Eleven-year-old Sassy Thompkins, obsessive reader of romance magazines, dreams of her first kiss, but when it actually happens, she ends up beating up the poor boy. Miss Dallas, her babysitter, advises her, “A boy don’t want some wild girl that might want to get after him with a weeding knife.” Still, the tension between being a young lady or “a hillbilly holy terror” remains, as Sassy yearns for someone to love her more than anything on earth, like a mama—if she had one—or like in the romance magazines. But she comes to appreciate the real-life love she’s had all along. Deft comic pacing and snappy dialogue make this a gem of Southern storytelling. Hemphill is a strong new voice in children’s literature. A fine follow-up to her excellent debut, Long Gone Daddy (2006). (Fiction. 10+)
