The year had hinges on which it hung, and every hinge had something to do with sheep; but that was the life on Andrew’s farm and the living for his family, and it was right that the sheep should mark it for them.

Six-year-old Peter lives on a sheep farm with his father, Andrew, his mother, Martha, their hired man, Benj, and their excellent sheepdog, Rollo. This is the year Peter’s father will begin to bring him into the world of man’s work. Nearly forty lambs are born during lambing time, and there is plenty of work for everyone. 

On a windy day in March, Andrew brings Martha a black ewe lamb that was born dead. He says he’ll tend to it later as the hide is worth saving. Martha spends most of the day trying to coax life into the lamb, and Benj helps her by blowing into the lamb’s nostrils. The lamb lives and becomes Peter’s responsibility and his friend. She is called the cosset until she comes back from summer pasture a “grown sheep worthy of a name.” Peter names her Biddy. 

Peter and Biddy learn the hinges of the year together–lambing, tail-docking, shearing, dipping, summer pasture, and culling the flock for market before winter. Biddy becomes the leader of the flock. She helps keep the sheep together and leads them to safety during an early snowstorm.

Peter has a coat made with the dark wool from Biddy’s first shearing. It is made for him to grow into, and he is still wearing it five years later. The mended places are mementos of five years of Peter’s education on the farm. When he outgrows the first coat, the old woman who makes a new one for him says, “It will do well enough . . . well enough until you come to manhood.” Manhood seems a long way off to Peter, but life on a farm in the mountains will provide plenty of opportunities for him to become strong and wise. 

In a little over one hundred pages, Yates masterfully weaves a coming-of-age story into the turning of seasons, the cycle of life and death, and the relationship between man and animals dependent on each other for survival. 

Elements of the story evoke the Good Shepherd with a light touch. Benj uses one lamb to lure a mother wolf and her pups into a trap. The lamb dies so the rest of the flock can be safe. Biddy’s final act is to break a path through deep snow to lead the flock home. 

When the flock comes home through the snowstorm, ten sheep are still missing. Andrew and Peter go out to look for them, and they find nine of them huddled together. Andrew leads the nine home, and Peter goes on alone to find the one lost lamb.

Elizabeth Yates’s Mountain Born was in the running for the 1944 Newbery Medal with the likes of Esther Forbes, Eleanor Estes, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and Julia Sauer. What a difficult task choice that must have been for the judges! Johnny Tremain, a truly excellent historical novel by Esther Forbes, was the winner. I have only read three of those five books , but if I had been given the choice, it would have been Mountain Born, because of the power and beauty packed into this relatively short story.