Bert Breen's Barn Themes

A lot of eight-year-old boys these days might dream about meeting a superhero or going to Legoland. Dreaming of a barn seems pretty boring compared to that. But that's Tom's dream because he wants...

First job? Check. First time going to a bank and a lawyer? Check. First taste of alcohol? Check. This book is jam-packed with firsts as Tom morphs from a little boy into a successful provider for h...

Bert Breen's Barn was published about 75 years after its setting, which automatically clues us into the book's interest in exploring the past. The story is also about personal and familial past, wi...

Quit school, and you'll get rich! Wait, forget you read that. Especially today, that idea sounds counterintuitive, since our society places a high value on education. But that's the message Tom get...

Right from the start, we see that this is a book about a family struggling to make ends meet. Polly Ann is ashamed of her family's history and she works hard so that her children won't have to pedd...

Bert Breen's Barn is a man's world. True, there are some indomitable ladies: Polly Ann has an incredibly strong influence on Tom, and Widow Breen starts off as a salty granny with a gun. Both of th...

Would you wake up in the wee hours of darkness to work toward your goals? Squeeze in extra hours after an eleven-hour shift at your day job? Do that for years? Tom is basically an energizer bunny....

This is a story that's locked in a specific time and place, so there's a bunch of attention to things that distinguish the booming town of Boonville (population about 3,000) from the rural countrys...

Many of the characters in Bert Breen's Barn strike Tom as being lonely, including Ox, Mr. Hook, Mrs. Breen, and Birdy. Tom himself may seem lonely to a lot of us as well, with his life of all work...