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NON-FICTION Appalachia’s Alternative to Mainstream America: A Personal Education by Paul Salstrom. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 2021. 232 pages with an Index of Names, an Appendix: List of Persons, and a Bibliography. Trade paperback. Paul Salstrom’s alternative to mainstream America is local self-sufficiency dependent upon neighborly networking and mutual aid as practiced in Lincoln County, West Virginia, where he owns land and has lived a few times for a few months. Salstrom envisions a coming together of those who Jason Strange in Shelter from the Machine: Homesteaders in the Age of Capitalism calls the hippies and the hicks:...

A CHILDREN’S BOOK The Trail of Tears by Beatrice Harris. New York: Gareth Stevens Publishing, 2022. 32 pages full of color pictures and includes a Timeline, Glossary, and Bibliography of books and websites. Trade paperback. This contribution to critical race theory features left pages with about 35 words each describing the Trial of Tears – the forced migration of Cherokee people from the Southern Appalachians to Oklahoma in the 1830s – and right pages with maps and other illustrations along with smaller-print captions. It is kinda like illustrated Cliff Notes for kids. NON-FICTION Abandoned Coal Towns of Southern West Virginia...

CHILDREN’S BOOKS AND YOUTH NOVELS In the Wild Light by Jeff Zentner. New York: Crown Books for Young Readers/Penguin Random House, 2021. 421 pages. Hardback in dust jacket. This youth novel for teenagers was named a Best Book of 2021 by the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and Kirkus Reviews. The story revolves around Cash Pruitt and Delaney Doyle, who live by the Pigeon River in East Tennessee. Both have a parent addicted to opioids, and Cash’s papaw is dying of emphysema, but they are the smartest Appalachian teens in literature. As a result of Delaney’s scientific discovery, they are...

A YOUTH NOVEL Needlework by Julia Watts. New York: Three Rooms Press, 2021. 288 pages. Trade paperback. This is a young adult novel for teens, but it also is a fine trade novel for adults. Julia Watts just keeps getting better and better and illuminating more and more dimensions of life, and, with this, her fourteenth young adult novel, she continues to make a tremendous contribution especially for rural teens who are struggling with issues of identity. Lambda Literary recommended this as one of “8 Queer Young Adult Books Coming this Fall.”  The protagonist is Kody, a sixteen-year-old rural Eastern...

CHILDREN’S BOOKS Honey Bees ABC’s by Julie Sha Riggs. Meadville, Pennsylvania: Christian Faith Publishing, 2021. 53 pages with full color photos and illustrations on every page. 8” X 10” paperback. From the Apiary to the Zip in the flight of bees, this charming and beautiful book gives short and fascinating facts about the world of bees from the Hive to Verroa mites. The author is a certified beekeeper who lives in the mountains of Northeast Georgia and is recently retired naturalist who worked at the Tallulah Gorge State Park.   NON-FICTION All This Marvelous Potential: Robert Kennedy’s 1968 Tour of...