GOD MADE A farmer

A man, a plot of stubborn midwest earth, and the hunger of a thousand empty bowls-that's the crucible where legends get hammered out.

Everett Wooden isn't a scholar, a soldier, or a slick-talking savior. He's a farmer with an eighth-grade education, a grease-stained Bible on the kitchen table, and rust eating the life out of his wheat. While bankers count pennies and politicians count votes, Everett counts raindrops and broken stalks-and still whispers thanks at dusk.

But a plague called stem-rust is marching across the prairie, turning amber waves to ash. So, long after the rooster quits and June pulls the lampwick low, Everett fires up a homemade contraption of copper tubing, coffee tins, and raw prayer. If he can wrestle one stalk of rust-proof grain from the black-loam night, millions of strangers might taste bread instead of dust.

God Made a Farmer is a hymn of calloused hands and holy stubbornness-part small-town love story, part epic of dirt-road science. Walk the fencerows with Everett, feel the frost bite and the harvest sing, and remember that sometimes the smallest acre grows the biggest miracle.

For readers who believe hope smells like fresh-cut hay and salvation can ride in on a rusty pickup truck.