Munro is a prolific Canadian short story writer who is published often in the New Yorker magazine. "Boys and Girls" offers a child's-eye view of gender roles on the farm. Our narrator watches her mother canning fruits and vegetables in the kitchen and says, "It seemed to me that work in the house was endless, dreary, and peculiarly depressing; work done out of doors, and in my father's service, was ritualistically important."
