The Little Giant Of Aberdeen County

The Little Giant Of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker- 352 pages

When Truly Plaice’s mother was pregnant, the town of Aberdeen joined together in betting how record breakingly huge the baby boy would ultimately be. The girl who proved to be Truly paid the price of her enormity; her father blamed her for her mother’s death in childbirth, and was totally ill equipped to raise either this giant child or her polar opposite sister Serena Jane, the epitome of feminine perfection. When he, too, relinquished his increasingly tenuous grip on life, Truly and Serena Jane are separated–Serena Jane to live a life of privilege as the future May Queen and Truly to live on the outskirts of town on the farm of the town sadsack, the subject of constant abuse and humiliation at the hands of her peers.
Serena Jane’s beauty proves to be her greatest blessing and her biggest curse, for it makes her the obsession of classmate Bob Bob Morgan, the youngest in a line of Robert Morgans who have been doctors in Aberdeen for generations. Though they have long been the pillars of the community, the earliest Robert Morgan married the town witch, Tabitha Dyerson, and the location of her fabled shadow book–containing mysterious secrets for healing and darker powers–has been the subject of town gossip ever since. Bob Bob Morgan, one of Truly’s biggest tormentors, does the unthinkable to claim the prize of Serena Jane, and changes the destiny of all Aberdeen from there on.

Truly Plaice, the protagonist of this novel, is truly a giantess from a small town. I just love her name!! The author writes lyrically and uses great imagery while defining this idyllic town and the folklore that encompasses it. A parallel story is woven wonderfully throughout the book that reveals historical information about the town “medicine woman” and her relationship with the town doctor whose descendents play an integral part of Truly’s life. At times this book read like a fable or tall tale yet the story has many deep messages about friendships, inner vs. outer beauty and what a family really means. I’ll definitely read more from this author.

-“I was sixteen and just waking up to the peculiar rules of love – how what’s left unsaid between two people can be a far more complicated language than what’s written on the page.”- “So often, we believe we are alone in the privacy of our fantasies, but that is a delusion as well – and perhaps the most dangerous kind. For in letting ourselves forget about the common threads of our innermost wishes, we erode our foundations and lose the keystone of our souls.”

– “Of course, this memory makes me sorrowful now, for it anyone ever knew the shape of me, it was Amelia – and not just the outer lines of me, either, but all my innards as well. She was as necessary as the sun to me. She was the quiet heat that shimmered inside my shadow and made it live, and without her, I am a little darker.”