Too Cold to Snow is a memoir about growing up in a small town during the 1950s and early 1960s. The author's experiences and loss of innocence reflect what was also happening to her hometown of Bend, Oregon. Born in 1945, the author entered a world at peace, but by 1965 the times were definitely changing. Television brought the world into homes and ended the sheltered existence of small communities. The Civil Rights movement, the war in Vietnam, and the painful assassination of a young president were brought into living rooms across the country. Before all of this, people in small towns like Bend were content to focus on local activities like parades and ice-skating, but just as the young girl at the heart of the memoir grows up, so does the town.