When Ma, the Kid, her twelve year old son, and Jake, the hired man, first appeared on the pages of Maclean's and shortly after on CBC Radio, the lively boy and his cranky hero found their way into the hearts of thousands of readers. Now, in this new edition of Jake and the Kid, Crocus, a prairie town in the forties and fifties, comes alive once again. In these lovingly rendered stories, we encounter the glorious minutia of small town life on the Canadian prairie. Jake and the Kid are surrounded by an entire community of richly eccentric characters: old Sam Gatenby, a rival to Jake and just as cantankerous; Miss Henchbaw, the stern and proper Rabbit Hill schoolteacher; and Mayor MacTaggart, the owner of the town's General Store. In all, W.O. Mitchell created about eighty characters to populate the town, including Daddy Johnson, the oldest man in Canada; Repeat Golightly, the philosophizing barber; and Professor Noble Winesinger, a conman with a heart. Touching and laugh-out-loud funny in equal measure, this classic Canadian story collection epitomizes the magic of W.O. Mitchell's storytelling. Pitting tall tale against reality, Mitchell delivers a realm resplendent with a vibrant setting, a compelling cast of characters, and everyday events that speak directly to what it means to be human.

Jake and the Kid

Mitchell, William Ormond

Macmillan of Canada

W.O. Mitchell worked for many years on this book, polishing what was to be his big, serious, and very controversial novel about white-native relations. The book is set in the Paradise Reserve in the Alberta foothills â€“ but the Reserve is far from perfect. Carlyle Sinclair, a widower who comes to teach in the one-room schoolhouse, is full of optimism, but he is frustrated in and out of the classroom by the passivity of the people he is determined to help. When Victoria, his prize pupil, goes missing in the backstreets of the city, he goes in search of her, and of the truth about his own life.From the Trade Paperback edition.

The vanishing point,

Macmillan

The kite (Laurentian library ; 20)

Literature & Fiction

Humor & Satire

Macmillan Co. of Canada

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Books by Mitchell, William Ormond