When I hear about a literary type book set in the yooperland, especially the Sault Ste. Siberia area where I grew up and still own a part of my family’s beach, I have to read it. I had to wait a bit for “A Good Animal”. It didn’t drop until yesterday. I am already finished with it.

I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this book to everyone. I’m pretty sure the GG would not be crazy about it but that might be mostly because it doesn’t have Russian Revolution or WWI stuff in it. But I greatly enjoyed it and am experiencing a “book hangover” now.

The overall story arc is kind of a teenage romance/coming-of-age/sheep farming. There are some difficult parts to read and that’s all I will say.

Part of what I like about books like this is the eastern yooperland is my homeland. I know every square inch of it. I can still remember the eight (or so) block trip from my family’s shabby little bungalow on Superior Street to my grandparents’ rather grand house like I walked there just yesterday. I lived on the backside of Lincoln Elementary School, which I red-queened* to every kindergarten morning.

The author made many references to familiar landmarks in Sault Ste. Siberia, including Lincoln School. Rotary Park was one of them. The GG took the beach urchins to the nearby Clyde’s Drive-in (not mentioned in the book) once and they ate their takeout over at Rotary Park. I will never forget my younger niece Pengo (pre-K) arriving back at the moomincabin and gleefully telling her straight-laced mother, “We went to Goose Poop Park!” Yes, plenty of goose poop at Rotary Park. I think the GG was in the doghouse for a while after that. Good thing there is a Van Gogh painting in the doghouse (inside joke).

I grew up in the city of Sault Ste. Siberia and our summer cabin was (is!) west of that. Our beach looks out into Whitefish Bay and Lake Superior. My family often took drives “downriver” (where this novel is set) and the GG and I have continued that tradition. The downriver area is very flat and is mainly farmland. It is beautiful but it isn’t a lot like the terrain to the west of Sault Ste. Siberia although there is also some flat farmland south of the moomincabin.

Anyway, the author grew up downriver from Sault Ste. Siberia in a sheep farming family and she captured the landscape absolutely beautifully. I couldn’t find an appropriate pic of the downriver area so here’s this one of the Sugar Island ferry (also mentioned in the book) from Rotary aka Goose Poop Park.

*Red-queening? In “Through the Looking Glass” the Red Queen runs faster and faster to stay in place. Oh, just google it if you want to know. I don’t exactly remember but I was a pretty fast runner as a kid and The Commander called it red-queening.

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