Secret of the Satilfa

Ted Dunagan, named 2009 Georgia Author of the Year in the young adult category for his debut novel A Yellow Watermelon, continues the saga of two adventuresome boys in this sequel, Secret of the Satilfa. Both books are set squarely in the Southern literary tradition as they reveal the lives of young Ted and Poudlum, friends despite the racial divide in rural Alabama in the late 1940s. In the new volume, Dunagan again demonstrates his ability to weave a strong narrative with easy-going prose. Peppered with vignettes of rural life, Secret of the Satilfa evokes a simpler time, but before Southern society had come to grips with racial segregation. Young Ted’s questioning of why he and Poudlum attend separate schools must go unanswered, while the boys imagine a future without such barriers.. In the fall of 1948, Ted and Poudlum have their post-Thanksgiving fishing trip to the Cypress Hole on the Satilfa Creek interrupted by unwelcome visitors -- fugitive bank robbers. They manage to escape and after a brief respite where they help their families make cane syrup and kill pigs for the winter, they return to the Satilfa to search -- along with seemingly half the locals -- for money rumored to have been hidden by the criminals. However, Ted and Poudlum have a clue no one else possesses, which indirectly leads to their triumph. Through their exposure to some memorable individuals, the boys grow in character and knowledge as the story progresses, and in the end they are serenaded by angelic voices.