The best heartwarming books about life in a small town

In 1990, after multiple rejections from publishers, this novel first saw print in installments in a small-town paper. Jan Karon continued to submit it to publishers, and four years later, an acquisitions editor called her. 

Ten years later, that same acquisitions editor called me. Fortunately, I was able to give the right answer when he asked me if I had read his pet project, At Home in Mitford. But that was really my wife’s fault.

She bought the book when it first came out and pestered me to read it. I took one look at the cover and resisted. Then our teenage daughter drank the KoolAid. Still, I held strong. But when our teenage son, reader of westerns and sci-fi, gushed about it, I relented. 

I’m glad I did. For an hour or so every night, I disappeared into another world far removed from my hectic life of juggling three jobs while trying to raise two teenagers. When I got to the end, I went directly to the next book, and the next.

If you haven’t read this book, correct that error immediately. It’s good for what ails you.

In 1985, back when I had only one job at a time, we bought our first house, a 70-year-old, two-story monster built back when it was in the good part of town. The next Saturday evening, I heard something and investigated.

The guy next door was leaning back in a chair, his feet propped on the porch rail, sipping a glass of iced tea, and listening to a radio show. And thus, I discovered Garrison Keillor and Lake Wobegon. 

I recognized the people. I grew up with them in Fred, Texas. They hang out at the Sidetrack Tap and the Chatterbox Café. They shop at Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery, and the women get their hair done at the Curl Up and Dye.

The first chapter is written in a style I call Midwestern stream of consciousness. Read it and you’ll know whether you want to read the rest. I read the rest and looked for more.

In 1972, Jerry Jenkins, the high-school band director, turned me on to science fiction. I tore through the sci-fi shelf of the school library like a plague of locusts, frustrating Mrs. Sullivan and devouring everything in reach, until I stumbled upon Ray Bradbury and camped out. This was not just rockets and ray guns. It was music on the page.

Fahrenheit 451 terrified me. The Martian Chronicles melted my head. But Dandelion Wine won my heart. It was not sci-fi. Not even close. The story follows 12-year-old Douglas Spaulding as he navigates the summer of 1928 in Green Town, Illinois, realizing for the first time that he is alive. 

There’s Leo Auffmann, who builds a Happiness Machine in his garage, until it burns down, and he discovers that he had one all along. There’s Miss Fern and Miss Roberta and their Green Machine, the electric car that brings them joy and sorrow. And there’s the darkness of The Ravine and the threat of The Lonely One.

It’s more spell than story, but one that will haunt your waking moments as the implications sift through your soul.

In 1968, a beautiful thing happened. A book fair came to the gym of my elementary school in Middletown, Ohio. My lunch money could buy only one book. After half an hour, I made my purchase. Even back then, I would rather read than eat. 

I read those six short stories multiple times, at least once a year, and when the time came, I passed it on to my kids, who also read it and passed it on to theirs.

Yes, this is a kid’s book. And half a century later, you can still get it for the price of lunch. Aw heck, splurge a little and read it while you eat lunch. It will improve your digestion.

In this age of schedules and screens and stress, a trip to the simpler times of Centerburg, Ohio is probably the best thing you could do for your sanity. 

That’s what a minute said to an hour
Without me you are nothing

I know what you’re saying. First a kid’s book, now poems? Yes. Even though she has lived in St. Louis, Ramallah, Jerusalem, and now San Antonio, you would swear that she probably lived right down the street from wherever you are. In fact, she lives right down the road from me.

The wind never says
Call me back,
I’ll be waiting for your call.
All we know about wind’s address is
somewhere else.

Even though we share a birthday with Jack Kerouac and James Taylor, we have never met, but when I read her poems, I feel like I’m having a cup of coffee with a close friend, the friend you haven’t seen in years, but you know that if they walked in the door right now, you’d just pick up where you left off and talk for hours.

Be nice to yourself. Read this book.