Olive Ann Burns, Cold Sassy Tree (Mariner Books 2007)
6-stars. Charming family drama set in the old South
5 Jul 1906, the day after the first Fourth of July celebration in Cold Sassy, Georgia. Will is 14. Grampa comes by for his morning snort of whiskey and announces his intention to marry Miss Love Simpson, young enough to be his daughter and – a Yankee!
Miss Love works as a milliner at grandpa’s store, and the ladies in the family consider the new liaison a scandal, especially as Granny had just died 3 weeks ago. On her death bed, he’d heard Grampa praying, ‘Lord, you know my sin.’
There are those who said that the expensive coffin was a sure sign the stingy old man had something he felt guilty for. Will knows differently. Granny had once said she wouldn’t mind being buried on a bed of roses, and Grampa creates one for her grave, weaving roses one by one into a burlap cloth.
Will’s memories of Granny all have a down-home Southern feel. Granny saved the kids some sausage and ham because their father had decided Southern Presbyterians were God’s chosen people and should eat accordingly. Grampa had sold off her ancestral land but refused to use any of the proceeds to make her house ‘modrun’. A good part of the school year is devoted to teaching kids how happy the slaves were ‘before the war’ (which my own grandmother pronounced ‘befo-wa the wawa’).
Up on the railroad tracks, the trestle calls to Will like ‘one of them si-renes’ of Greek mythology. A mill girl Lightfoot saves his life from a passing train, and big black Loomis saves his dog. The well-wishers all want to talk about grandpa eloping with the milliner.
Aunt Loma decides she wants the piano, and the family goes to war. Miss Love treats Will with respect, and he empathises with her in the battle that ensues.
When Pa and Grampa get the town’s first two automobiles, there’s a parade from the train station all the way to the store.
Miss Love gives Grampa a new lease on life, and with the help of Will, works her way into the fabric of the family.
As the town name is modernised ‘over grandpa’s dead body’, to Progressive City, the old sassy (sarsaparilla) tree is cut down for a road widening.
This charming, wonderful and heart-warming tale is told in a believably 14-year-old voice, written in the Southern idiom of my childhood.
Susie Helme 
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