How long is it?
480 pages in the Scribner 2002 paperback edition.
Fiction · Novel · Literary Fiction · Historical Fiction
The Yearling
Highly regardedPulitzer Prize for Novel (pre-1948), 1939Reading facts
✓ Checked- Reading effort
- 42 / 100Moderate
- Length
- 480 pagesScribner · 2002
- Reading time
- 9 h 30 minat 50 pages an hour ·
- Pace
- Measured
- Emotional intensity
- 5 / 5
About 9 h 30 min · at 30 minutes a day, about 20 days
Estimated from the page count of this edition. Dense books can take longer than the estimate.
About the book
Jody Baxter longs for an animal of his own on his parents’ small farm in Florida’s Big Scrub, though his mother worries they can barely feed themselves. An orphaned fawn he names Flag becomes his companion in the woods and at home. Their bond belongs to a life of bear hunts, neighboring families and constant work to keep crops and livestock alive.
Reader notes
Unhurried and attentive to the woods, the classic coming-of-age novel lingers over Jody’s everyday pleasures as well as the family’s hardships. Regional dialect runs through the dialogue, and the hunting passages can be violent. The affection between boy and animal never removes the practical difficulty of keeping either fed.
How it reads
- Writing style
- Atmospheric · Descriptive · Lyrical
- Tone
- Atmospheric · Earnest · Melancholic · Warm
- Structure
- Linear
- Driven by
- Atmosphere · Character · Relationships
- Point of view
- Third person, limited
- Setting
- Florida's Big Scrub
Reading complexity
- Writing
- 3 / 5
- Ideas
- 3 / 5
- Structure
- 2 / 5
- Background knowledge
- 1 / 5
About this profile
Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).
- Writing
- How much attention the sentences and language require.
- Ideas
- How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
- Structure
- How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
- Background knowledge
- Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
- Emotional intensity
- Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.
Themes
- Coming of age
- Family
- Love
- Morality
- Nature and environment
- Survival
Content notes
- Violence
- Strong
- Sexual content
- Mild
- Swearing
- Mild
- Substance use
- Mild
- Abuse
- None
- Self-harm or suicide
- None
Standing and awards
Highly regarded
- Pulitzer Prize for Novel (pre-1948), 1939
- Pulitzer Prize — Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, 1939
Questions readers ask
Which edition is shown here?
Scribner · 2002 · Paperback. ISBN 9780743225250.
How long does it take to read The Yearling?
About 9 hours 30 minutes at 50 pages an hour, based on the 480-page Scribner edition. Dense books can take longer.
About the author
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings wrote fiction rooted in rural Florida, treating the region as a place of labor and material pressure rather than quaint local color. Her descriptive, atmospheric prose keeps weather, hunger, animals, and farm work close to the foreground. In The Yearling, a boy’s attachment to an orphaned fawn develops within the precarious economy of a small farm, where affection must contend with the needs of the household. Rawlings also pursued firsthand knowledge of unfamiliar communities. She lived with a moonshiner for several weeks while preparing to write about moonshiners, an example of the close observation behind her rural settings and characters.
If you liked this
Edition and details
- Publisher
- Scribner
- Publication year
- 2002
- Format
- Paperback
- Pages
- 480
- ISBN
- 9780743225250
- Edition language
- English
- Original language
- English
- First published
- 1938
- Genres and form
- Fiction · Novel · Literary Fiction · Historical Fiction · Children's · Young Adult · Literary fiction · Coming of age
- Editions
- 13
- Languages
- 4 (English, French, Polish, Chinese)