Cuddling Teddy Roosevelt is kinda strange...but cuddling a soft bear is better. Who would've known that the teddy bear was named after a president!
In this children's picture book, children will be amazed that they know a bit of history after they read this beautifully written/illustrated book.
~Erin
Age 11

This book appeals to all teddy bear lovers- young and old! It is a great way to share history with children. My kindergarten class throughly enjoyed it cover to cover! A must for anyone who ever had / or has a teddy bear!!

I didn't read the book. I gave it as a birthday gift to my niece who is a teddy bear enthusiast. The rating I gave was based upon her overwhelming response to the book.

She was so taken with the story that she excitedly wrote a letter to the author. To his credit, the author responded with a handwritten letter that, along with the book, became a show-and-tell project for her 2nd grade class. She talks about the whole thing with stars in her eyes. It's truly priceless.

I give 5 stars to both the book and the author.

Bev Marshall's first novel, WALKING THROUGH SHADOWS, is a breathtaking creation. Set in a small town in rural Mississippi just before World War II, the story's obvious center is the murder of a young woman, Sheila Barnes. Sheila is one of the most unforgettable characters I've run across in recent years - just seventeen at the time of her death, married for around a year, Sheila is uneducated but full of unconventional wisdom, which she bestows gently on those around her as their needs dictate. She is a gift in their varied lives - and they all come to realize it in their own time.

Sheila comes to work at the dairy farm run by the Cotton family, and soon becomes the Best Friend of ten-year-old Annette (her caps) - the two girls grow as close as family, and at one point Annette's mother, Rowena, comments that 'Annette loves Sheila like a blood sister'. Sheila is seemingly completely without a formal education - she comes from a family of numberless children, loomed over by her brutal father. The beatings - and other abuse - she receives from him on a regular basis are the central reason in her leaving home, to seek work and shelter at the Cottons'. She is also possessed of a physical anomaly - a hump on her back - although she never lets it interfere with her image of herself or the way in which she attempts to live her life. It is at the Cottons' dairy, where she works, that she meets Stoney Barnes - despite her 'deformity', he falls in love with her (and she with him), and after a short courtship, they marry. The abuse she suffered at the hands of her father continues sporadically - and Stoney is guilty of inflicting physical pain on her as well. When he reports Sheila missing early one morning, and her body is found in the Cottons' cornfield, the investigation that ensues reveals things about almost everyone involved that each one would have most certainly preferred to be left in the dark. The revelations strain friends and family and community - the outcome is both expected and surprising, and soul shaking.

The story unfolds gracefully through various viewpoints - a technique that Marshall employs extremely well. The author endows each of the characters with a distinctive personality and - even more importantly, I think - a unique, completely believable voice. Rather than simply describe each character to the reader, the author skillfully allows them to illuminate not only themselves but also each other. Their narratives - which vary in length, but grow shorter and switch back and forth more in the second half of the book - overlap in both subjects and time frames, much as if the reader were privy to individual tellings of the same story, walking from room to room, eavesdropping. There is a subtlety in Marshall's method here that is a wonder to behold - things are revealed to the reader as they are revealed to those in the story, allowing the mysterious aspects of Sheila's brutal murder to be opened like a flower. The suspense is palpable and deftly controlled.

There are lessons to be learned here - as well as a story that entertains - about a plethora of subjects: love, honor, family, pain, abuse, friendship, faith, race, healing, and more...including magic. I'm not speaking of the type of magic that is performed on the stage - I'm speaking of the more indefinable magic that lives and breathes in the touch of a friend's hand, in the stories they share that delight and instruct, in the pain that we cause each other and in the healing we can inspire. If this leads you to believe that this is a soporific tale, don't be deceived - this is fine writing of the highest order, and a story that reveals not only the innermost workings of its characters, but of all of us.

This wonderful southern novel details the circumstances surrounding a young woman's brutal murder on the Cotton family's Mississippi dairy farm in the mid-1940's. Events leading up to and following the murder are told and retold in distinctive but believable voices by a number of primary characters,providing insight into the flaws and strengths of each person and reinforcing the fact that people see and remember common experiences very differently. This
poignant coming of age chronicle/gripping murder mystery had me pulling the book out of my tote whenever I had a spare moment during the day, and reading well into the wee hours of the morning. What a find!

