David Bond writes in a voice that speaks of the heartland. His content varies from gritty coal mining to sensuous romance without losing the trust of the reader. After reading this collection of poems, you can't help but look at the everyday men and women around you and wonder about the poetry in their everyday lives. David Bond has a gift of making the ordinary extraordinary.

In Colors, Bond brings the reader into his private world of exploration, wonder, loss, death, love, and tragedy. Along the way, the reader learns a little about Southern Illinois and rural life, and a lot about what makes the author tick. Bond takes a fresh look at old ideas and his ability to make the text come alive should not be missed. This is a very nice read for those wishing to explore a new and upcoming author that we will surely be hearing more from.

"Colors" is a more than appropriate title for this vivid collection of poetry. With each poem, Bond brings scenes from his life alive to the reader. We are able to observe this otherwise ordinary world through the eyes of a man who appreciates all the colorful and wonderful aspects of life. Whereas other writers might choose to not write about difficult, upsetting issues, Bond uses subtle humor at points to help us understand that each of us has the ability to control our own lives, not the other way around. The complexity of his words cannot be adequately expressed by this review. Everyone should read "Colors" to experience Bond's uncommon perspective.

The story is really good. It kept my interest from start to finish. I enjoyed this book so much I got a copy for my daughter. I enjoyed the discreption of how the mining was done back in the 20's. I recommend this book to everyone.

I am What you would call a slow reader. I only read this book becuse it was recommended by a friend. After I started reading it I could not put it down, In fact when I was Finished I read it Again !!

I enjoyed the book enormously. It is the best fiction book I have read in a long time. The description of the mine in the 1920's was the best I have ever read. Having read all of Tony Hillerman's books, I also liked the Indian connection. And the surprise ending was fun. I think it is an excellent book

Coal Miner's Holiday by Kiki Delancey is a book of short stories that more closely resembles poetry. She writes a variety of different types of stories with the constant being her use of vivid metaphorical descriptions. The first story is told from the perspective of the main character's thought processes. The accuracy with which DeLancey puts the character's thoughts into writing creates an interesting effect since we rarely think with the same focused coherence that we use to tell stories. The result is that we read two stories at once, what is physically happening and what the character thinks is happening.
Most of the stories in Coal Miner's Holiday are not long narratives involving fantastic or complex plots. Rather they could be compared to snap shot portraits of moments that capture an emotion or mood. These stories are of the colorful characters and personality quirks that arise to make life interesting in small towns of working folks where there is nothing better to do. The artistry the author displays in expressing the nuances of these moments has the quality of works you might find in photographs hanging on fancy museum walls.

I've just finished COAL MINER'S HOLIDAY after delaying the ending for a few months. I hated to see this excursion end. Kiki DeLancey's style of writing is unique and engaging. She introduces the reader to unknown worlds of labor, strife and the bowels of the earth in one large sweep of pure unadulterated reality. This is a world of coal miners, a world unavailable to the average reader. Their passions and disappointments, their pleasures and personal endeavors are unlike those of the average citizen. I enjoy new experiences, delving into lives that are remote from my journey and learning something new when I read a book and Kiki provides all of these things with vigor and charm. Her stories engage the reader, her characters captivate the reader, and her themes linger long after leaving this particular road. I cannot say that I preferred one short piece over another, or one character more than another, but I can say that I'll be first in line when her next book arrives.

When I began reading the first story in Coal Miner's Holiday, I Loved the Squire, I thought of Hemmingway, mostly because of the stark and sometimes choppy prose. I'm not a huge Hemmingway fan, so I had my reservations, but by the end of the story, I found myself marveling. Delancey is a unique voice, and her stories stick in the mind. As is often the case in good writing, their complexity is belied by the simplicity of their language. It isn't the stuff of MFA programs; it's real, often rough, sometimes down-and-dirty.

These are not all stories about coal miners, although they are set in midwestern coal country. Some, like the trilogy bracketed under the heading "Swingtime" and the marvelous little gem, "Story of the Bread" (My personal favorite; I believe it should be required reading for EVERYONE, period), spring from the author's Greek background. Delancey jumps back and forth in time--"The Seven Pearls," for example, delivers us an oddball prophet in the Hippie age, while Dinger and Blacker is set in and around a speakeasy.

This is great stuff. Buy, enjoy, give it to someone who appreciates fine, quirky writing and very human characters.

