COTTON MILL TOWN

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 appliquÇ. 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)