Starting today, I will post a chapter each Friday of my juvenile novel Burly.
Burly is a teddy bear made of burlap who belongs to Herman, a little boy living with his family on a North Texas farm during the Depression. He is Herman’s friend, confidante and confessor because, through some magical transformation, Burly can talk. It’s a bit like Winnie the Pooh plunked down in the middle of Grapes of Wrath. I was told once that it wasn’t historically accurate because children in the 1930s didn’t tell each other to shut up, I hate you and fight. Too young to have experience life back then, I declined to disagree, but I have a feeling she had a selective memory. So this may not be a story to ready to very young children, but older children might appreciate it.