This book is worth reading! I read this, and was absolutely amazed with the content, and how it described the appalling life in a coal camp. Tina Wilson lives in the Linden Mine Coal Camp. The book describes Tina's life at the camp, including some happy memories, and some tragedies. If you are a fan of Little House On The Prarie, read this book today!

I discovered Lois Linski's Coal Camp Girl in my classroom library when I was in the 5th grade in 1966. It was the first book that I read and since I was the daughter of a coal miner and lived in a coal camp, it inspired me to read. I read everything in the small library and continued to read. I am now a teacher and a writer and write my own coal camp stories that are published weekly in The Coal Valley News, Madison, WV.

I'm not sure if everyone who reads this book is aware that this book is based upon a real family, a real place, and real events. The names have been changed, but for the most part it is an extremely accurate portrayal of life in the coal mines in southern WV. The name "Linden Mines" is taken from a small town in WV named Minden. The author did research in that town, and stayed with my family while she was writing it. Some of the characters in the book (Ben Sanford, little Sally Anne) are members of my immediate family. If you're from Appalachia, and you like to read about your Heritage, I highly recommend this book.

Failure analyst Owen Allison plans to return to Palo Alto to reconcile with his ex-wife Judith though he was delayed by his need to be with his mother in West Virginia when she underwent chemotherapy (see DISMAL MOUNTAIN). However, further problems in West Virginia postpone Owen's trip to the West Coast.

The dam by the Canaan II mine erupts, killing four and filling DRYBONE HOLLOW with coal sludge. Owner Anson Stoke hires Owen to persuade environmentalist Judge Carter Vereen that despite the toll, his operations remain safe and should stay open. Judge Vereen orders an investigation of all impoundment dams sitting on mines, which leads to state attorney general Hayes Boyer asking Owen to head the inquiry, but demanding a kickback of 15% of Owen's fee. Owen rejects the offer, but turns to his friend Sheriff Thad Reader to set a trap to expose those using fixed contracts, but the law enforcement official deals with a full plate already as a local has probably been abducted. So Owen plunges ahead knowing he will receive limited support from his buddy, but mine engineer Emily Kruk makes it worth while to stay in West Virginia a bit longer.

Though the "will he reconcile or not" becomes a bit annoying, readers will appreciate the latest Owen Allison investigative tale. Most of the audience will kick themselves when they see how obvious John Billheimer's plot solves the mystery as the clues are all provided, but so devilishly done that most fans (including this sore reviewer) will fail to see it. The cast is a delight with the hero at his best when he investigates.

Harriet Klausner

Another great Owen Alison book. As usual, we get to meet an array of quirky, well-drawn characters, including the larcenous Cable Stokes, his brother Anson, and mining engineer Emily Kruk. Billheimer's book are always a fun blend of humor and excitement--the book really races along.

One of the pleasures of this series is watching Owen's relationships with other characters deepen an grow as the books progress. Though you don't need to have read any of the other books to enjoy this one, if this is your first Owen Alison book you'll want to go back and read the others just to find out what's happened in the past. These books are one of my favorite mystery series.

Fans of John Billheimer's Owen Allison series will enjoy this latest episode. Billheimer's talent for dialog reveals more about the West Virginia psyche in this book than all the others combined. And the action is fast paced from beginning to end. I could not put it down. Especially interesting is the re-emergence of characters from earlier books who play a key role. Billheimer character development continues to an unexpected ending. You come away asking if there could be other scams this region of the country could suffer. I expect we will see this answers in upcoming books from this fine author.

Charles Adams has written a history that everyone who grew up in a small town wishes that someone would write about his or her home town -- a nostalgic journey back in time to the way it was. But Blocton was no ordinary small town. Adams captures the essence of a backwoods boomtown at the turn of the last century -- a colorful and detailed account of an unusual piece of Americana in rural Alabama that was as diverse in its ethnic makeup and its vitality as the melting pot of New York City was at the time. Adams documents an interesting story of a little known and out-of-the-way place where Polish and Italian miners and the Jewish merchants who served them created a community that alternately went boom and bust, that survived strikes and a fire that leveled the town, and then prospered again until the closing of the mines and the Great Depression finally turned it into a sleepy but still proud little town that attracts little attention today.

The book is well documented and is illustrated with many photographs and documents. It favorably reflects the many years of research and effort by its author to capture the substance and spirit of his home town, and it accurately tells an unusual story, because Blocton was not your ordinary little town.

The book has been in the making for over 20 years. It accurately represents the life and times of a small coal mining town. It goes from boom time through the decline of the town and to the rebuilding of its future. I am very proud to have helped with the book and also proud of its author, Charles adams. I feel that anyone wanting to read a very accurate and realisitic historical saga would benifit greatly in the reading this book.

