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Callie Mae McCauley knows a girl’s got to be leathery, or she’ll be tore to pieces by the weight of all her troubles and trials . . . The tragedy Callie endures will forever change her simple, yet full life in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Orphaned at age eight, she must move to her Granny Jane’s, where she soon realizes the shock of what she’s seen has stolen her voice. A new neighbor and Granny Jane’s swarm of honeybees help Callie find her tongue. She soon discovers that, although Chloe Combs may be peculiar, Miss Chloe may be her only friend when her uncles come to claim their share of Granny Jane’s land that straddles the New River. Her uncles have a plan, and they won’t let anything or anyone stand in their way, certainly not their niece Callie. When Callie ends up in an orphanage, she knows a mountain girl can’t be held inside walls of plaster and wood. A mountain girl’s got to feel the earth beneath her feet and listen as the river makes sweet music in her ears. But time is running out for Callie to save the New River—her river—from her greedy uncles’ plan.
What really happened the night Jesus was born? Matty’s mother tells him he will take part in the most important thing ever to happen in history. Why him, a meek and lowly stable mouse? All Matty the manger mouse wants to do is snuggle into the warmth of his mother and fall asleep—but the Creator of the world has another plan for him. Will the little stable mouse surrender to his own needs or bow to the will of the Savior? Children and adults will be touched by Matty’s brave little heart. As the story of that first Christmas unfolds, come join Matty and all the other stable dwellers—portrayed in lush and charming pastel illustrations.
After a coal mine explosion kills her father in 1922, pretty little Mary Margaret “Mame” Blackwell is not willing to accept her mother’s hardscrabble plan for farming burley tobacco in rural West Virginia, but trying to survive in a nearly deserted coal mining town without a father in the early 1900s is anything but easy. Mame yearns for a way out of the sleepy little town of Beckley. When Mame eagerly leaves home on her first trip to Charleston at age 19, she meets tobacco heir Clint Paddington and sees her chance to move up in the world. Unaware at first of their families’ shared connection to tragedy, Mame makes wild, naïve choices that expose both families to even deeper dangers for generations to come. Watch the damage escalate in this gritty Southern saga as ambition and romance go awry, adding betrayal, kidnapping, rape, and even murder to the mining tragedy. Do children inherit the sins of their fathers? Do dark forces walk the earth? Will Mame’s secrets push her to madness? Or will her solid roots in the coal mining country help her survive her mistakes, or, at least, be forgiven of them?
“Traverses Texas, finding evidence of the hard boiled, sultry, and disreputable throughout the state . . . Think of the book as a sort of criminal travelogue.” —Booklist If everything is bigger in Texas, then that includes the boldness of the criminals who call the state home. From large urban centers to the Cajun Gulf coast, there is big money to be made running guns, drugs, and catering to the greedy and disillusioned. Each distinctive region can claim its own special brand of outlaw. In Lone Star Noir, you’ll find stories by James Crumley, Joe R. Lansdale, Claudia Smith, Ito Romo, Luis Alberto Urrea, David Corbett, George Wier, Sarah Cortez, Jesse Sublett, Dean James, Tim Tingle, Milton T. Burton, Lisa Sandlin, Jessica Powers, and Bobby Byrd. “This isn’t J.R. Ewing’s Lone Star State. This is the Texas of chicken shit bingo, Enron scamsters, and a feeling that what happens in Mexico stays in Mexico . . . So what defines Texas noir? Who knows, but you better pray that blood doesn’t stain your belt buckle.” —The Austin Chronicle
V.2: Building upon their critically acclaimed first volume, Davis W. Houck and David E. Dixon's new Rhetoric, Religion, and the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1965 is a recovery project of enormous proportions. Houck and Dixon have again combed church archives, government documents, university libraries, and private collections in pursuit of the civil rights movement's long-buried eloquence. Their new work presents fifty new speeches and sermons delivered by both famed leaders and little-known civil rights activists on national stages and in quiet shacks. The speeches carry novel insights into the ways in which individuals and communities utilized religious rhetoric to upset the racial status quo in divided America during the civil rights era. Houck and Dixon's work illustrates again how a movement so prominent in historical scholarship still has much to teach us. (Publisher).
A groundbreaking exposé about the alarming use of rap lyrics as criminal evidence to convict and incarcerate young men of color Should Johnny Cash have been charged with murder after he sang, "I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die"? Few would seriously subscribe to this notion of justice. Yet in 2001, a rapper named Mac whose music had gained national recognition was convicted of manslaughter after the prosecutor quoted liberally from his album Shell Shocked. Mac was sentenced to thirty years in prison, where he remains. And his case is just one of many nationwide. Over the last three decades, as rap became increasingly popular, prosecutors saw an opportunity: they could present the so...
In this Newbery Honor novel, New York Times bestselling author Rita Williams-Garcia tells the story of three sisters who travel to Oakland, California, in 1968 to meet the mother who abandoned them. A strong option for summer reading—take this book along on a family road trip or enjoy it at home. This moving, funny novel won the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction and the Coretta Scott King Award and was a National Book Award Finalist. Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern's story continues in P.S. Be Eleven and Gone Crazy in Alabama. Readers who enjoy Christopher Paul Curtis's The Watsons Go to Birmingham and Jacqueline Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming will find much to love in One Crazy Summe...
A compassionate, shame-free guide for your darkest days “A one-of-a-kind book . . . to read for yourself or give to a struggling friend or loved one without the fear that depression and suicidal thoughts will be minimized, medicalized or over-spiritualized.”—Kay Warren, cofounder of Saddleback Church What happens when loving Jesus doesn’t cure you of depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts? You might be crushed by shame over your mental illness, only to be told by well-meaning Christians to “choose joy” and “pray more.” So you beg God to take away the pain, but nothing eases the ache inside. As darkness lingers and color drains from your world, you’re left wondering if Go...
For young readers, an illustrated introduction to an American hero—the legendary Harriet Tubman. From her rebellious childhood to her daring escape from slavery, Harriet Tubman was a confident, fearless woman. After heading North in search of freedom, she risked her life, again and again, to lead others out of slavery, devoting herself to guiding almost three hundred individuals along the network of safe havens known as the Underground Railroad. Called "General Tubman" for her strength and bravery, Harriet went on to work as a nurse and spy for the northern army in the Civil War. She fought tirelessly for women's right to vote, and help to open a home for poor and elderly African Americans...
Four journeys by early Americans Mary Rowlandson, Sarah Kemble Knight, William Byrd II, and Dr. Alexander Hamilton recount the vivid physical and psychological challenges of colonial life. Essential primary texts in the study of early American cultural life, they are now conveniently collected in a single volume. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.