Review: This Is a Winner
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 2, 2012
I loved this book!  Most of my reviews here have been of books that were a big disappointment, leaving me puzzled about why so many reviewers gave it 5 stars when I could only give 1 or 2.  But I was delighted to see that all of the reviews of Prairie Hill so far are 5-star ones.  This author gave us characters that we can really care about, who aren't always predictable and don't fit into a too-familiar mold.  I love the Midwest setting, and even though the story wasn't really about baseball, the reader can feel the love that some of the characters have for the game, especially before all the changes took place in baseball.  I have felt nostalgic about some of the old ways of life (from the 50s and 60s and before), so I can really feel how Norm and Phil feel about the old, lost world of baseball, and how Jenny, Jimmy, and Hulda felt about the vanishing prairie.I liked the author's device of having each character narrate certain chapters, because that allows the reader to get to know all the people of Prairie Hill--their thoughts, their strengths and weaknesses, their hopes and dreams.I must confess, too, that one of my favorite (and surprising) things about this book is that it was not riddled with spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors.  So many of the free or cheap Kindle titles are victims of terrible or competely absent editing--thank you for giving us one that is nearly free of mistakes.Mr. Burwell hit a home run with this one!