I found this book to be full of imaginative stories that still held enough reality to be very believable. The characters are well developed, and I had a sense of being on the mountain with them. Bravo, Sis!

In her first published work, author Diana Carra draws upon her own experiences in painting a portrait of life in a small, close-knit community in the Pennsylvania Anthracite Mountains. The book is a brilliantly and sensitively written collection of tales involving the local citizenry. The denizens of Dunnelson are not caricatured hillbillies, and Carra is respectful of their culture without glorifying (or degrading) the plain, simple folk as anything more than just that---plain, simple folk. Yet amidst this seemingly backward, isolated community, there are strange goings-on, and things that (literally) go bump in the night. This is what keeps the book so intriguing and urges the reader on. What howls on occasion late at night? Who is the mysterious flute player serenading Dunnelson at dawn? These mysteries remain unsolved yet serve as the thread with which Carra weaves her narrative.

The offbeat, unusual circumstances occurring in Dunnelson have a Twin Peaks quirkiness about them that is satisfying without digressing into stereotypy. In the hands of other authors, the subplots could readily detour into the sinister realm of horror, but Carra wisely bears right, merely brushing against the supernatural and allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions. The Love Slug tale begins with what the cat dragged in: a bluish, mollusk-like creature that may or may not be indigenous in Dunnelson history. The cat's owner is a lonely widow who, curious to identify the slug, seeks out a neighbor, a bachelor who is also a loner. The Love Slug is Carra at her best: is the chemistry that ignites between the two the result of their collective loneliness, the aftereffects of homemade raisin wine, or the extraterrestrial matchmaking-influence of the mystery creature, which throbs and pulses as the chemistry begins?

It is a pleasure to highly endorse Dawn at Dunnelson as a refreshing read, and I urge you to pay close attention to author Carra. I'm anxious to learn more from her sequels. (Midnight at Dunnelson? Noon at Dunnelson?) In her first effort, Carra demonstrates a remarkable and skilled savvy for artfully compiling her collection of short stories with an uncommon deftness. Bravo!

Before I go on to say what a fabulous piece of work this is, I must stress one criticism. I felt Milne went into perhaps too much detail about what happened to 'this million' or 'that million' with reference to where Scargill and Heathfield hid the NUM's donations. Although interesting, I would like to also have seen Arthur himself give a closer look at his own perspective of events surrounding the strike. I feel this would ultimately have been more revealing about the nature of the whole smear campaign than so much time and print being spent on the detail.

What double dealing and hypocrisy from everyone from the Soviets to Kinnock though! I'm sure I feel more angry at the likes of Ron Todd (not mentioned much actually) Neil Kinnock and the whole TUC and Labour Party than I ever will about Thatcher and her despicable (but at least openly hostile)cronies.

Anyway, I was moved by the miners' story. I am ashamed on behalf of all the British people who voted for, and kept voting for, Thatcher.

I am only sad that a movie has not been made based on this book. It's nail-biting stuff reminiscent of Forsyth so why is there so little literature and film on what happened? Where's Ken Loach? Come on Ken, get a film made of it all!

Great piece of work Seamas!

I'd like to begin with a disclaimer: I broadly share the politics of the author and I'm sure this influenced my rating. ...I would have preferred much MORE detail, ...In particular, I think it is regrettable that there is no appendix which gives verbatim extended extracts of the original Mirror and Cook reports to which the book is a rebuttal. (To be fair, this might not be the fault of the author -- it's possible that copyright considerations prevented the inclusion of such material. However, even if this is so, he should have mentioned it in the preface or acknowledgements.) I was somewhat put off by the author's unstinting admiration for Arthur Scargill. Yes, he has suffered a lot, and I'm sympathetic, too. But surely many of his unpopular stances (such as his adamant refusal to condemn any picket-line violence) could have been subjected to greater scrutiny. Despite these critical comments, I believe that this book is essential reading since it is a case study which constitutes a critical contribution to a much under-explored topic -- mainstream media coverage of the Industrial Left. I was also very impressed by the long list of works which Milne referred to. This gave me the impression that Milne had a great deal of background information to work with, and further motivated me to consult these other works.

A tale of a desolate coal mining town and a boy held hostage to its unrelenting sadness and decay: the love he feels for a mine pony is the bright spot in his otherwise seemingly doomed existence. His efforts to save the animal from a dismal fate in the mines is enough to make you want to find subsequent Cookson books. A tale at once sad and hopeful, it is well-told and well worth a look.