Walking Through Shadows tells the story of Sheila Barnes, a very unique seventeen-year-old girl who has a profound effect on the lives of the people around her. The novel is set in a quiet little town in Mississippi in 1941. Sheila, who has suffered from brutal abuse from her father, is invited to move to Lloyd Cotton's dairy farm to escape her horrible situation and work for him. Everyone who comes into contact with Sheila grows to adore her and the town is astounded when Sheila is found dead in the cornfields. All the characters are suddenly forced to deal with perplexing circumstances. But those who knew Sheila well and grieved the most would come to find that they have learned many lessons from her that would help them to deal with the tragedy of her death.
Bev Marshall created an enthralling world that I was eager to visit each time I opened her book and sad to leave when I had to put it down for a moment. She has an extraordinary ability to allow the reader to hear each character's voice clearly. All the different accounts given by each character of the events in the story help the reader to see all the sides through many sets of eyes and commiserate with everyone involved. The story is beautifully crafted and undeniably magical. I identify with the young girl, Annette. I can relate with her innocent ways of viewing the world and how they caused her deep torment and confusion in trying to deal with the realities throughout the book. I believe everyone can find a character, if not several, to which he or she can relate. I'm glad Bev Marshall is sharing her story with the world. I strongly urge everyone to pick up her book and enter this world she has created and be as enchanted as I have been.

It has been said that the Mississippi Delta begins in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel in Memphis. This evokes a hearty laugh or two. But Maude Schuyler Clay's Delta, this land of her black and white photograph collection, bears little humor at all.

Clay, the contributing photographer for The Oxford American (the nearly defunct glossy southern literary magazine) is a Sumner County, Mississippi, native. Back to the Delta to live and work after a decade in New York City, Clay combines landscapes, or the Delta flatscape, with the stark loneliness of the occasional roadside dog. Few humans don the pages of Delta Land.

Mississippi writer Lewis Nordan, a Delta native himself, writes a provocative and interpretive introduction to the book, one that is witty and piercing in its critical and story-like style.

The book's sepia-toned landscapes show the one constant in a region dominated for millennia by the mighty Mississippi River. That constant is erosion. Many of the photos recall decay and loss. Such is the depiction of the Tallahatchie Bridge of Billy Joe McAllister's jump to the depths below.

This coffee table book, a collection of minimalist and postmodern art, promises to deliver a true, honest, dispassionate and yet emphatic view of the Delta for all who read its words and view its pictorial depictions. The book, not far removed from the documentary eye of Walker Evans, is about memory and the hard, melancholic road that memory often takes us. I recommend it for all who love or long for the land it memorializes.

---------Reviewed by Dayne Sherman

Currenting residing in Germany (and England before that), I often think about the Mississippi in which I grew up with mixed emotions. Maude Schuyler Clay's stunning photographs, with their dark aesthetic, render visible some of the emotional landscapes and scenes that I visit occasionally in my dreams (which border on the nightmarish). Her photographs are, in my opinion, meditations on loss, on some truth of the past that slips irrevocably beyond grasp at the moment of its apperception. The artist shows us ash-covered, post-nuclear landscapes whose projection of annihilation is terrifyingly beautiful and profound. As Lewis Nordan's wonderfully written introduction points out, there are no pictures of cotton pickers in this collection of Mississippi images. The subject of these photos is far more interior and complex, inspiring reflection on the passage of time, memory, death, guilt, and the fragility of the human condition.

As a child of this place called the Delta, this was my world. This was home. Ms. Clay has captured it as it was in my childhood - and as it, to some extent, continues to be. The scenes she portrayed were classics. I may not have seen a particular church or bayou, but I have undoubtedly seen its twin. The black-and-white photographs add a timelessness that color could not. These photographs could have been made in the 50's as easily as the 90's. Much remains the same in the Delta today. Delta Land is a must for all who call this place home. Thanks, Ms. Clay. This book is what I was looking for - even though I didn't realize it until I first turned its pages.

Anthropologists tell us that human brains are indelibly informed by the experience of ice age survival some twenty-four thousand years ago; that adaptability and improvisation in a world of violent, cataclysmic change enabled humans to abide the destructive power of ice and satisfy the evolutionary imperative of endurance. Fast forward myriad millennia to the turbulent time of America's defining cataclysm, the Civil War, and meet Charles Dahlgren: brawler, adventurer, opportunist, patriarch, Yankee by birth and breeding, Confederate slave owner by chance and choice, and avatar of those primal qualities that exalt fortitude over fortune. Dahlgren's odyssey encompasses most of the nineteenth century and touches people representing the lavish spectrum of characters that age has to offer, from slaves to presidents, from dowagers to mercenaries, from victors to vanquished, and is masterfully rendered by Herschel Gower in "Charles Dahlgren of Natchez: The Civil War and Dynastic Decline." Using verbatim the recorded words of many, including significant passages from Dahlgren's exceptional diary, Gower combines eloquent narrative with authentic utterance to create a robust immediacy that delivers enthusiasts of history and anthropology, alike, back to the intrinsically familiar.

