2 Picture Books by Shannon Hitchcock, 1 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 is mixed-media artist Sophie Page. Sophie used clay, fabric, paper, and wire to bring these stories to life. Both books are published by Reycraft Books.

As you read my reviews, notice Shannon's poetic text that emphasizes the importance of each word and Sophie's illustrations that show depth, color, and texture. Her images are like mini-stories.

REVIEWS

SHE SANG FOR THE MOUNTAINS: The Story of Singer, Songwriter, Activist Jean Ritchie.

The book opens with a simple line that says so much about Jean Ritchie.

Jean came from a large family who loved to sing while they worked. In the evenings, they rested on the porch swing and sang accompanied by their father's dulcimer.

Jean wished she could turn back time.

Her brothers and sisters left home one by one.

Finally, it was Jean's turn to go.

 

Jean taught the songs of the hills

to the children of the city--

songs that had echoed 

through the mountains for generations.

In the process, Jean was noticed by a song collector. 

Jean was far from the home she loved in Kentucky, but when she heard about companies that mined coal and then moved on--leaving men sick or unemployed--she realized that she wanted to protest too.

She sang about the unemployed coal miners and the strip mining that poisoned the water. 

Jean never stopped singing important songs which inspired others. Even when she was old and moved back to Kentucky, she kept 

singing for the mountains

and heard music everywhere.

                    ......

To this day, Jean's music lives on,

in the hearts of folksingers,

dulcimer players

and activists

who raise their voices and sing for the mountains.

The author's note includes more information about Jean. To hear her sing and play, click on this youtube video.

STORY QUILTS: Appalachian Women Speak

Here's the opening page that says so much:

The women had large families and worked hard. Their days were filled with cooking, cleaning, gardening, and canning.

Then, at day's end, they threaded their needles,

reached for their rag bags,

pieced colorful squares

and turned scraps into quilts that told stories.

Daughters watched their mothers until they were old enough to create a quilt of their own.

Sometimes, the daughter watched her mother pull out scraps from an apron that once looked like this:

Blue was special because,

Scraps of pillowcases became clouds or snow; other scraps became wildflowers.

She would move her quilt squares like puzzle pieces,

until they told a story.

 

The author's note includes Shannon's inspiration for this beautiful story of forgotten women. Sophie lists some of the quilters who inspired her illustrations.

Shannon is giving an extensive interview--plus information on her next book in this series--on the Talking Story Facebook page on Monday. (Not a member? Click on the link and ask to be admitted and you'll be in!). But she told me that she is drawn to writing about the past because she grew up on a farm in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. "We lived primitively compared to lots of families. My grandparents were farmers. They raised cows, pigs, and chickens. My grandma churned butter, had a large vegetable garden, canned, and quilted. Writing these books reminds me of home and a way of life that I want to preserve in my stories."

GIVEAWAY

If you have never won a book from my blog or are a new subscriber, I'll put your name in twice for SHE SANG FOR THE MOUNTAINS. Make sure you leave me a comment by December 7 with your name and email address if you are new to my blog.

Eileen Heyes entered last week's giveaway and told me that since she didn't have any "littles" in her life to give it to a library. Per her request, I gave Christmas with Auntie to Matthews Elementary School. Congratulations to Barbara Younger who won Miss Mary's Mittens. 

Saving Granddaddy's Stories: Ray Hicks, the Voice of Appalachia --An ARC Giveaway

The text and illustrations for Saving Granddaddy's Stories  (Reycraft Books, 2020) complement one another beautifully and I'm excited to share both with you. This is author, Shanon Hitchcock's debut picture book. (You will find my review of one of her novels, The Ballad of Jessie Pearl, here.) She wrote about Ray Hicks because she grew up in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains near where Ray lived. And like Ray, her family loved to tell stories too. As you read the book, you can almost hear Ray's voice spinning off the pages. 

Look closely at the illustrations by Sophie Page. She is a mixed-media artist and creates images in two dimensions to tell her stories. These illustrations were made from paper, fabric, wire, and a "handful of Jack's magic beans."

REVIEW

Ray Hicks was a poor boy who grew up among the "shimmering peaks and coves of the Blue Ridge Mountains."

Ray spent a lot of time listening to his Granddaddy Ben's Jack-tales.

All of the stories were about a poor boy named Jack who worked hard but "traded his cow for a magic bean, because he was starving."

At school when his teacher read Jack and the Beanstalk, Ray asked to tell it the mountain way. "Ray imitated Granddaddy and spread his arms wide."

Ray grew up and started telling Jack tales, just like his Granddaddy.

