White Poplar, Black Locust

White Poplar, Black Locust is about the joys and sorrows of growing up in a small town in the `50s, but it's no Leave It to Beaver or Happy Days. Louise grew up in an isolated company logging town on the California-Oregon border, in many ways a paradise for kids. But it wasn't all white poplar, her childhood had its thorny locust side as well. One marvels at the resiliency of the human spirit in memoirs like Jeanette Wall's Glass Castle and Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes. This spirit is very much in evidence in White Poplar, Black Locust, as is the same tone of detached and loving acceptance of circumstances and parents who are not as good as they could be. Wonderfully written, I loved this book from the first sentence to the last, and many times in the midst, I stopped just to marvel at a particularly apt phrase or to take in the deep honesty of the author.

I thought this was a phoenominal book. Louise weaves this memior of her childhood in a company logging town integrating social insight with the logging haydays of the 1950's and 1960's. Well researched and poignant. My copy was devoured by fellow employees while I was on vacation...