A short story about Jake, a young boy, and his eighty-eight year old grandfather Billy. Billy reminisces about growing up in a sod house on the family farm and when he gets sick Jake sets out to grant him his wish of building another sod house. My grandfather lived in a sod house while growing up so this story struck a cord with me. Great descriptive language brought the characters and the setting to life for me. Sad, but in a good way, I'm glad I read kindred souls and even more so that my children read it too. This book was a 2014/2015 Golden Sower nominee.

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Up there with just a few other books by MacLachlan and some of her friends as profoundly insightful and reassuring and wonderfully exceptional writing for kids. That MacLachlan can do in 119 double-spaced pages what most other writers never accomplish in any of their numerous, burdensome 500 page tomes demonstrates the skill that she possesses. Book and author, two marvels that we might never see surpassed. ( )

A gentle book about the endearing relationship of 10 yr old Jake and his granfather, Billy. Prairie farm, sod house, family connections ( )

I'm not really sure why this book is listed in the Sarah, Plain and Tall series. It doesn't have any of the same characters, and while it might be the same setting, it's not in the same time period.
Young Jake is concerned because his grandfather, Billy, is old and getting sick. Billy wants Jake to build him a sod house like he had in his childhood. Also, a random dog named Lucy shows up and adopts the family.
This was a very quick read, and I read it more quickly than I usually do because I was waiting for something to tie back to the Witten family. It deals with the same themes as Grandfather's Dance, but other than that, there's no connection. I was kind of disappointed by that, and am probably not rating this one as I would if I didn't think it was supposed to be part of that series. ( )

Jake's grandfather, Billy, hears the talk of birds, is eighty-eight years old, and is going to live forever. Even when Billy gets sick, Jake knows that everything will go on as always. But there's one thing Billy wants: to rebuild the sod house where he grew up. Can Jake give him this one special thing? ( )