Morning and night, Ray told stories to anyone who would listen.

Then he heard about the International Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tn. 

The people in Jonesborough had never heard a man like him. He was, 

"A teller who'd lived his stories--gone cold and hungry."

After ten years, he won the grand prize for storytelling, traveled to Washington, D.C., and met the vice president, "a fellow named Bush." Ray was recognized by the Smithsonian by receiving a National Heritage Award.

Granddaddy's stories lived on. Ray returned to his beloved mountains, to the same home he was born in. "And he never turned away anyone who wanted to hear a story."

FOR MORE INFORMATION

For a DVD about Ray Hicks, click here. 

Here's the book trailer, narrated by Shannon Hitchcock. 

GIVEAWAY

I have my ARC to give to one of you. I'm going to change the giveaway this time, so listen up! IF you live in North Carolina, tell me that in the comments and I'll put your name in twice. To entice my non-North Carolina friends into wanting to visit my beautiful state, leave me a comment and I'll enter your name THREE times. MAKE SURE you leave your full name and email address. Lately, someone named Victoria has been commenting but I have no idea who she is so I can't include her. Also, a lot of comments are showing up as "Unknown;" although people with Google accounts seem to be getting through OK. To be safe, leave your name and contact information. 

As always, I appreciate it when you share this post on social media!

JUST FOR FUN 

Why not have your child create his or her own mixed media project? Pinterest is loaded with ideas. Or, just create a picture out of craft materials in your house. My granddaughter and I spent a fun hour together and made these: 

#MGGetsReal: Behind the Scenes with Joyce Hostetter

Next week I'll return to my posts on Highlights Summer Camp, but today I wanted to share an intriguing marketing initiative.

You may have seen #MGGetsReal floating around the Internet this past month. And you may know that it involves five dynamite middle grade authors: Shannon Wiersbitzky, Shannon Hitchcock, Joyce Moyer Hostetter, Kathleen Burkinshaw, and Kerry O'Malley Cerra. 

But do you know how it came about? In this exclusive interview with Joyce, you're going to see how this marketing effort was formulated and how this team carried it out.

How did you all decide to form the #MGGetsReal group? Who was behind it? How did you choose the title? 

Let’s blame this on Shannon Wiersbitzky. I think she’d participated in joint marketing initiatives before. But anyway, I received an email inquiring if I’d be interested in joining a few authors in a concentrated promotional campaign for one month.  Of course, I said, YES even though it was going to jolt me out of my comfortable blogging lethargy.

We five authors brainstormed via emails. Shannon envisioned a hashtag that could be used via social media.  We tried out a few, keeping in mind what we wanted to communicate, how visually clear we could make it in a hashtag, and what would be punchy and memorable.  #MGGetsReal emerged. Of course we did other brainstorming too, to establish the criteria for this effort.

Are you particularly targeting middle grade teachers? If so, how? Have you had any response to this?

We hope to reach Middle Grade teachers and school librarians, although we adore readers of all ages and professions!  We chose the month of August because educators would be gearing up for a new school year. We wrote articles and blog posts and offered to guest blog for a variety of teacher and librarian groups that we have connections with. 

Shannon W. assembled images of our books covers that we all could use and I (with help from my daughter) developed a video that introduced our books. 

Kathy landed a blogging slot at Literacy and NCTE and Shannon H. introduced our video at Mr. Schu’s blog, Watch. Connect. Read. 

Shannon also cranked out terrific blog posts and articles that inspired the rest of us to get to work. 

Kerry compiled an astounding list of Middle Grade Books About Tough Topics.  

I used our Talking Story platform to create a newsletter to send to educators. 

We all blogged more than usual and reviewed each other books.  And we’re Facebooking and Tweeting a lot too!

I would love to tell you that our book sales spiked as a result and that teachers across America are choosing to use our books in their classroom. But of course, we have no idea just yet how the campaign will play itself out.  However, we believe the awareness of our titles is spreading and we’ve certainly fallen in love with each other’s books. Perhaps, best of all, we’ve built a small community of cooperation among ourselves as authors.  That’s worth a whole lot. We also know that this is likely the beginning of a movement that other authors will pick up and continue.  Our effort is simply the first wave. 

Please share the common threads between the books and tell us how COMFORT fits into the mix?

Tough topics—that’s the common thread.  Hard things happen in life and we want middle graders to discover characters who face difficulties with courage and creativity.

