Big Southern Hair & Highlights: Please Don’t Dye Without Us

Many folks in the south are called by two names, like Bobby Jo, Sally Jane, or John Mark, that’s just the
way things are. How important are names? We label everything in our lives with names. In school, we
learn that the names of people, places, and things are known as proper nouns. Proper nouns pretty
much describe all that surrounds us as we walk through life.
This story is about Cora Jean Trinity and Cara Louise Tune–the people they meet, the places they visit,

and the things they encounter while growing up in the south and southwest.
Cora Jean, C.J. to her family and friends, spends most of her time at her Aunt Lottie’s Big Southern Hair
& Highlights Salon. One day she finds a mystifying diary hidden behind a loose brick in their cellar and
then discovers she has a twin sister. Life as she knows it changes forever.
Cara lives on the Las Bonitas Ranch and spends most of her time with Sam, a snow-white burro, who is
her best friend and constant companion. She receives a letter from a sister she has never met.
At fourteen, the twins finally meet. They not only discover how much they mean to each other, they
discover what it takes to forgive.