Susan O'Neill
Author, Don't Mean Nothing: Short Stories of Viet Nam

"Clay's Quilt" sings, with a voice as mighty and true as that of the fiery honky-tonk singer, Evangeline, and as sweet and haunting as the music of the passionate and mysterious fiddler, Alma, who grace its pages. I realize that "quilt" is the defining metaphor here, but for me this book was like music - a richly textured, multi-faceted, and infinitely satisfying hymn to life at its utmost. This is an impressive first novel. The writer has created people that live and breathe, and a place so real that I wanted to get out a map of Eastern Kentucky and look it up. Clay Sizemore has only vague memories of the tragic event that brought him to his mother's sister's house on a freezing night over twenty years ago. His Aunt Easter and others in his mother's family have given him a warm, loving upbringing and he appreciates it but he's determined to find some answers about his mother and father. His concentration on the past, though, doesn't prevent him from living wholeheartedly in the present. Along with his family and friends, he loves and worships and fusses and fights with great enthusiasm. These people invest their all in life House's descriptions of the physical world are heart-stoppingly beautiful. His writing is lyrical, but not without bite. I can find very little wrong with this book's construction and pace. It starts with a mystery and builds toward resolution in an altogether satisfying way. I found it refreshing that House confines the preaching and explaining which some young writers can't seem to resist to the dialogue of his coming of age characters, where it's appropriate. Two small things about the book bothered me - the extensive use of dialect, which may be essential, but which I found distracting, and some misspelled words. One of the best things I can think of to say about any book is that it stays with you. This one does. I finished it days ago and I still think about Clay and Alma, and Dreama and Gabe and Anneth and Easter. And about Marguerite and Cake and Darry and Denzel and Evangeline and the others. Did I mention what wonderful names the people in Black Banks have? In the book, it is said of Clay's mother, Anneth, that "A person so full of life couldn't just up and die..." This book is full of life. I wish it wouldn't just up and end.

Vividly poetic in its description of Appalachian natural resources, heartwarming and honest in its portrayal of people linked by their love for their environs and family, Clay's Quilt is in the top three on my "re-read often" list. In this debut novel, Silas House deftly stitches a search for understanding and love with picturesque Appalachia.

Clay Sizemore is a character any reader will quickly befriend, not only because of the tragedy of losing his mother, but because Clay is a loveable young man. House's prose places the reader, like a close friend, beside Clay. Whether Clay is at work in the coal mine, walking the mountainside, or partying at the local honky-tonk, we are there with him, feeling the grit of coal dust in our eyes, smelling the air on Free Mountain, or throwing down a whiskey with a beer chaser on a Saturday night.

There is something to be said when a reader can feel for a story's rogues. Even the villains and the socially challenged characters in Clay's Quilt are people with whom a reader will identify. House takes us into their hearts, to the places that hurt, to those hidden areas where malice and evil ferment, torment and eventually explode with terrible consequences.

Life, human and natural, pulsates through the veins of this story. Long after its first reading, "Clay's Quilt" will warm the reader.

Clay's Quilt is a powerful novel lovingly and masterfully pieced from the lives of the residents of Free Creek, Kentucky. Whether working, playing, laughing, praying, driving, crying, singing, fighting, dancing, hollering, or loving, these people do it passionately and with every fiber of their beings; these people LIVE. As a result, the novel itself lives and breathes and makes a joyful noise through the voices of its people as well as through their music. House's prose is lyrical yet unsentimental, fiercely grounded in real, concrete, sensuous and intimate details of everyday life. As the novel follows Clay Sizemore's struggle to find his place in the world and to make peace with a tragic past, we witness his tender and ferocious love for family and friends, his awe and gratitude at finally finding true love with a fiddle player named Alma, and his determination to make a home and a life for himself and his new family. House's voice is true and Clay's Quilt is a book both joyous and haunting, a story whose characters stayed with me long after I finished reading.

A Coal Miner's Bride was a great read, and now my favorite in the Dear America series!

It tells the story, in diary form, of a 13 year old Russian Pole, Anetka, who leaves her country to marry a coal miner in America. She is not happy to go, however, especially when her grandmother decides to stay behind - and gives her ticket to a Russian soldier, who will accompany Anetka and her brother.

Anetka's husband doesn't seem to love her, but when things are looking better, he dies in an accident and she is left to support his three daughters. And when massacres and her friend Leon enter her life, things are even harder. Will life always be harsh for Anetka?

This was a great book, and I'd recommend it for ages 11 - 15. Be sure to read "Dreams in the Golden Country", another Dear America book!

