Jacqueline Jackson

Using stories, anecdotes, history, and even veterinary science, Jackson braids together a series of dramatic fragments and episodes to vividly recreate life on the Dougan dairy farm. Founded in 1911 by W.J. Dougan near Beloit, Wisconsin, the Dougan farm, with its unusual round barn, is symbolic of a vanishing era. A renowned farm which was among the first to introduce many aspects of modern dairying to its operation, the Dougan farm eventually became a victim of agribusiness-style dairying and was closed. As Jackson recreates the texture and tone of life on the farm, larger themes emerge: the constant balancing between material life and spirit, the quest for humane values within a hard world of business and labor, the difficult lessons fundamental to childhood.

Using excerpts from her own writing and that of her children and other authors, the author suggests a variety of approaches to learning to write.

Living in a time when people are the servants of automobiles and ruled by the master auto of the planet, Josette longs to leave her rollabout and try her legs.

In order to live a musical life, Clarissa, a mouse, became San Mouse's wife, and together they taught their own little flock to appreciate Bartók, Beethoven, and Bach.

Five children are convinced that the rowboat they see moving across the lake is propelled by the ghost of a dead fisherman.

Chicken Ten Thousand was just like nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine others hatched in the artificial hatcher until she escaped from the egg factory and discovered what the life of a hen should be.

Twin sisters take turns writing of their adventures trying to find an antique china doll which they had discovered in the attic of their new home and lost in a park the same day.

Libby's mother travels to a Vermont lumber camp to marry her dead husband's brother, whom she's never met. Libby takes an instant dislike to the place and to her stepfather, and the story is the working out of the complicated relationships. It's set in 1903 and the lumber camp and many of the events are true.

Children on vacation in Wisconsin are upset when a Boy Scout camp moves in, disturbing their idyllic summer. For years, the Richards children have had the lake to themselves to play their Indian games. Now with their happy hunting grounds usurped by the paleface intruders, the tribe declares war!