Narrated by a 12 year old girl on a North Carolina cotton farm in 1955-56, this is a fictional depiction of that era in the author’s home state. My wife laughed at me me for picking up a coming-of-age novel (a genre I generally avoid) that I found in my granddaughter’s front lawn lending library, assuring me that I would hate it. But actually I found it rather light and enjoyable, a reminder to me of what life for rural children in that era was like everywhere, and a pleasant contrast to the more serious books I have been reading lately.
In the first half of the story I was brought back to the simple life I experienced as an 11 year old on a farm in 1955, although there are a lot of differences between a Southern cotton farm and an Ontario mixed farm, but also a lot of similarities. The latter include the strict gender roles of the era, the universal anxiety about weather and bad crops, the hard labour, friendly and sometimes not so friendly sibling rivalries, and divining for water with a willow stick, which our neighbours did unsuccessfully.
The differences include the graphically depicted cruelty and torture administered by the KKK and personified in the bigoted egotistical Frank Fowler. Perhaps naively I never recall any of that, but that may have been only because we were never exposed to minority races or gays, at least as I remember that period.
The plot is not complicated and is delivered in straightforward chronological prose loaded with delightful southern jargon. The characters are generally believable although the narrator’s father seems too perfect and her stepfather is unrealistically personified as ultimate evil.
There may be a limited readership for this story, but if you grew up on a farm anywhere in the 1950s, it will bring back fond memories.
The Passionate Reader 