Author: Olive Ann Burns
Publication Date: 1984
Number of Pages: 391
Part of a Series: Yes, Cold Sassy series, 1
Part of a Series: Yes, Cold Sassy series, 1
Subject Heading(s):
- Coming of age story
- Country life
- Family
- Georgia
- Historical Fiction
- May-December romance
- Small town life
- Southern Fiction
- Teenage boy
Geographical Setting/Time Period: Georgia, 1906.
Main Character(s):
Will Tweedy – fourteen-year-old free spirit who likes to break the rules.
E. Rucker Blakeslee – Will’s brash and domineering grandfather who likes to live by his own rules.
Mattie Lou Blakeslee – Will’s deceased grandmother who was an amazing gardener and caretaker of the sick.
Miss Love Simpson – the pretty strong-willed woman who becomes Rucker Blakeslee’s second wife.
Mary Willis Tweedy – Will’s nervous mother who is still mourning her mother’s death.
Hoyt Tweedy – Will’s stern but loving father who accepts and embraces change.
Plot Summary: Coming of age story of a young man set within a conservative southern town in the early 1900’s. This young man and his family deal with the death of the family matriarch as well as the scandalous elopement of their father/grandfather with a young Yankee woman half his age.
Appeal: Detailed and descriptive story of the life and times of a fictional Southern family set in the early 1900’s. Authentic dialects are used to give specific details to the lives and actions of the family as they adapt to the societal and technological changes within their family and town.
Brief quote: I went up to her house a week after her passing. I guess I hoped she would seem less dead there. (pg 54)
Prizes or Awards: ALA Best Books for Young Adults 1985
Similar Works:
Leaving Cold Sassy: the unfinished sequel to Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns (story picks up in Will Tweedy’s 25th year in Cold Sassy, GA);
Empire Falls by Richard Russo (small town fiction with detailed settings and quirky characters);
Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison (coming of age story set in the south, family centered story, female author)
Reviewer's Name: Patricia Lowrey
Adapted from Saricks, Joyce G. and Nancy Brown. Readers= Advisory Service in the Public Library 2nd. Chicago: ALA, 1997.
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