Future meet the past, and the quality of human spirit that is an integral part of modern America. Time travel is possible with Herschel Gower's beautifully written book. The story of General Dahlgren has everything necessary for a work of fiction, but this is, indeed, fact. General Dahlgren was a first generation American, a hard working self made man, a lawyer, a planter, a frontiersman, a business man who rose to greatness within his community, joined the ranks of the Confederacy in defense of his ideals, then faced bankruptcy and poverty in defeat, only to remake himself and rebuild his shattered world. Mr. Gower is not interested in hero worship, however, and the General is presented to us with intimate detail, both good and bad, both invigorating and humiliating. This intimacy is often from the General himself, who Gower allows to tell his own story at every turn. There is so much to glean from a history of this sort, from a deep and varied accounting of day to day existence to an understanding of the minds and thought patterns that shaped men's worlds in the 19th Century. Anyone who reads this work will develop an admiration for a time, place and people completely self aware, not only of surroundings, but of advantages that a lifetime can put into rare and fragile perspective. The similarities are sometimes suprising, for instance: boys playing pranks and party goers appreciating a pacificity of existence. Who today hasn't remarked that life is good? But who today could survive the daily struggle that was a 19th century life, and do so with grace, humility and humor? General Dahlgren's story is compelling and fascinating and perfectly relevant in today's world of financial boom and bust. Herschel Gower's work is impressive in scope, delicately and beautifully written and as much a page turner as any adventure novel. This book is definitely a must.

Intrigued by initials carved on a rock on August 31,1860, and discovered on August 31, 1990, Herschel Gower began his research on the Dahlgren family by identifying all the members of a house party in the last summer before the Civil War. The resulting narrative of lives and homes and dreams changed and lost from 1861 to the early twentieth century is the story not only of Charles Dahlgren and his family but also of many Confederate families with Union relatives. Their letters and diaries are eloquent with the truth about survival in hard times. One of the survivors, looking back in 1917, said of the Dahlgrens in 1860, ". . . we were happy and we knew it and we thought the happiness would go on and on."

I agree with the earlier reviews but I'd like to provide some details about this book's strengths.
First, Payne places the people who made the Mississippi movement at the center the story. He tells the story of both the original local leaders who made it possible for the civil rights movement to happen in Mississippi and the activists who followed their lead in the 1960s.
Second, he extends the time span of the civil rights movement, showing that it would not have been possible without the "organizing tradition" referred to in the subtitle. Payne expertly traces the relationships and linkages between different generations of heroic troublemakers in Mississippi.
Third, he shows that the original radicals, and I mean those who wanted to change Mississippi from its roots, were those who had already challenged the system to achieve personal gain. "Bourgeois" blacks in Mississippi weren't uniformly complacent or fearful. Wisely, Payne does not use this fact to justify any notion of a "talented tenth" that ought to lead the masses.
Fourth, the chapter on Ella Baker is a stunning and riveting account of one heroic troublemaker who didn't receive enough recognition for her efforts.
Fifth, when Payne writes about what we typically consider the civil rights movement, he places you in the midst of the activists and makes you feel their exhileration, exhaustion, frustration, fear, and courage. Scholarly books never have this quality. At the same time, he does this in a historical context and with a critical eye which absolutely illuminate the raw material in a way that first-person and journalistic treatments rarely approach.
For these reasons, and many more, this is clearly the best of many excellent books on the civil rights movement. Some could fault Payne for placing less emphasis on the national and institutional dimensions of the freedom struggle. But, in the case of the black American struggle for freedom, Payne shows us the story begins with, and is carried by, people who tried to change their communities, not their nation.

As a history major, I have various interests. One of my favorite things to study is the civil rights movement. Of all the books that I have seen, few match the caliber of this book. It takes the state of Mississippi (which may be the book's greatest irony)and shows how powerful a grassroots movement such as the civil rights movement can be with the proper forms of leadership. I urge anyone who is interested in learning about the civil rights movement should start with this book!

