Tallgrass | 
|  | | | Title: | Tallgrass | | Author: | Sandra Dallas | | Publisher: | St. Martin's Press | | Type: | Book / Hardcover | | Publication Date: | 03 April, 2007 | | ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0312360193 / 9780312360191 | | List Price: | $23.95 | | You Save: | $7.66 | | Amazon Price: | $16.29 | |
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| Editorial Review / Publisher's Information:
Product Description
An essential American novel from Sandra Dallas, an unparalleled writer of our history, and our deepest emotions...
During World War II, a family finds life turned upside down when the government opens a Japanese internment camp in their small Colorado town. After a young girl is murdered, all eyes (and suspicions) turn to the newcomers, the interlopers, the strangers.
This is Tallgrass as Rennie Stroud has never seen it before. She has just turned thirteen and, until this time, life has pretty much been what her father told her it should be: predictable and fair. But now the winds of change are coming and, with them, a shift in her perspective. And Rennie will discover secrets that can destroy even the most sacred things.
Part thriller, part historical novel, Tallgrass is a riveting exploration of the darkest--and best--parts of the human heart.
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Customer Reviews:
• Novel 07 June, 2008
Loved it. Based on history it gave an interesting perspective in contrast to Snow on Cedars which also is a great book.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A293TMQ0IWZFGU
• An Adult Farewell To Manzanar 16 May, 2008
If you liked Farewell to Manzanar as a young adult (a book I highly recommend for middle school students), this book is for adults and teens. I listened to the book on CD and loved it. The inherent goodness of Rennie's family and the humanity they showed to the Japanese are still lessons for today. The phrasing was magic in places. The book is also gentle--no swearing--yet powerful. There is one scene straight out of To Kill a Mockingbird, but overall I highly recommend this book.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A2MQ7ZDUAW36QQ
• Growing Up During Ww2 26 May, 2008
Rennie is a 13 year old girl growing up in the early 1940's in Colorado. A time of life and place that should be idyllic if not for the war that burst upon the nation. The main impact of the war is that a Japanese Internment camp is created not far from town and close to Rennie's farm where her father, mother, and older brother grow beets for sugar.
The war does impact everyone in another way also. The town's boys and young men are drafted or volunteer to serve and some of them are captured or die as a result of that. Once the camp is in place, and the Japanese move in, the townspeople split amongst those who are bigotted and hate-filled and those who are willing to tolerate and even support the Americans of Japanese descent that are in their midst. Unfortunately, things take a turn for the worse when one of Rennie's schoolmates is savagely murdered and raped even though she is crippled by Polio. This almost tears up the town as the bigotted side assumes that a Japanese did it, while the others are willing to let the Sheriff find out what happened.
The story's focus is on growing up and the challenges that being a dirt-poor sugar beet farm family have to overcome. There is a lot of trouble in the town of Ellis, Colorado and not all of it is due to the japanese. The only other close friend of Rennie's is forced to miss part of her school year to supposedly help out in her father's hardware store when he takes ill and cannot take care of things.
Idyllic, the town is not. Between morphine addicts, murderers, rapists, and wife beaters, the townsfolk are painted in a mostly negative light. Couple that with the bigotry against the Mexicans and the Japanese and you wonder how the U.S. became as accepting and liberal of a country as it is. To counter the negativism we see the struggles of the Strouds and the other few decent human beings in the town who present the best of American attitudes and values.
The various crimes committed in the book are ultimately resolved in a way that is supposed to be satisfying and the murderer of the young girl is found and captured - and, of course, is NOT of Japanese descent - but overall I was left with a bad taste in my mouth when finished this book as it was overall very dark and showed more of the negative side of life. There was very little character development and the main subjects in the book were more cartoons than real people.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1XHK8COWBZ34F
• Difficult To Finish 18 May, 2008
I finished this book only because it is the pick for my next book club meeting. If not for that, I would have allowed myself to put it down after the first excruciating chapter. The novel is populated by caricatures instead of characters. There is the wise-beyond-her-years teenager; the sickly, hard-working mother; the overall-clad father who always says and does the right thing; and a host of other mostly bad boys and mostly good girls.
The dialogue often rings false, and the descriptions of scenes and people sometime seem trite. I found this to be true especially in passages involving women who were part of a quilting circle.
I gave the novel one star because the subject matter itself, a Japanese internment camp during World War II, is interesting.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1FQZSLHJGVTIU
• Great Book 20 May, 2008
I really enjoyed this book. It brought up a lot of very heavy issues without getting to emotional. It was a page turner that had a very happy ending.
- Reviewed by customer ID: AV42ZDMNTVJSE
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