Book Review: Dixie Storms

I picked up Dixie Storms by Barbara Hall last minute from my sister's old collection for the plane ride to Boston. It is a typical young adult, coming-of-age story that is entertaining but not very deep, so an easy read. I like to have something that is not too dense to focus on on an airplane, so this story about fourteen-year-old Margaret "Dutch" Peyton and the issues that concern her and her family's tobacco farm in the small rural town of Marston, Virginia was perfect for the flight. Dutch's mother died in childbirth, so the teenager grows up filling a mother's role in terms of household duties, attending to her also mother-less nephew's needs, and in some ways keeping her family together. Her family, like most in Marston, subsists on tobacco farming, and a dry summer compounded by visits by bank loaners is threatening their livelihood. In the foreground, Dutch deals with a culturally-different cousin going through family issues, the secrets of her brother Flood and the raising of his son Bodean, and personal relationship drama with boys from school. The plot is semi-predictable, but it is to entertaining to perceive quite serious problems through the eyes of a young girl, who describes events in an uncomplicated manner.

In the end, I got the message that families are imperfect, dysfunctional, and oftentimes a pain to deal with but they are also something an individual can never, and would never, run away from. Despite the heartbreak and turmoil that family drama wreaks on a child's life, one has to accept and embrace one's family, because one really isn't given a choice in the matter. Again, this book if more appropriate for the teen reader, but it's a simple story that reminds me of the value in caring for one another.