Popcorn Days and Buttermilk Nights — Gary Paulsen

"Paulsen (a Newbery Honor author) adds another affecting and realistic title to his pantheon of stories about outsiders learning how to become more positive forces in the world."--SLJ

From the city Carley learned rage -- can the country bring him peace?

Carley would rather be anywhere but here: a town deep in Minnesota's farm country, with nothing plentiful except poverty. Still, staying with his uncle David and his family is better than reform school -- which was where Carley was heading. Something was eating away at him, making him do crazy, violent things. No one could understand why -- least of all Carley himself. But then David takes Carley to his blacksmith forge. And under the grim nights and days of the Minnesota fall, under the glow of hot steel, and the most exhausting work he has ever known, Carley begins to see a way to shape his life.

“A beautiful written message of hope.” -- International Checkpoint