Michael Perry

With a neighbors help, twelve-year-old Ford Falcon learns to survive in the harsh world outside the Bubble Cities by scavenging for items to use or trade--skills she needs when her parents unexpectedly go missing.

Written in a spirit of exploration rather than declaration, Montaigne in Barn Boots is a down-to-earth (how do you pronounce that last name?) look into the ideas of a philosopher "ensconced in a castle tower overlooking his vineyard," channeled by a midwestern American writing "in a room above the garage overlooking a disused pig pen." Whether grabbing an electrified fence, fighting fires, failing to fix a truck, or feeding chickens, Perry draws on...

In over his head with two pigs, a dozen chickens, and a baby due any minute, Perry gives us a humorous, heartfelt memoir of a new life in the country.