SuitabookLove and responsibility
Jody loves Flag, but the deer’s growing impact on the family’s crops threatens their livelihood and leads to an irreversible decision.
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Book details
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings - Author
This is a nature-centred coming-of-age story about affection, survival and responsibility. Jody’s bond with Flag is deeply important, while the family’s precarious livelihood makes loving choices difficult rather than simple.
Young Jody adopts an orphaned fawn he calls Flag after a fatal encounter with his mother and makes it a part of his family and his best friend. But life in the Florida backwoods is harsh, and so, as his family fights off wolves, bears, and even alligators, and faces failure in their tenuous subsistence farming, Jody must finally part with his dear animal friend. ---------- Also contained in: - [Reader's Digest Best Loved Books for Young Readers: Volume Nine](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15158482W)
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Sign in for personalised guidanceThis is a nature-centred coming-of-age story about affection, survival and responsibility. Jody’s bond with Flag is deeply important, while the family’s precarious livelihood makes loving choices difficult rather than simple.
Jody loves Flag, but the deer’s growing impact on the family’s crops threatens their livelihood and leads to an irreversible decision.
The Baxter family depends on a difficult natural environment while facing predators, disease, flooding, crop failure and scarce food.
Be prepared for bereavement, animal danger and harm, a violent confrontation with a threatening animal, severe environmental hardship, and the painful loss of a beloved companion.
This is a grounded book brief while Suitabook strengthens the analysis: some draft conclusions still depend on unresolved evidence.
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The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings - Summary and Analysis | Audible.com
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Checked: 19 September 2026.
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