The is a very readable book for young adults and adults. The story is centered around a boy's love and empathy for a pony, and his loss of the pony due to circumstances he cannot control. In addition, this tale set in historic Britain, is one where honesty and courage prevail. The plot is very exciting, the details are believeable (will not turn horse-people "off".) I look forward to using the book in a summer school 8th grade enrichment class I teach. It has all the elements to keep readers interested!

This book gives one insight into the dangers of coal mining and the cultural aspects of it historically. Extensive interviews, with those actually involved. Humanity interwoven with hard facts. I actually cried during some accounts.

I bought the books (2) when they first came out and Mr. Dillion signed both for me. He was born in the coal field and knew the subject of which he wrote. Just within the last year I have obtained a copy of the report on the fire from the Federal Mine folks. I wonder why it took them 39 years to make the report public.... and one name was wrong in the list of those that were killed in that fire at the Holden 22 mine. The man's name was Isom Ooten, not Isom Hooten.

The beauty of this book lies in the fact that it does not attempt to analyze or comment upon. It simply presents the stories of ordinary men and women of this century in more or less their own words. All their lives in some way revolved around the dark world of Pennsylvania coal mining in the anthracite area of the Panther Valley. They are all refreshingly human, wonderfully straightforward, and tell deeply moving stories. Each in his or her own way reflects the rich cultural and ethical traditions brought here from European shores. The beauty of the book is its utter simplicity in approaching the mystery of the human personality against the backdrop of the drudgery of labor. It's a wonderful slice of life.

Most of us don't have books written about the neighborhoods and local institutions that we grew up with. This is particularly so for places off the beaten path like the Pennsylvania coal regions. I grew up in the 50's and early 60's just a few miles from the coal towns that form the geography of Mr. Dublin's book and went to some of the same schools as his narrator's children. My family worked for the coal companies and the garment factories at various times. These stories ring true from my experience - the reliance on family, the acceptance of 50 mile commutes to work rather than leave the area, the accurate concern that everyone for miles around knows your family business. The real value of this book for me is that these narratives show the commonality of experiences that I thought were unique. And, it also fills in many gaps about the social forces at work that I didn't realize existed in the lives of that generation. They shielded us from the dangereous aspects of some jobs, the lack of job security, labor-management tensions, and the potential need to migrate to make a living. For those readers without the personal ties to the coal regions this book provides a view of how tough the "golden years" of the 50's were for some Americans.

This is the incredible story of the decade of labour unrest(1912-1922) known as 'The Mine wars". And real wars they were, in which hunreds and sometime thousands of armed man opposed each other in the vallies of West Virginia. The author is not a great writer or stilist, but he witnessed much of the events in a variety of capacities (State Attorney General, among others) and he has the good sense to let the facts speak for themselves. This part of American history is as shocking as it is fascinating and richly deserves the attention Lee has given to it.

In plain, unvarnished style, Lee relates the history of greed and evil by the outside capital interests who came into West Virginia to rape and pillage. The miners wouldn't stand for it, and war broke out.

The president had to declare martial law - twice.

While Lee doesn't exactly have a beautiful, rolling style, he tells it like it was; he was there.

If you want to know about the true character of the Appalachian people, read this book.

This is the most unbiased telling of the struggles in West Virginia between the coal operators and the union. Mr. Lee offers an impartial insider's view of the birth (and or death) of the real West Virginia.

This is a fascinating book about the life and times of the coal miners in Pennsylvania when "coal was king" and child labor laws were things of the future. The photographs, especially those involving children, are haunting; and Susan Bartoletti's text is lucid and poignant. Impressions of the "breaker boys", "nippers", "spraggers", and the "fire boss" lingered in my mind long after I finished reading this book.

A very interesting little book for anyone who grew up in or has an interest in the history of the Pennsylvania Anthracite Region. The stories in this book apply to so many thousands of families that lived there and tried so hard to make a living under the harshest of conditions. Life was anything but easy for the anthracite miner and his family - no medical insurance (but then medical care was almost non-existent), no paid holidays, just dirty and dangerous work. The book is brief, reads easy but generally does a good job of telling it like it was back then and in that place.

i've been researching the history of the anthracite region and specifically the experience of miners and their families, and this was one of the most useful books i've seen. by detailing the different jobs the boys in the mines did, bartoletti also manages to describe how a mine worked in ways that other books on mining don't really explain. it covers the whole process by telling stories about the different jobs the kids did.

the photos too are wonderful. you get a real sense of how much these kids are both children and yet so remarkably grown up, just from the looks in their eyes.

the stories about them range from terrifically sad (i cried a few times) to heartwarming and sweet. the book doesn't come off as bombast or pure sentiment, but keeps a very journalistic view of these kids & their reality.

i highly recommend it.