BOOKS UP THE MOUNTAIN: A Packhorse Librarian Story

 Let's hear it for LIBRARIANS! (Pause for applause.)

For LIBRARIANS PAST AND PRESENT! (More applause, please.)

For LIBRARIANS matching readers to the materials they want, need, and love! (ROAR of applause!)

(Pause to recover.)

WAXWING BOOKS, 2025

BOOKS UP THE MOUNTAIN: A PACKHORSE LIBRARIAN STORY
is the lyrically told account of an unnamed librarian tagged Book Woman. But Book Woman does not work from a library building. Or a bus. Or even on a road. 

Talented author Caroline Starr Rose brings concise and compelling prose that contributes a lyrical tone to this history. Illustrations by Gabrielle Grimard are slightly stylized but offer the natural colors, familiar figures, and subtle finishes of a landscape from earlier times. The visual narrative reveals the joyful transactions as well as the challenging struggles of Book Woman and her clients. In this case Book Woman represents the many women who took on this important role, had a limited range of printed items to circulate, and adhered to their mission despite serious challenges. 

On sprawling spreads of soft-edged landscapes across changing seasons, Book Woman follows her route through valleys and hollows, around mountain trails and ridges, knocking at doors and windows. Children and adults alike know her schedule and watch for her, welcoming pamphlets, series books, recipes, and news from far beyond their view. Brief but beautiful lines read descriptively but as poetically as a psalm:

"A cluster of clouds crowds the skies.

Streams surge. Waters rise."

Combined with images of gusting willow limbs and a shift of emotion on her face, those lines let readers feel the tension of being isolated far from home, committed to her mission but aware of impending storms. Along the way Book Woman keeps company with the ill and aging, offers suggestions and readings for the young ones, and notates requests, observing needs. On weekends, Book Women gather to exchange inventory, repair books, stitch bindings, and discuss the needs of their mountain readers. They were hired during the depths of The Great Depression and crippling unemployment by the Works Progress Administration to infuse modest income into families in Appalachia while uplifting literacy and community.

This well-researched, lovingly written, and entertaining picture book is a treasure at any time. In our present world, librarians are under siege while information and entertainment access is a click away for kids of any age. This story from history offers an engaging invitation to recognize the value of literature and its delivery. It provides a step back in time with a nod to the dramatic change in circumstances, slowing down the absorption of the story and its impact through the power of poetic pacing and phrasing combined with lush expanses of nature's best views.

If you aren't familiar with other books by Caroline Starr Rose, do yourself a favor and check out her award-winning middle grade titles, verse novels, and picture books.

Some prior posts featuring picture books about extraordinary efforts of  librarians are available HERE, HERE, and HERE, with a link to a PBS documentary on the packhorse librarians HERE.

OVER in the WETLANDS: A Hurricane on the Bayou Story

I became a fan of the work of Caroline Starr Rose after reading her verse-novel, May B.  soon after its release in 2012. Since then I've become a fan of all of her books. I'm also an admirer of her leadership among educators and creators, and of her kind, thoughtful approach to other writers and to life in general. I'm convinced I'll have the pleasure of meeting her in person someday, and I look forward to telling her all this in real life.
Meanwhile, it's a pleasure to feature one of her more recent books here.

Schwartz & Wade Books, 2015

In  OVER IN THE WETLANDS: A Hurricane-on-the-Bayou, Rose applied her extensive writing talent and craft to a picture book that has all the hallmarks of a future classic. It is listed as an informational book for ages 3-8, but it's rhymed verse will appeal far beyond the very young and can serve as mentor text for writers of any age. 
Its lyrical, rhythmic narration is perfectly enhanced by the illustrations of Rob Dunlavey. His website is worth a visit, offering a glimpse of his multi-faceted techniques and his mastery of nature illustration. You can view several spreads of his fluid, dense, and moody art from this book, depicting bayou scenes in various weather conditions and moods, here. 
I've lived all my life in the part of the country often referred to as "tornado alley", but have no first-hand experiences with hurricanes. Nevertheless, I found the ebb and flow of each page turn provided immersive and emotional insights into the often-described process of hurricane development, destruction, "eye", resumption, and eventual resolution.

"Gentle as a whisper too soft to hear,

a faint breeze hints that a storm draws near."

...

"Wind-whipped waves

smash up debris. 

Turtles swim for safer seas."

...

"Pounding,

wailing,

hours endless.

Blasting, 

breaking, 

storm's relentless."

The author's note in the back matter includes a map of Gulf wetlands, a simple introduction to issues surrounding the value and disappearance of wetlands, and suggested websites for exploring and finding answers to questions. Details about the animals in the narrative text are described in the "More about" page, providing immediate answers for younger readers and for the adults who will read this book to them- again and again. 