In WHAT FLOWERS REMEMBER by Shannon Wiersbitzky, Delia is especially resourceful when her surrogate grandfather develops Alzheimer’s, finding a way to help him remember his life experiences. She does this by drawing the whole town into retelling stories of his life. It’s such a beautiful novel with themes of legacy and flowers and memory and love.  How is that similar to COMFORT?  An adult family member has mental struggles and the protagonist helps him to connect with community. 

In THE LAST CHERRY BLOSSOM, Kathleen Hilliker Burkinshaw tells the story of Yuriko who lives in Hiroshima during World War II. And yes, it describes the bombing and its aftermath.  This is such a profound story and I think Ann Fay feels the profundity of that devastation in COMFORT when her family hears the announcement of the Hiroshima bombing on the radio. This is the moment when Daddy’s post war trauma really begins to manifest itself. Both are books about war and how it changes a character’s world.

JUST A DROP OF WATER by Kerry O’Malley Cerra is a story about the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Two boys, one Christian and one Muslim find their world and their friendship grinds to a halt in the aftermath of the attacks.  Jake the protagonist may be misguided in the ways he sticks up for his friend but his loyalty is always there. He is persistent too and those characteristics remind me of Ann Fay in COMFORT. 

In Shannon Hitchcock’s RUBY LEE AND ME, Sara Beth Mills lives in racially segregated North Carolina.  Ann Fay in COMFORT, does too. The difference is that Sara Beth has an African-American friendship that is actually threatened by school integration. Ann Fay has experienced a brief friendship with a black girl at an integrated hospital but is now separated from her. She is unable to reestablish that friendship. Both girls have family members they desperately want to be well.

Each of these books is about character and the human spirit and how it responds during really tough times. We trust that our protagonists will give readers the confidence that they can face  real life challenges.

To enter the giveaway of all five books (open to teachers and librarians), please visit our #MGGetsReal website and scroll to the bottom of the page.

The Ballad of Jessie Pearl & A Giveaway!

The only thing that I didn't like about Shannon Hitchcock's debut novel, The Ballad of Jessie Pearl, (Namelos, 2012) is that it ended. The fact that I wanted to know what happened to Jessie, proves that this well-written historical fiction is a must-read for young adult girls, as well as their mothers and grandmothers. 

The time is 1922 and the place is rural North Carolina; a time when young girls are fortunate to graduate from eighth grade and not many leave home to pursue higher education. It's also a time when young men like Jessie's beau, J.T., leave sharecropping on a tobacco farm to earn more money at the Reynolds factory in Winston. 

When Jessie's sister Carrie is diagnosed with tuberculosis soon after giving birth to her first son, Ky, Jessie has no choice but to drop out of school to take care of the house, Carrie, and Ky. Carrie dies and Jessie is caught between her desire to help her family and her dream of becoming a teacher. Throw her powerful feelings for J.T. into the mix, and you have a wonderful stew of conflict portrayed in this scene when J.T. announces his decision to leave:

"You're leaving me?" I ask.

"It's not like that," J.T. Says. "I'm goin' so I can save money. So that I can take care of you someday."

I stomp my foot in the dirt. "Let me tell you how it really is. You're going because you don't want to be a sharecropper like your pa. I didn't enter into your decision. And don't pretend like I did."

J.T. nods. "You're partly right. I don't want to be a sharecropper, but I still want to marry you someday. I shouldn't have to choose."

I give him a sad smile. "You already did. I can't leave here. I promised Carrie I'd take care of her son."

.....

J.T.'s hands ball into fists. "Why do you have to make me feel so guilty? If you had the chance to leave for teacher's college, you'd take it."

Ky whispers and I jostle him on my hip. "Would I? I just don't know anymore. The feelings I have for you tie my heart in knots." (p. 76-77)

The Ballad of Jesse Pearl is a coming of age book similar to another excellent young adult novel, A Northern Light. I appreciate how both writers portray realistic characters and conflicts for the time period in which the girls lived.

Poetic images fill the pages of a story taken from Shannon's own family history. 

Anna and Crawley Hennings,
Shannon Hitchcock's great aunts.
Crawley's life, sickness and death, was the model for Jessie Pearl.

Watch this book trailer, created by Wendy Hostetter Davis, and you will see a glimpse of this beautiful story: 

I am giving away a copy of the ARC (Advanced Reading Copy) along with a copy of the annotated discussion and activity guide. You don't have to be a teacher to win, but you might consider passing along Jessie Pearl to your favorite classroom after you read it. The giveaway will end on Monday morning, February 4th.  To enter please:

• Share this contest on your social media of your choice and leave me a comment with your email address. 

                  OR,

• Sign up to follow my blog and then leave me a comment with your email address.