'As the seasons changed, an infinite green morphed in a
thousand colors much like the trials and errors of a people
imposing passed-down shards of Africa memory onto each and
every day'-- John Hatch

Africa Love, the sophomore offering to Hatch's Mississippi
Swamp, is the continuing story of Rose and Cicero Morgan.
Cicero learned politics in the Confederate President's family.
Rose had been interned on the Davis Plantation by General Grant
preceding the battle of Vicksburg. Both Rose and Cicero refused
to become victims of the free enterprise's spin on freedom
following the Civil War. Rose ran away from her owner seeking
refuge in the swamp. Cicero, who had been elected to Mississippi's
post-war government, moved into the swamp to join Rose.

The 'Africanamericans' as they were called entered the swamp during
the war, as an alternative to turning their lives over to someone
else. Hatch offers an array of characters, as he brings to life the
offsprings of Rose, Cicero, and Cicero's sister. He peppers the pages
with some historical giants, Booker T. Washington and Frederick
Douglas. He also introduces many unknown people of color who helped
create a magnanimous history. People like the election workers led
by a Black sheriff named John Brown who pursued a sharecropper's
boycott until insurrection strikes in a little-known piece of
history which resulted in the Friars Point Massacre.

Rose and Cicero renamed the swamp 'Africa', because they still clung
desperately to customs from which they had been taken. And there is
much controversy over the fact that this prime real estate is owned
by the former slaves, and wanted by the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley
Railroad. The dwellers of the town, now being run by the off-springs,
know that the birth of the railroad would certainly be the demise of
their town.

Africa Love, set in 1886, is an indepth account of life during and
after the Civil War. This story shares some tragic and some
enthralling events surrounding one of the darkest periods of American
history. This book is an excellent cronicle of this particular era,
weaving fiction and history in a profound way, as it amplifies the
plight of people of color. This is must read for history buffs.

Reviewed by aNN Brown
The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

This book Stuck on you is a great book . I didn't read all of it yet but I know the ending will be great. I ordered this book out of a book order from school and right when I got it I read th1st and 2nd chapter in about 15-20 minutes it was awesome! I picked the book out of the book oreder because I got attraced to it and it looked like a very good book to read. I would encourage many people to read Stuck on You because it's a great book and they would have fun reading it.

William Doyle brilliantly recreates a little remembered incident that challenged America to its core: the attempt of an Air Force veteran named James Meredith to exercise his right to go to school. That would, on the surface, seem an easy task. However the year was 1962, the school was the University Of Mississippi, and the citizen was African American. The battle which took place left an armed force occupying an American campus, two people dead, and a nation facing the inevitable moral conflict brought about by segregation.

Doyle's research is superb; he uncovers evidence, testimony, and events which have never before been reported. At the same time, the writing is crisp, exciting and momentous - events race along spinning out of the control of the racist Governor (Ross Barnett), the vacillating President (John Kennedy) and the cool observer (Meredith himself)

Readers wanting to know more about the Civil Rights Movement, human courage, and the Kennedy Administration will, naturally, find this book to be fascinating. However, any citizen who wants an exciting read about the history of their nation should buy this remarkable book.

I am the author, and LaPlata County Series, Book Two is the culmination of years of study about an era and part of the South my people helped develop. Both novels in this series are a tribute to both the Black and White people of Amite County Mississippi. After considerable research into Black English, I have made an attempt to write the dialogue of slaves and former slaves somewhat close to the way they spoke the language; this is not to ridicule but to preserve a way of life that needs preserved. (Book Cover) Luther Butler continues his LaPlata County Series. James Butler's (alias James Wilkerson) descendents find themselves caught up in a conflict that tears him and his Black comrade, Charles Ray, from the Amite County farm to a dangerous Yankee prisoner of war camp. MISSISSIPPI WOMAN continues the series after the Civil War. Nat Wilkerson's wife, Sally Ann, loses the Amite County farm and moves to Fort Worth, Texas where, for health reasons, two of her sons leave for LaPlata County, Colorado where the mountains touch the sky. A section of Fort Worth is called, "Hell's Half Acre." Here Bret Sloan took the exslaves from Mississippi and opened a house of prostitution. Like the characters in GONE WITH THE WIND, AMITE COUNTY'S people adjust to a South that is lost in gun smoke and fancy mirrors.

Ancient Monuments (more familiarly known as "Squire and Davis") is the undisputed primary reference source on Indian mounds in the eastern US till the mid-1800s. While there were a few others (such as Caleb Atwater's book), Squire and Davis offers the grandest illustrations of what remained of the unbelievable civilizations that inhabited this continent. Even as they published in 1848, hundreds of mounds were being plowed into oblivion; so few are still extant that theirs is the only guide to what was lost. The text is enjoyable on many levels, and can be forgiven for any lapses of scientific accuracy. They trekked over Ohio at a time when we weren't even sure who made the mounds, so everything they recorded is gold. The engineering prowess, the sheer magnificence and scale of some of the works, is astounding.

'And Do Remember Me' is one of the best books I've read in a long time! The characters are appealing and the story sad but triumphant. And as an extra added bonus, included toward the end of the book is the most romantic scene you ever want to read. I read the book cover to cover in less than 12 hours, it was that good.

When Federico Garcia Lorca said, "The song, the picture, are only water drawn from the well of the people, and given back to them in a cup of beauty, so that in drinking, they know themselves," he envisaged works such as this: cups of beauty filled with commonplace things. You will never see the Great River in the same light again. A lush and extravagant work accomplished by one of America's premier photographers from a raft as it noodles its way from the river's source to its mouth. Along the way, you meet Willie the river hobo and the nutria, the regulars and occasionals who ply the river for fun or profit.

Morris examines the development of a Mississippi community from early frontier to its rise as a center of the cotton culture. The book is extremely well written. Unlike most historians who attempt to write community studies, Morris writes with the reader in mind. His prose is accessible yet informative, sophisticated yet always enagaging. A must read for anyone who wants to learn more about antebellum Mississippi.

Best Of Bayou Cuisine is a new version of the classic 1970 cookbook showcasing favorites from the Mississippi delta, and is edited to contain only the most highly acclaimed recipes from the original edition. In addition, the editors have added nearly one hundred brand new recipes showing the amazing talent and inventiveness of Delta cooks in the past thirty years. Filled with mouth-watering, sumptuous recipes from Sherried Shrimp Dip; Hamburger Cornpone Pie; and Mississippi Fried Chicken; to Sazerac Cocktail; Crystallized Grapefruit Peel; and Caramel Pudding, Best Of Bayou Cuisine has something for all three meals of the day!

The Big Rivers is an excellent book. It takes the older elementary student through the water cycle using the big flood of '93 as a living example. I recommend this book for every library. Teachers this book is a great non-fiction book for use as supplemental reading for any environmental education curriculum.