INTRODUCTION It's not too often that I run a book review twice. And to be honest, my TBR shelf is long and so I rarely reread a book. But I was re-researching the Jim Crow period for a presentation at the North Carolina Social Studies conference and rememberedThe Color of Love by Gene Cheek. I… Continue reading Revisiting ‘The Color of Love’: A Jim Crow Memoir Review
INTRODUCTION When you write "recent" historical fiction, sometimes you are fortunate enough to interview people who were alive during your story's period. I am one of those authors. HALF-TRUTHS takes place in Charlotte in 1950, and when I started researching the book twenty years ago, I searched for people who were alive in the 1950s.… Continue reading Learn to Read, Read to Learn
Introduction It's a delight for me to share the cover for Stacey Bartlett's forthcoming middle-grade novel, MONSTER MOUNTAIN (Monarch Press: 2025). For those of you who can't wait, you can scroll down to see it and read about the giveaway. For the rest of you who know how to bide your time and wait a… Continue reading You Can See It Here First: A Cover Reveal and Giveaway for Stacey Bartlett’s New Middle-Grade Novel
It is my pleasure to introduce Bountiful Red Acres by my North Carolina friend, Eileen Heyes. Written for third-eighth graders, it details a year in the life of two families one Black and one White in Surry County, as they move from season to season in 1900. The book is beautifully illustrated by Dare Coulter and is… Continue reading BOUNTIFUL RED ACRES by Eileen Heyes: A Review, Author Interview and Giveaway
If you've been following my blog for a while, you may remember my post on Shannon Hitchcock's book, Saving Grandaddy's Stories. I'm happy to share two more books that Shannon has written about unsung Appalachian artists. I love these books so much that I'm saving one for my granddaughter who I'm teaching to sew. The illustrator… Continue reading 2 Picture Books by Shannon Hitchcock, 1 Giveaway
Congratulations to Clara Gillow Clark and Dorothy Price who won the downloadable version of Eyes on the Prize from last week's blog. The night that I stayed up late to finish reading Joyce Hostetter's fourth book in the Bakers Mountain Stories series, DRIVE (Calkins Creek, 2018), I texted Joyce: "This is going to be a hard book to… Continue reading DRIVE: A Review and Two Giveaways!
When I read in the Tantor Audio new release list that The Road To Bittersweet was set in North Carolina in the forties, I knew this was a book for me. This was my first book by Donna Everhart, but I suspect it won't be my last. Today's post is a review of the book that… Continue reading The Road to Bittersweet: An Audio Book Review and Giveaway
Congratulations to Linda Phillips who won the audio CD of "Indigo Girl" from last week's blog. ******** Recently I have met several young writers and bloggers. One of them who goes by the pen name of Julian Daventry, asked for volunteers to be part of her Shared-WIP four-part tag. Each blogger answers four sets of ten… Continue reading Shared WIP Blog Tag- Part I
Congratulations to Sandra Warren who won the audio CD of WISH last week. Thanks to everyone who entered. I seem to be on a roll with middle grade books featuring a girl protagonist who had to leave her home and wants to return. This week I am introducing CALL ME SUNFLOWER, Miriam Spitzer Franklin's second middle… Continue reading Call Me Sunflower: A Review and ARC Giveaway
Reminiscent of the 2010 Newbery medal winner MOON OVER MANIFEST, Barbara O'Connor's latest middle grade novel, WISH (Farrar Straus Giroux, 2016) is the story of a young girl who feels abandoned by her parents, is forced to live with strangers, and searches to understand her past. Like MOON, it tugs on the reader's heart strings and shows the… Continue reading Wish: A Review and Audio CD Giveaway