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Publisher:
Farrah, Straus and Giroux |
Release
Date: September 2004 |
ISBN:
0374341120 |
Awards:
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Format
Reviewed: Hardcover |
Buy
it at Amazon |
Read
an Excerpt |
Genre:
Middle Grade Historical Fiction from the 1970s [ages
10+] |
Reviewed:
2004 |
Reviewer:
Jan Fields |
Reviewer
Notes: |
Copyright
MyShelf.com |
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Buttermilk Hill
By Ruth White
Let
me begin by admitting I was a North Carolina girl growing up during
the same years as Buttermilk Hill. For me, the book was
like coming home again since I was a small town Southern girl finding
a way to cope with family strife through my writing. Ruth White
does a wonderful job of capturing the good and the bad about small
town life in North Carolina in the 1970s, but she does it in a way
that is just as relevant today. I appreciated the honesty, but also
the love in the book. It's a book with flawed adults, but through
the flaws, the characters and the reader loves them anyway. Sometimes
it's nice to see a book where the line between good guys and villains
is blurred and jumpy. In the end, we're all sometimes the good guys
and sometimes the villains -- and that's an important truth to share
with young readers, too. In many ways, the book is also about dreams
-- the courage it takes to follow them and the pain of seeing them
run away without you. The story is hopeful and touching without
being sentimental -- definitely a must read.
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