in a factory for a dollar an hour--and he was only sixteen. Rich. He would be rich.

But after the first day when his back would not straighten and his hands would not uncurl from the hoe handle and his blisters were bleeding, after all that and two-fifty for food, and three for the hoe, and fifty cents for the lodging, not to mention the hat and gloves, only a third of an acre had been thinned that first day, and he knew he would not get rich, would never be rich. By the second day he was no longer even sad about not being rich and laughed with the Mexicans who would also never be rich but who smiled and laughed all the time while they worked. Now, on the fourth day, gloved, he just hoed.

He worked hard, his head down, the hoe snaking left and right. An hour could have passed, a minute, a day, a year. He did not look up, kept working until it seemed it should be time for a break, and he stood and looked across the field to the north where the Mexicans were small white dots, moving farther ahead as he watched.


From the Hardcover edition.

Continues...
Excerpted from The Beet Fields by Gary Paulsen Copyright © 2011 by Gary Paulsen. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
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Reading Group Guide

1. Not one character is identified with a name throughout the first chapter of The Beet Fields. The Mexicans are referred to by their looks or age (e. g., "old Mexican") and the farmer and his wife as simply "the farmer" and "the farmer's wife." However, in Chapter 2, Paulsen introduces farmer Bill Flaherty and starts to distinguish his characters by name. What changes?

2. The boy develops an interesting relationship with the Mexicans in Chapter 1. What do the Mexicans teach the boy? How is the boy's experience on Bill Flaherty's farm different from his experience with the Mexicans? Which experience do you feel taught him more, and which do you think he ultimately preferred?

3.         In the prologue to the novel, we learn that The Beet Fields is set in 1955. If you didn't know this, how would you be able to tell that this story takes place in the 1950s? Could this novel be set in the present? Why or why not?

4. Setting and imagery are key ingredients in The Beet Fields. In many ways, Paulsen uses a "you are there" approach to writing. Select parts of the novel that you think are especially powerful in terms of setting and imagery, or that you find particularly effective.

5. Dealing with authority figures is a key issue for the boy in the course of the novel. The boy resists authority, sometimes outwardly and oftentimes silently. Yet he is ultimately looking for structure in his life. Read through the novel and discuss instances in which this is the case. Why do you think the boy has problems with authority to begin with? And does he finally resolve them at the end of the book?

6. In Chapter5, Paulsen writes, "And the boy was a wanted man; he thought that way, not as a wanted boy but as a wanted man." Discuss the many different ways in which "the boy" grows into a man by the end of the novel.

7. he boy's quality of life changes for a brief time once he meets Hazel. How is the boy's relationship with Hazel stronger than his relationship with his own mother? The boy says of Hazel, "she was maybe crazy, and he didn't care because it was not the evil kind of crazy like his parents but the soft kind." (p. 99) What does he mean by this comment?

8.         On page 104, Paulsen writes, "The boy turned and found himself looking at a figure who summed up everything he wanted to be in a man." After you read the subsequent description of Taylor, are you surprised that the boy feels this way? What does Taylor represent to the boy? How is living the carny life satisfying for the boy, yet unsatisfying for him at the same time?

9. The "Wild Man from Borneo" and the boy have many similarities. They are both ruled by basic needs and desires. Yet, they are vastly different. Discuss how this is so.

10. The introduction of Ruby marks a huge turning point for the boy. Talk about his experience with Ruby. Was it everything he anticipated it to be?

11. Discuss the last line in The Beet Fields. How is this comment by the recruiter ironic?

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Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4
( 17 )
Rating Distribution

5 Star

(8)

4 Star

(3)

3 Star

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2 Star

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Sort by: Showing all of 17 Customer Reviews

  • Anonymous

    Posted June 2, 2013

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted July 22, 2012

    Kat <3

    The books? Look up erin hunter

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted July 22, 2012

    Giraffalia to Hillary

    Hi. 'She accidently let out Ampersand. Ampersand ran around the camp' Please excuse me..

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted August 23, 2010

    I Also Recommend:

    Hatchet (Brian's Saga Series #1)
    The River (Brian's Saga Series #2)
    Brian's Winter (Brian's Saga Series #3)
    Brian's Return (Brian's Saga Series #4)

    Another Great Book From Gary Paulsen

    Gary Paulsen writes books that mainly focuses on a young man's life and how he survives. The Beets Fields is another book that he wrote and it is also mainly about a young man's life and how he survives. This book I would really recommend to a freind. The reason I enjoyed the book was becuase it was written by Gary Paulsen and also I enjoy the way the story progresses as you keep on reading it.
    Most of the books I mainly read are Gary Paulsen books. Whenever I have some time to myself I would read his books. The thing that catches my attention in every Gary Paulsen book is how the main character survives. He has written a lot of books like Hatchet, Brian's Return, and Brian's Winter. There are many more books but these were the only ones that I began reading. I am stilling looking for more books written By Gary Paulsen.
    The book is about a kid who runs away from his alcoholic parents. Then at age sixteen he runs away from his home and he works in a beet fields with Mexicans. Later on he runs away from the beet field only to get caught by the towns sheriff, who then arrests him for no good reason. He escapes and joins the carnival and learns to be a man. At the end he joins the army, and that is one great adventure. To me the adventure of this young man is what made it a great book for me.
    Gary Paulsen is a great writer. He has written a lot of books. I read some of those books but not all of them. Like I said in the beginning his theme is about a young man's life and how he survives. This book has a man vs. society conflict after running away from the beet fields. The character and the story are great. I would like to read most of his book and see if the theme is still the same.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted March 8, 2005