Of all the books I have read, A Coal Miner's Bride is definetley my favorite. It not only teaches you about the hard times in history, but it really touches your heart. Anetka Kaminska lived a wonderful life in Poland, but when her father, who Anetka says has "American fever", sends her a letter saying he has found her a husband, her dreams are shattered. After riding a ship with her brother Jozef and an "impossible" Czar soldier, Anetka finds out that her future husband hasthree young girls in desperate need of a good mother. But her husband, who terribly misses his wife, doesn't love Anetka as she hoped he would. When she expresses her feelings, things finally shape up for Anetka and her husband. But not long after he finally kisses Anetka good night, he dies in a tragic mining accident. Now Anetka must be a mother to her children and have boarders, including the "impossible" solsier,Leon, to pay off her husband's high debts. I have so many other words to tell, but that would give away theend

Anetka Kaminska is satisfied with her life in Poland until one day her father sends steamship tickets and a letter saying she must come to America and marry Stanley Gawrich.She must leave in a hurry with a young soldier,Leon Nasevich, who mysteriously happens to be wherever Anetka is. When she gets to america she finds that all the immigrants are poorly treated. To make matters worse, Stanley doesn't want a wife, he only wants a mother for his 3 daughters. After about 6 months of Anetkas unhappy marriage, Stanley dies and leaves Anetka with his three daughters. She has to take in borders to make ends meet and to pay off Stanleys large debt. Leon comes back into her life and mixes all her feelings up. Everyone should read this book. It gives perspective to the way life was for immigrants in the late 1800's. This was the best Dear America I have read yet.

Very interesting. This woman has led a very difficult life, but she never seems to lose her spirit.

I read Coal Miner's Daughter sometime in the 80's when I was a teenager and I liked it and thought it was a wonderful book and I also like the movie based on this book and the movie's soundtrack and of course I like our Loretta Lynn CD too. I highly recommend Coal Miner's daughter be read by any Loretta Lynn fan and even if you are not a Loretta Lynn fan or a country music fan you may still like this book. I didn't really even know who she was until I read the book and saw the movie and I didn't listen to country music but only listened to Rock music, but now I like Loretta Lynn and Country is one of my favorite types of music. (I still like Rock Music too!)

This is a very touching book, you can't put down once you begin to read it. The life-long story of Lorreta Lynn is powerful and
breath-taking. The words in this book are not fancy, but candid, convincible and colorful, it is the true life of Lorreta Lynn that wins the heart of millions people.

How poor is being poor? What is the struggle to escape from being
poor? How Lorreta Lynn became a country music diva from a coal miner's daughter? From this book, we share the life of Lorreta Lynn with our own, we see the souls and dreams as well as day to day lives of many ordinary people, especially the humanbeing under poverty.

Lorreta Lynn was born into a very poor coal miner's family in a remote Kentucky hillside. Her father had little money to feed Lorreta and her family, one Christmas, her Daddy had only thirty-six cents (!) for Lorreta and her three brothers. The work was very hard for her Daddy, he had to crawl on his hands and knees to work inside the ream of coal, of only three feet high. Until seven years old, Lorreta always wore flour sack her mummy sewed as dress. However, with her unyielding spirit and unceasingly struggling, Lorreta went on and up, became the queen of country music and a millionaire.

I didn't know the name of Lorreta Lynn until I watched the movie"coal miner's daughter", this movie led me to this book. The movie is fantastic, but this book let you know more and think more.

Either you like county music or not, either you are poor or rich,
this book is absolutely good, inspiring, touching and unforgetable.

This is definitely one of those books that you don't lay down until you read the last word. It goes everywhere with you and your family wants you to hurry up and finish so they can have you back! It was a book that had me hooked from the beginning. It reminded me of the old mining stories my family use to reminisce about. The detailed info about the mining terminology was very interesting. Do you remember the Little House on the Prairie shows? It made me think of that time period. The characters in the book were so realistic and believable. When I read books like this with so much detail, they make me feel a part of the script. They also make me regret getting to the last page. This book was great and once I finished reading it, it was on my mind for days. It's nice to be able to find enjoyment and comfort in a book like this when you need an escape from the everyday happenings of the world. Grab this book and escape for a few hours! Very enjoyable, where's #2!?! Keep up the fantastic work Lisa and Dale! I love Dale's childrens books, they are great, too.

This is one of those books that I will read more than once. I love the characters and the plot and the all around feeling this book gives. I am certain that I will read Turn back Time to my children and be excited to explain the history to them. I definitely cant wait for the next one.

My husband and I both thoroughly enjoyed reading "Turn Back Time" and we have passed the book on to my mother to read and our daughters. The only bad part was when I got to the end and ran out of book but didn't want it to end. The story about this delightful family is so interesting that we can't wait for the sequel to come out.

