Book Review: Give Me a Home Where the Dairy Cows Roam

Give Me a Home Where the Dairy Cows Roam (Oct. 2004; ISBN-1-59113-592-3; $13.95; http://ruralroute2.com)

"Give Me A Home Where The Dairy Cows Roam" is a collection of autobiographical stories drawn from author LeAnn Ralph's family dairy farm in Wisconsin in a time when small family farms were commonplace in the Badger State's rural countryside.

Now that we live in a time when approximately 85% of American family dairy farms have disappeared into suburban township developments or absorbed into agribusiness scale corporate farming enclaves, LeAnn takes us back some forty years ago into a era when dairy farming was a dawn-to-dusk life, seven days a week lifestyle that bonded parents and children with hard work and a sense of the land, animals, and homestead that is rapidly passing from today's expanding urban society.

More than just an autobiographical collection of anecdotal stories, "Give Me A Home Where The Dairy Cows Roam" is also enhanced with a recipe for making homemade ice cream without an ice cream maker and a recipe for "Norma's Homemade Bread". Highly recommended reading, "Give Me A Home Where The Dairy Cows Roam" should be on the shelves of every community library in Wisconsin.

James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief/Midwest Book Review