As a writer, teacher, and lecturer, Jesse Stuart extended his life to the far corners of the world. He traveled to all but one of the United States and to ninety countries on six continents. His global life began in the 1930s with a [...]
Janice Holt Giles (1909-79) was a prolific and successful writer of historical fiction and autobiographical non-fiction. She was born in Arkansas, the second of four children of educators John Albert Holt and Lucy Elizabeth McGraw Holt. She didn’t begin her first novel until 1946, [...]
Taps For Private Tussie is Jesse Stuart’s best-known book. Published in 1943, Taps quickly captivated America’s reading public. It became an instant best seller, with over a million copies sold in the 1940s and 1950s. Taps became a Book of the Month Club selection in [...]
The April Regional Readers selection is 40 Acres and No Mule by Janice Holt Giles. In the late 1940s, Janice and Henry Giles moved from Louisville, Kentucky, back to the Appalachian hill country where Henry had grown up and where his family had lived [...]
This beautiful 144-page National Geographic hardcover book was painstakingly written and illustrated by Cheryl Harness for children aged 10-14 in grades 5-9. Daniel Boone’s story is every young adventurer’s fantasy: A childhood in Pennsylvania spent hunting on lands shared with native Americans; a coming [...]
As my tribute to Women’s History Month, I present a book written by my friend—and JSF Board Member—Edwina Pendarvis, a great scholar and a great person. Edwina was born in Floyd County, Kentucky. She has lived much of her life in eastern Kentucky and [...]
Reviewed by Eliane Fowler Palencia ~ James Gifford, director of the Jesse Stuart Foundation, is always careful to set the metes and bounds of his books. Of his biography of Willie Sandlin, Kentucky’s only World War I Medal of Honor recipient, he states, “this [...]
Because I have managed a non-profit publishing organization for almost forty years, I have had some strange encounters with the general public. People often simply do not understand what a publishing house does, and they confuse printing with publishing. I calmly explain that “We [...]
Reviewed by Elaine Fowler Palencia ~ More than 30 years have passed since the winds generated by Jesse Hilton Stuart’s astonishing energy blew through eastern Kentucky. The experiences of subsistence farming and teaching in one-room schools that he drew on to become “America’s most [...]
Reviewed by Ted Olson ~ Most authors would hope to receive after their deaths a similarly high level of sustained interest from their readers as Jesse Stuart continues to receive from his. Stuart’s literary output is impressive, and some of his works are classics [...]
