Susan Dregey

Among the Silent Giants Susan Dregey

National Indie Excellence Book Award
Los Angeles Book Festival Award
San Francisco Book Festival Award In this timeless coming-of-age creative memoir, Sharon Porter is a gutsy, precocious kid, who lives in the giant Redwoods of Norther California, high up in a remote logging camp called Whitethorn. Told from young Sharon's point of view, Among the Silent Giants is a sometimes humorous, sometimes serious, and often unexpected narrative of her adventures and struggles coping with life in and around the camp and gaining a sense of her identify. On her horse Stardust, she explores the timber country, fishes, traps, and hunts for food in mountains with big, ancient trees so quiet and still, she believes they have spirits in them. Sharon grows up fast and is tested by adult prejudices, and occasionally violence, against Native Americans, Chinese, and "city slickers." The larger-than-life members of her family are reminiscent of the family in the book The Glass Castle, boasting brains and wit, but trapped in poverty, alcohol, and over-reaching wild notions. Sharon's mother's carefree unconcern and benign neglect tests Sharon's mettle to fend for herself early in her life. At times, her impractical mother inadvertently forces her to take on the adult role to protect and save both of them. In the rough-and-tumble, vanished Americana of the logging camps of the 1940's, quick-witted, scrappy Sharon grows and brings to life a nostalgic time of this country's more simple, natural, and wild self.