Two years ago the author taught a short course at my college on the Mississippi civil rights movemement. He used this book, and I've been recommending it to people ever since. His style and content are both amazing, and I feel really lucky to have had an opportunity to read this book in a course structured around it. _I've Got the Light of Freedom_ offers a new perspective on the way history is taught and remembered. Organizing and people's history are emphasized in what happens to be one of the best movement books out there. It's everything scholarly writing should be. Kudos to Charles Payne.

It's so nice to find books like this. You know, back when romance novels were actually romantic, and weren't given stupid titles like Irresistable and Scandalous. And they actually sometimes included silly little elements like (gasp)character development. I really enjoyed the story of eighteen year old Jessi who fell in love with her stepfather. Give it to any professional reviewer and I'm sure words like "Offputting" and "Ick factor" will run amuck, but I sure liked it. More than anything Iv'e read in a long time, in fact.

This book is great. Wonderful characters and great story line. I didn't want it to end.

Relax, recline, fix yourself a hot cup of coffee or tea, possibly accompanied by a delicious box of chocolates...and read Morning Song! I first discovered this book when I was just 19, and I finished it in one delightful afternoon. I am an avid reader of romance novels, and this is certainly among the top 5 that I have read in my life. The hero is completely dreamy, rugged, assertive and hopelessly passionate and his lady is a believable and lovable character. Morning Song is filled with very intense love scenes, a thick and winding plot, and a completely satisfying ending. Wholly recommended, ladies!

I thought the book expressed rasism and reality about the world as it was during their time. These issues were a concern to Jim and Huck but in actualality Huck never realized that Jim was being treated unfairly. This lets us learn that racism cannot go on and that it needs to change during our time. That is why the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was an outstanding novel for kids to read.

I never thought I'd be around long enough to experience a performance of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as successful as this by Patrick Fraley. I've lived with this text for over 40 years and thought I knew it well. But listening to Fraley has made me discover new dimensions, increasing greatly my already enormous appreciation of Clemens' masterful work. Listening to Fraley read "Mark Twain" is almost as much a pleasure as listening to Miriam Margolyes read Charles Dickens. "It don't get no better than that."

As you might have already known, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is one of Mark Twain's classics. It was written based on Mark Twain's best friend when he was a child. I have written a review on it because I think this book should not be forgotten.

Huckleberry Finn is only fourteen when he runs away from his brutal father........
Yet another one of Mark Twain's classics, Huckleberry Finn amazed me with its plot. On the previous book about Tom Sawyer, comes Huckleberry Finn; Tom's best friend.
Young Huckleberry Finn was adopted by a widow and all was going quite well until the footsteps Huck saw on the snow...... The footsteps on the snow were in the way that his father always leaves behind. So, this means that Huck's cruel father has come back! The six thousand dollars Tom and Huck found in the previous book was safe in the bank but not anymore. Now that Huck's father is back, he wouldn't leave until he got the money.
Huck's father has tried many ways to get Huck's money but fails every time. Soon, Huck's father captures Huck and locks him inside a wooden cabin in the woods. Huck's father now wanted both his son and his money.....
Luckily, before long Huck plans an outstanding escape to Jackson Island and meets up with an old runaway slave; Jim. There, the two starts an amazing trip down the great Mississippi river. They're destination is freedom, Cairo; where Jim could be free. Unfortunately, while traveling on the river both of them meets many strangers and must outwit them to stay uncaught and alive.

This book is highly recommended for those who thirst for excitement, action and adventures. The plot in this story is indescribable; it's full of breath-taking adventures and the way that Mark Twain could describe the feelings of a child is unbelievable.
This book would be a perfect book back in the days Mark Twain wrote it; however, the slang in this book might be hard to follow for people nowadays. Even though that the slang he used might confuse us, the writing in this book is still excellent and would be recommended.
Even though that I judge this a good book, I do feel that once in a while the book would suddenly skip from one adventure to the other. Overall, I do think that this book is worth reading and I would give this book; five "Stars". (See the rating chart below for more details)
If you compare Mark Twain's previous book; Tom Sawyer with Huckleberry Finn, I would say that Huckleberry Finn contains much more action, adventure and excitement. However, if you like more of psychology and more of a calmer plot, Tom Sawyer would be a better book for you. However, my final recommendation would be for you to read Huckleberry Finn as it is fit for the whole family to read and enjoy.
If you have already read this book and liked it, I would also recommend you reading

The author of this book, Mark Twain was a famous writer and had many other jobs as well. Mark Twain was a very superstitious person since that he was born on the day that Halley's Comet was passing the earth and died when it returned. Mark Twain's actual name was Samuel Lang-Horne Clemens, he was born and raised in the state of Missouri. His father died when he was only twelve and so he left school to earn a living. He traveled around America as a journeyman printer. Later, Samuel went back to the Mississippi river to be a steamboat pilot. During the Civil War, steam boating was put to an end forcing Samuel to join the Confederate army. However, he soon extracted himself from it and became an extremely successful journalist.
He was sent to the Mediterranean to do a series of articles after the war. This inspired him to be a writer and so he started to write books about his childhood which made him a fortune.

