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Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns
Book Summary InformationAuthor: Olive Ann Burns Edition: Paperback Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published) Published: 2007-09-04 ISBN: 0618919716 Number of pages: 400 Publisher: Mariner Books Product features: - ISBN13: 9780618919710
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Cold Sassy TreeBook Review: In a Town This Size Summary: 5 Stars
This book was on my daughter's summer reading list for ninth grade. It's the story of life in small Cold Sassy, Georgia in the early 20th century, told through the eyes of a young boy whose grandfather marries the milliner from his general store just days after his wife of many years dies. Burns wrote this book, based on the memories of her grandfather, when she was diagnosed with a life-threatening disease in middle age. She finished it and part of the followup Leaving Cold Sassy before she died.
Looking back, the story had a lot in common with one of my favorite musicals, Fiddler on the Roof (Special Edition), except that it's the older generation that tries to break with tradition. Grandson Will Tweedy, whose grandfather always addresses by both names, represents the future of Cold Sassy and other small towns--torn between the comfort and support of tradition and the promises of happiness and progress based on new ways of thought. Personally, I'm happy to live in a world where everyone's just a little more detached from their neighbor's business than were the people of Cold Sassy. On his duets album In Spite Of Ourselves, John Prine and Dolores Kane sang a duet about the situation, "In a Town This Size"--"In a town this size/There is no place to hide. . ." Ironically, the Internet is taking us back in time, but on a larger scale, where everyone can know everything about everyone, at least to the extent that someone is willing to share it on line.
But that's getting away from Ms. Burns' book, which shimmers with authenticity of time, place and language. You'll almost choke in the dust roiled up by grandpa's first trips in his new Buick. And, boy howdy, you'll try out some of the Southernisms out loud just to test whether people could really talk that way. (My daughter and I got a big kick out of this.)
With "Cold Sassy Tree", Ms. Burns accomplishes everything she set out to do--preserve the memory of a place and time in her past; honor the life of her grandfather; and entertain generations of readers. Five enthusiastic stars for all readers from 12 to 112.
Summary of Cold Sassy TreeOn July 5, 1906, scandal breaks in the small town of Cold Sassy, Georgia, when the proprietor of the general store, E. Rucker Blakeslee, elopes with Miss Love Simpson. He is barely three weeks a widower, and she is only half his age and a Yankee to boot. As their marriage inspires a whirlwind of local gossip, fourteen-year-old Will Tweedy suddenly finds himself eyewitness to a family scandal, and that?s where his adventures begin.
Cold Sassy Tree is the undeniably entertaining and extraordinarily moving account of small-town Southern life in a bygone era. Brimming with characters who are wise and loony, unimpeachably pious and deliciously irreverent, Olive Ann Burns?s classic bestseller is a timeless, funny, and resplendent treasure.
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