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  • In Hidden Heroism, Robert Edgerton investigates the history of Afro-American participation in American wars, from the French and Indian War to the present. He argues that blacks in American society have long-suffered from a "natural coward" stereotype that is implicit in the racism propagated from America's earliest days, and often intensified as blacks slowly received freedom in American society. For instance, blacks served admirably in various wars, returned home after their service to short-term recongnition, and then soon found themselves even more seriously entrenched in a racist system because they were perceived as a threat to whites. This was true, Edgerton argues, until the Civil Rights movement and Vietnam, though the stereotypes have not been fully eradicated. In this book, Edgerton provides an accessible and well-informed tour through this little-known, but significant aspect of race in American military history. SOFTBACK VERSION By Robert B. Edgerton
  • When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Cornelia Fort was already in the air. At twenty-two, Fort had escaped Nashville’s debutante scene for a fresh start as a flight instructor in Hawaii. She and her student were in the middle of their lesson when the bombs began to fall, and they barely made it back to ground that morning. Still, when the U.S. Army Air Forces put out a call for women pilots to aid the war effort, Fort was one of the first to respond. She became one of just over 1,100 women from across the nation to make it through the Army’s rigorous selection process and earn her silver wings. SOFTBACK VERSION By Katherine Sharp Landeck
  • Snow Day

