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NON-FICTION     Huntington Chronicles by James E. Casto. Charleston, South Carolina: History Press, 2018. 159 pages with an index and photos. Trade paperback, $21.99. James Casto was an editor at the Huntington Herald Dispatch for 40 years before his retirement in 2004. He is the author of more than a dozen books, about half from Arcadia and the History Press. His perspective as a newsman shines trough in this historical overview of the city of Huntington, West Virginia, in its emphasis on newsworthy events. It includes biographical sketches of 18 men and 2 women, including one Black man, Carter...

FICTION Gabriel’s Songbook by Michael Amos Cody. Asheville, North Carolina: Pisgah Press, 2017. 284 pages. Trade paperback, $17.95. This novel begins when Gabriel Tanner is a high school student in the North Carolina Mountains and follows him as he seeks fame and fortune as a singer in Nashville before returning home again. “What a wonderful book! Artistic ambition, first love, small-town Appalachian life, the image-obsessed machinations of the Nashville music industry: all ring so authentic, so true. Michael Amos Cody’s first novel is gripping poignant, and unforgettable. – Jeff Mann. “Gabriel’s Songbook resonates like a great ballad, a song of...

CHILDRENS BOOKS Great Smoky Mountain National Park by Grace Hansen. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Abdo Kids, 2018. 24 pages with full-color photographs, an Index and Glossary. Oversized hardback, library binding, pictorial cover, $28.41. Recommended for children six to seven years old in first and second grades, this educational non-fiction book has chapters on “Elevation and Weather,” “Habitats,” and “Fun Activities,” and lots of animal pictures. The author has written many non-fiction children’s books.   Great Smoky Mountains National Park by Maddie Spalding. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Core Library/Abdo Publishing, 2017. 48 pages with a map, an Index, a Glossary, and full-color photographs. Oversized hardback,...

CHILDRENS AND YOUTH BOOKS Cherokee by Valerie Boden. Mankato, Minnesota: Creative Paperbacks, 2018. 24 pages with full-page color art directed by Rita Marshall, and an Index and Glossary. This is a picture book apparently designed to be read to pre-readers. Every other page has a little box with a couple of sentences in it, dealing with six different dimensions of Cherokee life. The emphasis is on the heritage of the Cherokees in the Southern Appalachians.   NON-FICTION Appalachia in Regional Cntext: Place Matters edited by Dwight B. Billings and Ann E. Kingsolver. Lexington, University Press of Kentucky, 2018. 255 pages,...

CHILDREN’S AND YOUTH BOOKS Let the Children March by Monica Clark-Robinson. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018. 36 un-numbered pages Illustrated with full-page, full-color drawings by Frank Morrison. Oversized hardback in dust jacket, $17.99. In the first week of May, 1963, after Martin Luther King had written his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” but a year before the Civil Rights Law was signed, massive Civil Rights protests by adults in Birmingham, Alabama, seemed to be slowly dissipating. After spirited debate and considerable trepidation, the decision was made to allow local youths to skip school and march by themselves. They responded...