Last Man Out is an engaging and compelling story about the Springhill mine disaster, in which 75 miners perished. Miraculously, two groups of trapped miners survived underground for almost a week before being rescued. The book reads like a novel - Green skillfully weaves together information from a variety of sources, including detailed interviews conducted by researchers soon after the event and her own interviews with the now elderly survivors or their families. The book provides a multi-dimensional picture behind the seemingly simple events; in her narrative, disaster can pull people away from each other as much as it binds them together. A good read and a fascinating study of the first disaster story handled by the new medium of television. I highly recommend it.

This wonderful book tells the story of a Nova Scotia coal mine disaster in 1958 and its rather unique aftermath. Melissa Fay Greene weaves a series of small personal stories into a haunting and evocative narrative: one of the best "disaster" books I have ever read. The resiliency of the survivors, when juxtaposed with the unusual events which followed, including the bizarre intervention of the racist Governor of Georgia, really gives this account a special perspective on history and the human condition.

I found it fascinating that the author, from Georgia, became involved in the saga of the Springhill miners from the back end of the story, as it were. The Georgia connection adds a remarkable coda to the miners' ordeal, but if she had just told that, it would not have resonated as effectively as the book does. She took the time to trace the story to its beginning and to tell it all. For that I am grateful. I learned far more than I had ever known before, and I was drawn in by her skill with narrative and her genuine understanding of/empathy for those involved.

This insightful book is definitely a worthwhile experience.

These are the times that try men's souls--and men and women alike look to literature to buoy us up for the dark days that seem to keep coming. Thus, overturned cruise ships and volcanoes abound, but for my money you can do no better than pick up Last Man Out; The Story of the Springhill Mine Disaster. Melissa Fay Greene has written more than a gripping hour-by-hour account of how, in 1958, 19 Canadian miners struggled to survive after a "bump" smashed floor and ceiling together, rendering the mine an underground prison. She takes a story that we think we've all seen before---the desparate, waiting women and children, the little town banding together, the media carnival that follows their miraculous rescue--and with nuanced language and a gift
for uncovering human folly, steers us to look beyond the tale
of disaster into its implications in the larger world. With Greene's book, we think not just about terror and bravery but what happens to heroes once the cameras finally turn off. Who is this book for? Well, definitely my book club, and Father's Day,
but now I'm thinking Mother's Day as well. It's that universally appealing, that compelling a read, that good.

I am an avid western reader, (L'amour, Will Henry, Zane Grey, Frank Bonham) and this book is a "Must Read" for anyone that likes western novels!! I thoroughly have enjoyed Six Notch Road!! A great story!! Can't wait for the other 2 books!!

Mr. Santee transported me to the actual place and time of this great adventure. I was spellbound for two straight days. The only thing that could have possibly made it better... is to have been sitting around a campfire listening to Mr. Santee tell the story in person. Keep up the great writing. I am anxiously awaiting the release of the other two books.

This is without a doubt the best book I have ever read.I couldnt put it down.The writer is very good.Hope the other two will be out real soon.Just cant wait to read them.Please tell the author to hurry,hurry.A fan in waiting.....

I recommend this book to any one who likes to read and have a cliffhanger at the end of a chapter or two. Also, anyone who likes historical fiction would like this book. One example is when the Coal mine collapsed in Pennsylvania in 1859. Also, I recommend this book to any one who used to work in the mines because it is very realistic. The main character, Liam, said, "You should never light a match in a mine because the coal dust is very flammable." Also, I recommend it for anyone who thinks that girls can't work in the mine, because they can do the same amount of work that the men do only they do it more efficiently. Liam said "he saw a little bit of mischief in Rory's eyes." Rory is a girl who subbed for Paddy, Liam's brother. I learned that the mine could be a dangerous place to work, not because it could cave in, but rather that your boss might abuse you, such as hitting you with a broomstick.

Rory Hamilton hates the mines that took her father and brother away from her, never to return. Now she and her mother make ends meet by running a boardinghouse for miners. Rory is friends with a boy her age named Liam Quinn who, along with his younger brother, Paddy, and widowed father, works in the mines saving money for his sisters to come to America from Ireland. One day Liam's brother gets sick and is in danger of losing his job if he stays home. Even though she is terribly afraid of going in the mine, Rory disguises herself as a boy so she can take Paddy's place until he is better. Rory picks the worst possible day to enter the mine, since it's the day of a terrible cave in that traps Rory and Liam underground. If she is to survive, Rory must face her worst fears. A great survival/adventure story set against a historical background.

This is a great adventure story with non-stop action. Being trapped in a cave is for some their worst nightmare. This is as close as most will ever want to be to going into a cave. For more underground adventure stories don't miss Steward's, "Tales of Dirt, Danger, and Darkness."