The Cookcamp (Hardcover, Turtleback School & Library ed.)

When? World War II Where? A cookcamp in the Canadian woods Why? He's not really sure. One summer, a five-year-old boy goes to live with his grandmother in a cookcamp. The camp is home to nine men who are building a road through the woods. The boy misses his mother, but at the same time the camp becomes home -- a special home where he learns to spit and rides the tractor. It's a wonderful summer, but then he lets slip to his grandmother about "Uncle Casey" and she writes seven letters to his mother. Seven letters that she mails "good and hard." A short while later, the boy returns home.