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. 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 easygoing prose.

Peppered with vignettes of rural life, Secret of the Satilfa evokes a simpler time before Southern society came 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 Satilfa Creek interrupted by unwelcome visitors fugitive bank robbers. They manage to escape and 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.