Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
PW singled out the ``crackling hill-country vernacular'' in White's ``moving testament to the power and resiliency of the spirit.'' Ages 12-up. (Apr.)
School Library Journal
Gr 7 Up-- The exuberant voice of Tiny Lambert, a young woman entering high school in the Appalachian Mountains in the 1950s, provides the strength in this coming-of-age/incest story. The charm of White's ``happy days'' look at the life of a rural teenager (first party-line phone, first television set, saddle shoes and poodle skirt) is piercingly ended by the not-so-charming rape of Tiny by her drunken stepfather. In the aftermath of the rape, she replaces her new ``town girlfriends'' with her imaginary childhood playmate, Willa, who comforts her in her horror and isolation. After seeing another young woman whose `` `daddy did you-know-what-to-her, and she lost something upstairs' '' at a country wake, Tiny knows that she has survived. The weeping willow of the title and Tiny's playmate, Willa, are hardy symbols of the young woman's stamina. Her voice is strong, and the setting of the novel is rich in regional detail. Unfortunately, the main components of plot do not integrate; White tries to have it both ways-- '50s nostalgia and incest--and it doesn't work. Hadley Irwin's Abby, My Love (McElderry, 1985) reveals the intense difficulty of recovery from sexual abuse with more realism, power, and accessibility than Weeping : Willow , which has too many threads that don't weave together. --Alice Casey Smith, Chappaqua Library, NY
JAN 98 - AudioFile
Although high schooler Tiny Lambert is the victim of her sexually abusive stepfather, she is so much more in this compassionate story. Angela Jayne Rogers matches Tiny’s hill-country accent, delivering a first-person reading that enlivens Tiny’s victories, triumphs and first loves while maintaining the underlying edge of fear lurking just below the surface of her days. Because Tiny’s gift is her singing voice, Rogers sings several songs during the course of the reading. Her voice is sweet and pleasant; however, it is not the crystalline voice the listener expects from the highly gifted Tiny. This flaw, however, does not significantly detract from the powerful effect of Rogers’s Southern cadences and her otherwise authentic rendering of Tiny Lambert. T.B. ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine
