Cotton Mill Town - Hardcover

Speaking in the voice of the child she was when ice-cream cones were a nickel, the author reminisces about visiting her grandmama in North Carolina. The cotton factory is seen in the distance, or remembered as the place where Granddaddy worked when he was alive, and there are cotton fields (in bloom, not at harvest); otherwise, this is a country idyll--swimming, walking in the woods, helping Grandmama in the garden, enjoying evenings on her porch. Grandmama works in a drugstore, and the two help with the harvest at a peach farm, but these are minor economic notes. Winter depicts the remembered pleasures with her usual carefully crafted designs and saturated colors, for a pleasantly decorative effect appropriately like appliqu‚. Reality is suspended, to a degree--there are ripe huckleberries and tadpoles on the same day; a star nestles within the curve of a crescent moon (well, it could be a firefly); and all the faces are white. Still, memory is selective, and the nostalgia's warm glow is genuine. (Picture book. 4-8) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Like the young heroine of this tale, readers, too, will wish they "lived in this cotton mill town," a place tenderly recreated from Hershey's childhood memories. Summers here are a time for swimming at the mill pond with Aunt, for berrying, fishing and walking to town for ice cream with the ever-adventurous Grandmama. Afternoons are for reading in the hammock, nights are for Chinese checkers on the porch. Taken separately, the small-time rural events are hardly momentous--but as a whole they form a tapestry sturdily woven of love. Winter is an inspired choice as illustrator; her color-drenched, highly stylized artwork provides a vigorous counterpoint to the text's nostalgic tone, and the crispness and clarity of her images enrich what could have been just a trip down memory lane with a soft-focus lens. Ages 4-7.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.