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Site Map LET'S GET ACQUAINTED OUR ROOMS We hope you have enjoyed your visit. Please return soon!  Visit Mary DeMuth's website. If you liked Wishing on Dandelions, be sure to check out:
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Title of Book: Wishing on Dandelions By Mary DeMuth
In a style and setting similar to Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Wishing on Dandelions is the story of a girl sprouting into womanhood in a lazy town where everyone knows everyone else’s business. Maranatha Winningham, a seventeen-year-old orphan, is one of the most charming and endearing characters you’ll come across. Well-mannered and respectful, she’s everything you’d hope for in a teenager, but frequent glimpses into her thought life reveal a load of secrets and fears that she shares with no one—not even Charlie. Charlie is everything a boyfriend should be—loyal, protective, forgiving. There’s only one problem. He’s black, and in Burl, it’s simply not done. A mere blip on the sun-scored Texas map, 1980’s Burl applauds young love, unless it comes in package of a different color. His complete opposite, Georgeanne is loud, obnoxious, bossy, and irreversibly engaged to Maranatha’s Uncle Zane. Maranatha pleads with God for her uncle to wake up and realize what he’s about to get himself into, but God doesn’t seem to be listening. Maybe the saying is right. Maybe hurt people hurt people. Maybe Maranatha needs to love Georgeanne anyway… Nah. It’s easier to hate her. A delightful encore to the celebrated Watching the Tree Limbs, DeMuth’s story tackles some serious issues while downplaying them with wit, humor, and a passel of quirky characters--one of which sketches an asinine picture of racial segregation. “I’m all for equal rights…As long as it doesn’t mean togetherness, if you know what I’m saying…The way I see it, it’s like that newfangled recycling stuff the Northerners are trying to make us do…They have those separate bins. One for paper. One for glass. One for plastic. Burl’s like that. We have our separate bins. One for white folks. One for blacks. One for Mexicans. No need to mix’em together. We’re all happy in our little bins, fulfilling our purposes.” “Separate but equal,” Maranatha said, remembering Animal Farm’s haunting words, how pigs swiftly became more equal than the rest of the farmyard. “Exactly! Everyone can get a job. Everyone can go to church. Everyone has their own circles.” She turned toward Maranatha and motioned with her free hand. “All equal. But separated.” DeMuth has done a superb job of reviving 1980’s Texas, complete with big hair, big trucks, and big attitudes. Who would have thought a Texas drawl could be written with such grace? Wishing on Dandelions is worth sticking it out through the slow start. The heart of the book is worth waiting for. It’s fun yet impacting, nostalgic and delightfully familiar. |
