The hill people and the Mexicans arrived on the same day. It was a Wednesday, early in September 1952. The Cardinals were five games behind the Dodgers with three weeks to go, and the season looked hopeless. The cotton, however, was waist-high to my father, over my head, and he and my grandfather could be heard before supper whispering words that were seldom heard. It could be a "good crop."

Thus begins the new novel from John Grisham, a story inspired by his own childhood in rural Arkansas. The narrator is a farm boy named Luke Chandler, age seven, who lives in the cotton fields with his parents and grandparents in a little house that's never been painted. The Chandlers farm eighty acres that they rent, not own, and when the cotton is ready they hire a truckload of Mexicans and a family from the Ozarks to help harvest it.

For six weeks they pick cotton, battling the heat, the rain, the fatigue, and, sometimes, each other. As the weeks pass Luke sees and hears things no seven-year-old could possibly be prepared for, and finds himself keeping secrets that not only threaten the crop but will change the lives of the Chandlers forever.

A Painted House is a moving story of one boy's journey from innocence to experience.

On-sale February 6, 2001.

Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Doubleday Books
Published: 02/06/2001
ISBN: 9780385501200
Pages: 400
Weight: 1.44lbs
Size: 9.55h x 6.48w x 1.33d

Review Citations: Publishers Weekly 01/22/2001 pg. 302
People Weekly 02/12/2001 pg. 41
Entertainment Weekly 02/09/2001 pg. 68
Booklist 02/01/2001 pg. 1020
Kirkus Reviews 02/01/2001 pg. 128
American Spectator 04/01/2001 pg. 90
Library Journal 03/01/2001 pg. 131

Accelerated Reader Quiz #/Name: 46843 / Painted House
Reading Level: 5.8 / Interest Level: Upper Grade / Point Value: 19