Category Archives: YA fiction

The Monday Book: COLD SASSY TREE by Olive Ann Burns

Posted on by
3

File:ColdSassyTreeBookCover.jpgI read this book while living as a single woman in a small town many years ago, and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I loved the imagery, the dialogue, the authentic characters, and the fact that was a “small” story with big humanity.

“Character drives plot” was never truer than in Cold Sassy Tree. Olive Ann Burns wrote about Will, his grandfather Rucker, his grandfather’s second wife (a much younger woman he marries only three weeks after the death of his lifelong and beloved first wife) and the Mill people. There are new inventions like motorcars, and amazing escapes from near death by locomotive–which turns Will into a town celebrity. It’s a small town, pre-television

The Mill people, including Lightfoot, the girl Will has a crush on, live on the wrong side of the tracks and do the town’s dirty work. They’re not supposed to be like the rest of town, but the story incorporates some elements that the times are a’changin’. Burns does such a lovely job of drawing her characters that you feel you know them. You can see them standing in front of you, and you know how they would act if you invited them home for tea.

My friend Suzanne Richey and I were both reporters for the same small town newspaper when I read the book, and we used to laugh when covering some of the ‘smaller minded’ small town stories that we were living in Cold Sassy Tree.

Who loves whom, who marries whom, who hates whom, all rolled into a small southern town in Georgia: it’s a slow, sweet, lazy day plot that should be read under a tree eating watermelon.

Zora’s Advice on Human Puppies Graduating

Posted on by
8

image004Annually at graduation time we take pleasure in re-blogging Zora’s advice on human puppy raising.

Every year at this time humans come in looking for graduation gifts. Apparently their puppies, or their sister’s puppies, or the puppies of a friend–humans have such odd kinship systems–are graduating. It is a time of great consternation for the whole human pack.

It all seems a bit artificial to me. Take that kinship system of who has to buy presents for whom: we canines have instincts for a reason, and we’re not much bothered about the rules beyond that. You either smell good or you don’t; you wag your tail and are friendly, or you’re a growler. Blood doesn’t matter–unless it’s about to get spilled.

But then, I’m a dog, not a human, so maybe I haven’t got enough of that “schooling” element.

That’s the other part of the “graduation” ritual that strikes me as odd. I understand that the human puppies have done something that took a lot of time and was quite expensive, but we canines know that it takes a whole lifetime to absorb the learning that goes with being alive. In my experience, those that don’t keep learning get run over on the highway. Or left behind in a move. You have to stay ahead of those noises you hear in the distance. Ears up, nose into the wind.

There’s another part of the ritual I don’t understand. We bitches love our babies all the time; they get licks and snuggles and we sing them lullabies when nobody’s around. I know humans love their puppies too, but they seem to wait for special occasions to say so. Every day alive is a special occasion for us. We call it “every dog has his day.”

Then there’s that weird thing humans do where they run around each other–or run away from each other–looking for love. In my experience, love comes when you’re sitting down minding your own business. Someone scratches you behind the ears, you look into each others’ eyes, and you got a home. Just don’t go messing it up by barking when a little kiss will do the trick.

And one last thing. There are no books that will stuff into a pup’s head in one sitting all the things they haven’t got by now. In our world, we say “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” The time to tell ’em what they need to hear is all those years you’ve got ’em around the food bowl – kitchen table, I think y’all call it. Those toss-off evenings that tick by one by one, racing past ’cause you’ve got places to go: THOSE are the nights that count. Once they get old enough to go out on their own, they aren’t gonna listen any more. So get their ears full while they’re still wet behind ’em.

That’s what I’d say if humans could hear me. But y’know, they usually can’t, so never mind. And to all you puppies out there leaving the school, here’s my advice: keep your ears up, scratch when it itches, stick with the love you find, and don’t get run over.