Living in Rural Communities (First Step Nonfiction)

by Kristin Sterling

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by Kristin Sterling

a Lerner Publications Company · Minneapolis

Welcome to my community. 2

A community is a place where people feel at home. 3

I live in a rural community. 4

Some people call rural communities the country. 5

There are many things to see in the country. 6

Let’s take a look around! 7

I see open land. 8

Some of the land is used for farming. 9

I see farmers planting crops. 10

I see animals in a barn. 11

I see people riding horses. 12

I see long, empty roads. 13

I see my neighbor. 14

He lives in a house a few miles away. 15

The country is quiet and pretty. 16

Do you live in the country? 17

There are different kinds of rural areas:

A reservation is land set aside for Native Americans.

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A ranch is a large farm for raising horses, sheep, and cattle.

A village is a small group of houses in a rural area. 19

Rural Facts There are rural communities all around the world. In the past, farmers planted crops by hand. It took a long time and was very hard work. Most modern farmers use machines to plant their crops. They are able to have larger farms. Most rural Americans are not farmers. They work in other jobs helping people or making things. 20

Some rural areas have festivals to celebrate their history or a special time of year. More than 100,000 people went to the Cranberry Festival in Warrens, Wisconsin, in 2006. In the United States, about one in five people live in rural communities. Rural areas cover more than three quarters of the United States.

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Glossary community – a place where people live together and feel at home country – an open area outside of towns or cities crops – plants the farmer grows and sells neighbor – a person who lives near your home rural – far from the city, a place with open land and few people 22

Index barn – 11 country – 5, 6, 16, 17 crops – 10, 20 farming – 9, 10, 20 land – 8, 9 roads – 13

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Copyright © 2008 by Lerner Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review. The photographs in this book used with the permission of: © Index Stock Imagery/Stock Solution, cover; © Jim Cummins/CORBIS, pp. 2, 7, 22 (top); © Jamey Stillings/Stone/Getty Images, p. 3; © Walter Bibikow/JAI/CORBIS, pp. 4, 22 (bottom); © Jeff Greenburg/Alamy, pp. 5, 22 (second from top); © Ariel Skelley/CORBIS, p. 6; © Johner Images/Getty Images, p. 8; Peggy Greb/USDA, p. 9; © PhotoDisc Royalty Free by Getty Images, pp. 10, 22 (center); © Alvis Upitis/The Image Bank/Getty Images, p. 11; © Peter Correz/Stone/Getty Images, p. 12; Ken Hammond/USDA, p. 13; © Louis Schwartzberg/CORBIS, pp. 14, 22 (second from bottom); © Ross M. Horowitz/The Image Bank/Getty Images, p. 15; © Richard Price/Photographer’s Choice/Getty Images, p. 16; © Anne Ackermann/Taxi/Getty Images, p. 17; © David McNew/ Getty Images, p. 18; © SuperStock, Inc./SuperStock, p. 19 (top); © Eugene Schulz, p. 19 (bottom). Lerner Publications Company A division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc. 241 First Avenue North Minneapolis, MN 55401 U.S.A. Website address: www.lernerbooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sterling, Kristin. Living in rural communities / by Kristin Sterling. p. cm. — (First step nonfiction - communities) Includes index. ISBN-13 978–0–8225–8599–2 (lib. bdg. : alk. paper) 1. Sociology, Rural—Juvenile literature. 2. Rural conditions—Juvenile literature. 3. Country life—Juvenile literature. 4. Communities—Juvenile literature. I. Title. HT421.S73 2008 307.72—dc22 2007006365 Manufactured in the United States of America 1 2 3 4 5 6 – DP – 13 12 11 10 09 08

eISBN-13: 978-0-7613-3988-5

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