News

Mountain Life in Asheville, North Carolina

Even in the 1960s, life in some parts of North Carolina remained quite primitive. Eight- to 12-year-old boys and girls can get a real sense of it by digging into Kerry Madden's Maggie Valley books, set in the real-life Maggie Valley in the Appalachian mountains. Gentle's Holler, Louisiana's Song, and Jessie's Mountain are a trilogy, so there are lots of stories to go around. Olivia wants to be a songwriter like her dad, her sister Louisiana is an artist, and the newest book tells a story from mother Jessie's point of view. Madden's husband grew up in Asheville, North Carolina, and his grandmother lived in the house that is now the Spellbound Bookshop.

Spotted in “Take a Cross-Country Book Tour," by Mary Seehafer Sears, Scholastic Parents, June 4, 2008