Fall/Winter 1998 New Releases

 

APPALACHIAN CHILDREN'S AND YOUTH BOOKS
    Picture Books
    Youth Novels
   Newly Reprinted Youth Novels

HISTORY BOOKS

MOUNTAIN FICTION
   Novels
   Newly Reprinted Novels

MOUNTAIN PEOPLE AND PLACES
    Autobiographical Books
    Cherokee Books
   Photographic  Essays

NATURE AND THE ENVIRONMENT IN APPALACHIA

RECREATION AND TRAVEL IN THE APPALACHIANS
    GUIDE BOOKS
   
REGIONAL STUDIES AND ISSUES
    Literary Criticism

APPALACHIAN CHILDREN'S AND YOUTH BOOKS
    Picture Books

An Appalachian Mother Goose by James StillLexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1998.  55 pages illustrated by Paul Brett Johnson.
    Here collected are little ditties loosely inspired by old-fashioned nursery rhymes that James Still has collected and made up since his arrival in Knott County, Kentucky, in 1932.  "Bad Tommy Turner/You're due several lickings./Whittle you a bill,/Go peck with the chickens." is a delightful example.     It is reminiscent of a Mother Goose rhyme, but has a decidedly Appalachian flavor.  Here's another: "There was a clever wife/Who lived in a shoe,/She had a pack of young'uns/And she knew what to do;/She washed them and combed them,/Picked burrs from their heads,/Gave them a sugar-tit and put/them to bed."   This book is perfect for grandparents to read to grandkids, and should stimulate some good discussions about the good old days!
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MOUNTAIN PEOPLE AND PLACES

Photographic Essays

The Tennessee Valley: A Photographic Portrait photographs by Robert Kollar.  Text by Kelly LeiterLexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1998.  148 pages, oversized, with lots of color photos.   
    This book presents the party line of the Tennessee Valley Authority.   Those who have lived in the Valley since TVA's inception in the 1930s understand that the agency which President Franklin Delano Roosevelt created as an innovative helpful agency has become simply another big business.  The pictures here share with the agency a conventionality and a pro-business perspective that is disconcerting  in a book of photographs.  Almost every single one of the pictures simply looks like a carefully staged publicity shot, and some of the pictures of giant factories have no apparent aesthetic justification for inclusion.    The pictures are taken by TVA's chief photographer, and the TVA chairman has an early page in the book.  The text is written by the Dean Emeritus of the School of Communications of the University of Tennessee.
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RECREATION AND TRAVEL IN THE APPALACHIANS

Day and Overnight Hikes in the Shenandoah National Park by Johnny Molloy. Birmingham: Menasha Ridge Press, 1998.  125 pages with an index and maps.
    This is a really handy little guide book, conveniently divided into one-way day hikes, loop day hikes and back-packing hikes, then sub-divided into the Northern, Middle and Southern sections of the Park.   At the beginning of each trail write-up are easy-to-read-at-a-glance ratings for Scenery, Trail Condition, Accessibility for Children, Distance, Hiking Time, Outstanding Features, Difficulty and Solitude and at the end of each blurb are easy-to-follow directions.  Thus this guide is very convenient for leafing through as well as for detailed descriptions.  Forty trails are covered.  Don't look here for in-depth information about natural or human history of the area.  This is a streamlined book geared toward practical information for hikers.  As such it is handy and highly recommended.
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