    Very exciting book

    Gary Paulsen has written many great books. Most of his book have some sort of way they deal with a young mans life and how he survives. The book The Beet Fields, by Gary Paulsen, is the story of a young boy, which is never named in the book, who ran away from home to escape the hardships of his alcoholic parents. The boy first, at age sixteen, runs away from home to work with some Mexicans in beet fields hoeing in the overpopulated rows. Then the boy goes on the run after he escapes a run in with the town sheriff. Finally he joins a moving carnival as he learns about being a man, and surviving in the real world. There were many other learning experiences for this boy throughout the book, and at the end you come to find out that the boy joined the army. This was a very exciting and interesting book for me. I enjoyed reading it along with all the other books Gary Paulsen has written.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted October 21, 2004

    good book

    This book is about a kid that runs away from home and gets a job working in the beet fields. One day the sheriff stops by the field and he takes the kid in for running away from home. When they get to the sheriff¿s department the kid escapes. A girl picks him up and they go to the fair. At the fair a guy finds the kid and asks him for help with the carnie work. The kid becomes a carnie and goes from one fair to the next working on the tilt-a-whirl. That sums up the book for the most part. I liked this book because it was easy to follow the book and understand it. I would recommend this book for people that have trouble staying focused in a book. Also if you have problems understanding books this would be a great book. This book shouldn¿t be read by young kids because of the language in it.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted December 20, 2003

    Like 'The Boys Great Adventure'

    This book is just an exciting look on a boys adventure through life and what he learns along the way.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted September 21, 2003

    * * * * * * * * * * 15 stars

    I think it was great. the young boy is very forefilling in his life. he learns many new thing, like ruby in bed with him.if you read it you'l love it.lit*rly.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted March 9, 2003

    Crossing the Border to Manhood

    Gary Paulsen an award winning author has written many books about interactions he has experienced through earlier years of his life. In this autobiography, Paulsen shares his life in the most realistic ways at the age of sixteen when he had to grow to become a man after leaving his drunken parents behind. Gary Paulsen is known as the ¿boy¿ throughout this story instead of using a name. The ¿boy¿ begins his summer in the beet fields of North Dakota along with some migrant Mexicans who teach him how to work faster, eat better, and to stay out of trouble. The ¿boy¿ moves on with the Mexicans to other farms as work is completed. He is separated from the Mexicans when he is offered a job which he accepts because he notices a beautiful girl lives on that farm. On this farm he makes quite a bit of money but finds out that work is continual and brings much wear and tear on the body. Eventually he has to flee the area by leaving a jail due to a sheriff deputy taking him after receiving fugitive information. From this point of his summer the ¿boy¿ encounters some feelings of loss that he doesn¿t understand. The rest of the summer is spent in hard labor working in a traveling carnival lifestyle, changes in life after meeting a girl, and leads to the beginning of a new lifestyle after enlistment into the infantry of the army. I recommend this book to more to guys ages 15 and older. They would probably relate to the autobiographical life of Gary Paulsen better than girls because of the manly language used and the sexual encounters guys face reaching manhood. This book was rated a 3 because the title does fit the story line of the book but it was not a favorite Paulsen book of mine. Perhaps this is because I am a ¿girl¿.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted December 6, 2002

    The Beet Fields

    I really enjoyed this book. I feel that it sort of touches on Gary Paulsen's life growing up. Leaving his drunk parents and trying to survive on his own. I think that this is another great writing by Gary Paulsen and I would recommend it to others to read.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted October 20, 2002

    It doesn't even deserve ONE star.

    All righty, people. The Beet Fields: Memories of a Sixteenth Summer was the first book I have read from Gary Paulsen, and it will be my last if I can help it. The storyline was completely boring, the characters were dull and dead, and there was not a plot. In other words, this "book" was pointless and without meaning. I first picked this book to read because the cover and storyline was appealing, and now I wished I had never laid my hands on it.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted December 12, 2001

    The Beet Fields

    In this remarkable book out of Gary Paulsen¿s magnificent collection, Paulsen writes from his own life that has appeared earlier in his past novels, to tell the story of a summer when a 16-year-old boy became a man. Fleeing his drunken parents, this boy runs away and finds work in the beet fields of North Dakota. Using a hoe for long, hot days, he learns about cruelty from the farmer¿s wife and about kindness from his Mexican co-workers. Later an attraction to a girl he saw only once, leads him into accepting a job driving a tractor in fields, but a run-in with the deputy sheriff sends him on the run again, only to be taken by a carnival. He learns to lure people in for geeks and learns about a fake wild man of Borneo who bites off the heads of chickens. As he became better acquainted, he started to yearn for Ruby, the exciting hootchy-kootchy (stripper) dancer. During the summer the boy learns about life ands people and his own ability to work and survive, and when Ruby invites him into her bed, his transition to manhood is complete. Not one teenager would turn this book down once they¿ve started reading. Give this four-star rated novel a shot and see if you don¿t get hooked onto the Paulsen craze!

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  • Anonymous

    Posted March 15, 2001

    beet fields

    After I finished this book, I thought it was terrible, but after I did an analysis of it in classs, it didn't seem so bad. I still don't think I would ever read it again though. If your looking for an in depth book with a lot of details and characters, don't read this one. It only has one main character, and a few temporary characters that come and go, and you don't even find out the boy's name. It's a quick moving book so it doesn't go into a lot of depth.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 10, 2001

    Great Book!!

    This book was so good!! I thought it was so cool to read and I think all teenagers will enjoy this book!!

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  • Anonymous

    Posted October 26, 2000

    THIS BOOK ROCKED!!

    I thought this book was grrrreat!! it was very well written, and it made me think if someting similar that happened to me one summer. I think most people that read it will like it, but especially guys cuz it might have happened to you, where a girl changes your life. Have fun with this book, bye!

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  • Anonymous

    Posted June 7, 2012

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted December 11, 2008

    No text was provided for this review.

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