From Publishers Weekly:
Goodall provides a rich historical panorama of the English farm, beginning with the swineherds and wattle huts of the Middle Ages and ending with the modern mechanized farm and a farmhouse bed-and-breakfast. Along the way are entrancing views of many aspects of farm life: the architecture, work and seasonal celebrations as they have evolved over the centuries. Goodall once again shows his remarkable flair for rendering the spirit of a place and era in a single spread. His watercolors capture both particular details and larger impressions, and finely convey a sense of time's inexorable passage. In addition, he makes ingenious use of half-page flaps to portray two faces of a single scene: a harvest dinner becomes a rousing barn dance; haymaking gives way to a midday break in the fields; a milling group of hounds is next shown running with the hunt. As with Goodall's previous works, readers will come away from this book feeling amply enlightened and rewarded. All ages.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal:
Grade 2-4-- Using his trademark half-page inserts to change the dynamics of the larger double-page scenes, the artist studies an English farm from its medieval beginnings to the present day. Brief prefatory notes locate times and places, while each wordless scene, as full, respectful, and believably authentic as Peter Spier's historically set pieces, invites lingering attention. While Jorg Muller, in The Changing City and The Changing Countryside (both Macmillan, 1977), handles a similar theme by focussing on a fixed frame over a shorter time span, here the view shifts to different parts of the farm, both exterior and interior, giving a rounder context. History lives in this companion to Goodall's earlier books. A pleasure to look at, and thought-provoking. --Karen Litton, London Public Libraries, Ontario, Canada
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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