"Jesus and the Sweet Pilgrim Baptist Church" is one of those rare books that hooks you as an entertaining novel before you realize that it is really a thought-provoking social/religious commentary. It is a gripping story of hatred, racism, forgiveness, redemption, and faith. As a parable, it is something that Jesus him/herself would have been proud to tell.

I listened to it on tape while in college, and I'm thrilled to see that it is being re-released.

This novella just makes you feel good...I hope to see more fiction work from Clayton Sullivan. I have ordered his other non-fiction books, but this remains his best. I hope he publishes more fiction work soon.

This book made me laugh out loud more times than I can count. And in the end it made me cry because the writer was so absolutely right! Unfortunately, I lent my copy to a friend who lent it to a friend -- and now no one knows where it is. I want it back because it's the kind of book you read over and over, and catch new levels of meaning in each reading...and you can finish it in one sitting -- rare indeed!

Joe Lee's first novel, On the Record, offers an insiders view of one our country's greatest assests... Mississippi grit. His characters abrasivly rub one another raw, yet the end result is scrumpious!

As a native Mississippian myself, I firmly believe that Joe Lee's witty tale tells more about the inside working of political power and the personal stakes involved in playing the game. Beyond layers of deception surrounding his heroic female lead, Joe Lee uncovers an unfettered human response to career women, love-hate relationships, fright and flight.

Indeed, On the Record is a keeper, and Joe Lee is a writer the publishing industry should keep up with.

This book is a great read! If you like a page turner filled with suspense, a little romance and characters that come alive you'll love On The Record. It kept me on the edge of my seat wandering how Maureen was going to handle the situation she found herself in. And the ending....a great surprise

I found this novel to be a good read. I read it the same week that I read John Grisham's King of Torts and I found this novel to hold my attention in a similar manner. The story line concerns government corruption and influence peddling in the Attorney General's office. I found myself to be rooting for the success of the main character in her efforts to expose the corruption while maintaining her job, her reputation, and. possibly her life. As the plot twists and turns, the reader is repeatedly hit with new revelations and unexpected relationships between the characters.

This book carries the mystery to its final pages and the success or failure of the main character's efforts remains in doubt right up to the end.

I highly recommend this book and am anxiously awaiting the next!

This Side of the Sky is a beautiful story of two life long friends, Myraleen and Lilian, who grew up in Nadir, Mississippi and went on to see and experience the world. Sometimes tragic yet always poignant, Ms. Singleton's novel is an enthralling read. The time period of this novel spans over 70 years- from the 1930s when the girls lived with the constant reminder that the color of their skin precluded them from reaching the highest heights, to the year 2000 when color is a hue on one spectrum.

It took a good 50 pages to draw me into the characters. Many times Myraleen and Lilian looked at the same situation from different perspectives. I found it amazing how captivating their friendship was. It endured a lifetime with hardly a disagreement or regret. Ms. Singleton's research made This Side of the Sky come to life. The historical accuracy of the plight of African American's during periods of social change in our country kept the characters fresh and my enthusiasm to read was intensified. The social aspects of their relationships with others made reading multidimensional. I even received an education, learning that there was a far greater contingent of African Women who served as part of the Women's Auxiliary Corps in World War II than I imagined. Rising from seemingly hopeless childhoods to become well-rounded, well-traveled, well-versed ladies who enjoyed their lives, This Side of the Sky drew me in and kept me until the end.

This book will grab you from the first page and you won't let go,even after you finish the last sentence. This is one of those rare books that has you thinking of the characters,long after the story is over. It is simply a very beautifully written book, one that I would and have recommended for others to read.

This is a story of two young black southern women determined to leave the south and make life work for them. It is written in a fresh, intelligent, witty and honest voice, compelling and beautifully crafted. The characters are colorful, adventuresome, strong-willed, bright and intriguing. Singleton is a wonderful storyteller. I'm waiting for more.