This book is a perfect example of why I proclaim the POWER of picture books for readers of any/many ages. In one of my earliest posts I summarized that power as "3 C's": 

COMPLETE, COMPACT, and COMPELLING.

That post was written five years ago. At that time the ubiquitous digital media was well established, but it was still several years before the current climate in which algorithms filter what we find on searches and what we see and read in social media. A picture book, especially one like this, invites and nearly demands that we PAUSE, peruse, and become mindful of the content. That includes its purpose, its validity, and its effect on our emotional and intellectual lives. It doesn't need to be "bookmarked", it refuses to be scanned or skimmed, and it expects us to return to it multiple times. Joyfully. Mindfully.

In this case, I know I will.

Please do.

Unsung Women... and Titles

All across the blogosphere and print publications the celebration of Women’s History Month is well underway. Engaging posts feature important and worthy picture book titles about women who have made contributions to the course of history. Many of these are recent releases and attention allows these titles to find readers- and fans.

This week I’ll use some older titles to call attention to some unsung, often anonymous women and girls who helped to build this country. These heroines bore the many burdens of expansion and homesteading with strength and courage, but not without fear and suffering. Their names are unsung because the roles they played were so unremarkable, so typical, yet no less heroic.

Sketchy details about real women, sometimes family ancestors, are often the prototypes for historical fiction. Stories based on these family retellings and supported by extensive research generate wholly authentic tales that deserve to be told, offering admirable icons of everyday women.

Ann Turner’s DAKOTA DUGOUT uses only 126 words and Ronald Himler’s richly detailed line drawings to trace one such woman’s prairie years from the days of her soggy sodhouse, blizzard devastation, and searing crop destruction to her eventual life in a clean clapboard home in a thriving community. Each of Turner’s 126 words is precious, especially the final eight: “Sometimes the things we start with are best.”

Eve Bunting, a notable woman of history herself, brings us DANDELIONS, illustrated by Ronald Himler. In this case a young girl tells her version of the struggling, often miserable first year in a sod home on the prairie, desperately transplanting a stray dandelion on their roof. The only hint of time passing occurs on the final page with a view of sprawling dandelions.

These are terrific books to pair with the 2012 middle grade release, MAY B. by Caroline Starr Rose. At 225 pages, this, too, is a fairly easy read with few words per page. The story in verse relates not only preteen May B.’s life-or death challenges but also reveals that not all prairie wives withstood the stresses of soddy life.

In each case the simplicity of the words require the reader to engage deeply with ideas and the realities of a ruthless time in our history, weighing the costs and consequences, considering what their own choices might have been.

A humorous but equally revealing tale is APPLES TO OREGON: BEING THE (SLIGHTLY) TRUE NARRARIVE OF HOW A BRAVE PIONEER FATHER BROUGHT APPLES. PEACHES. PEARS. PLUMS. GRAPES, AND CHERRIES (AND CHILDREN) ACROSS THE PLAINS. Deborah Hopkinson’s text and Nancy Carpenter’s illustrations invite repeated readings , raise questions, and encourage further research. Young Delicious (yes, she was named for the apple) is no less courageous because of her age and stands proudly in the ranks of women who shaped America.

Among many other earlier titles, don’t miss THE PRAIRIE TRAIN, written by Antoine O’Flatharta, illustrated by Eric Rohmann. It’s a wild and rollicking view of the impact of railroads in the settlement of the west. Rail passage brought access to supplies, but it also provided the woman and child power needed to make homesteads into homes in that exhausting, demanding new world.

The comparative value of children, not to mention of boys versus girls, is depicted in TRAIN TO SOMEWHERE, also by Eve Bunting, illustrated (once again) by Ronald Himler. Based on true stories of children transported by train from east coast orphanages to stops along the route, they would line up at each station to be selected (or passed over) by locals as needed. Newspapers advertised their scheduled arrival and, quite naturally, able-bodied lads were the first to find homes. In fact, though, these often proved to be little more than unpaid slave markets.

One final reminder, here, of the series of picture books, illustrated by Wisconsin’s own Renee Graef, which introduces younger readers to Laura Ingalls Wilder. MY FIRST LITTLE HOUSE SERIES, including A LITTLE PRAIRIE HOUSE, reveals the humor and challenges of families moving to the outer edges of our land.



Speaking of word counts, I’ve far exceeded a reasonable number of words here, but the potential for titles, links, and tributes goes on and on. The collection sited above includes Caldecott illustrators, Newberry notables, and more starred reviews than you can shake a cornstalk at. So, just as we can search out the everyday heroic women of past and present, I urge you to read, share, and celebrate the books already on our library shelves.

***I hope you’ll also check the links to these authors and illustrators- notables one and all.