    $18.99
    Awakened by radio broadcasts urging the residents of a small Virginia town to take a snow day rather than travel to school and work, Peter Boyd finds himself with both an unexpected day off and an opportunity to find big truths in small moments and surprise encounters. Peter believes he has a good life, with a decent job and a family he loves. But he’s quietly worried he’ll be cut when downsizing takes effect at the factory, his family will lose the home they love, and his faith will crumble along with his bank account. Through the course of one day, Peter finds himself revisiting his past through old friends, finding out there is a Santa Claus - though he drives a truck instead of a sleigh - and rediscovering that whatever comes in life, hope is the only choice that makes sense. Debut novelist Billy Coffey offers a heartwarming and beautiful story about the faithful way God speaks, even when we won’t listen. Like Peter, you’ll reaffirm that faith is worth having and your worst fears are no match for an astounding, loving God. HARDBACK VERSION By Billy Coffey
  • In his first work of narrative nonfiction, Matthew Pearl, bestselling author of acclaimed novel The Dante Club, explores the little-known true story of the kidnapping of legendary pioneer Daniel Boone’s daughter and the dramatic aftermath that rippled across the nation. On a quiet midsummer day in 1776, weeks after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, thirteen-year-old Jemima Boone and her friends Betsy and Fanny Callaway disappear near the Kentucky settlement of Boonesboro, the echoes of their faraway screams lingering on the air. A Cherokee-Shawnee raiding party has taken the girls as the latest salvo in the blood feud between American Indians and the colonial settlers who have decimated native lands and resources. Hanging Maw, the raiders’ leader, recognizes one of the captives as Jemima Boone, daughter of Kentucky's most influential pioneers, and realizes she could be a valuable pawn in the battle to drive the colonists out of the contested Kentucky territory for good. With Daniel Boone and his posse in pursuit, Hanging Maw devises a plan that could ultimately bring greater peace both to the tribes and the colonists. But after the girls find clever ways to create a trail of clues, the raiding party is ambushed by Boone and the rescuers in a battle with reverberations that nobody could predict. As Matthew Pearl reveals, the exciting story of Jemima Boone’s kidnapping vividly illuminates the early days of America’s westward expansion, and the violent and tragic clashes across cultural lines that ensue. In this enthralling narrative in the tradition of Candice Millard and David Grann, Matthew Pearl unearths a forgotten and dramatic series of events from early in the Revolutionary War that opens a window into America’s transition from colony to nation, with the heavy moral costs incurred amid shocking new alliances and betrayals.. HARDBACK VERSION Matthew Pearl
  • The Appalachian Trail is America’s most beloved trek, with millions of hikers setting foot on it every year. Yet few are aware of the fascinating backstory of the dreamers and builders who helped bring it to life over the past century. The conception and building of the Appalachian Trail is a story of unforgettable characters who explored it, defined it, and captured national attention by hiking it. From Grandma Gatewood—a mother of eleven who thru-hiked in canvas sneakers and a drawstring duffle—to Bill Bryson, author of the best-selling A Walk in the Woods, the AT has seized the American imagination like no other hiking path. The 2,000-mile-long hike from Georgia to Maine is not just a trail through the woods, but a set of ideas about nature etched in the forest floor. This character-driven biography of the trail is a must-read not just for ambitious hikers, but for anyone who wonders about our relationship with the great outdoors and dreams of getting away from urban life for a pilgrimage in the wild. HARDBACK VERSION Philip D'Anieri
  • Fully illustrated color hardback of this timeless classic. HARDBACK VERSION By Christian Birmingham
  • In her Introduction, Glennis Stuart Liles provides some historical background on Greenup and Greenup County and then she focuses on her parents and her family in “W-Hollow Holidays and Holiday Recipes." “My parents, Martha and Mitchell Stuart, married at Plum Grove (Greenup County) and went to house keeping in W-Hollow just over the hill from the town of Greenup. They lived there until they died in the early fifties. They, and their neighbors, grew their vegetables on the rocky hillsides, milked cows, and killed their own meat. Everyone was poor, but they did their best to make holidays special. The most important part of each holiday was the food.  It was served in the dining room, on a fancy tablecloth with cloth napkins and their best silverware and china. The recipes in this book are special to the people of W-Hollow. They have been used over and over on special occasions – some for more than one-hundred-fifty years.” HARDBACK VERSION By Glennis Stuart Liles
  • This boundary-crossing book views ballet through the eyes of 24 Appalachian women who began their ballet lessons in childhood. Combining research in dance with analysis of interviews with the women, the work highlights what ballet meant to girls who sought a more magical world than the one they occupied. Keen in insight and colorful in detail, the narrative includes experiences of renowned dancers, past and present—Maria Tallchief, Misty Copeland, and Wendy Whelan among others. Surprising notables, world heavyweight champion, Muhammad Ali, born in Louisville, Kentucky, and Olympic gold medalist in gymnastics, Mary Lou Retton, from Fairmont, West Virginia, make cameo appearances in the narrative too. An engaging story of why ballet was meaningful to girls from the hills and hollows of central Appalachia, Another World: Ballet Lessons from Appalachia recognizes vital intersections—children and their families, students and their teachers, local and global communities—in the development of talent. SOFTBACK VERSION By Edwina Pendarvis
  • Sale!

    "Nothing is impossible to a determined woman."

    This quote by Louisa May Alcot adorns a beautiful tote bag available at the Jesse Stuart Foundation. This large, 100 percent cotton bag is more than 16 inches deep, and it will handle books, bottles, groceries, mail and anything else you choose to carry. The bag normally retails for $35.00. You can purchase it for $28.00 on this website. It will make a meaningful gift to the "determined woman" in your life.
  • Sporty Creek is a series of short stories set in the Kentucky hills. Narrated by a young boy (a cousin of the narrator of Still's classic novel River of Earth), the book tells the story of his family during the Great Depression. With work in the coal mines sporadic, they move from place to place, trying to earn a living the best they can. The story is told with gentleness and humor. SOFTBACK VERSION By James Still
  • The thirty-four stories in this collection, selected from Stuart’s 460 published stories, reveal the variety and range of his fictional world. Some reflect the excitement of growing up in Appalachia. Others portray the comedy and tragedy in the lives of the strong, rough-hewn characters of his world. Running through all of them, like a golden thread, is Stuart’s celebration of the land and its rhythms of life. SOFTBACK By Jesse Stuart
  • It is the mid-1700s, and England’s colonists in North America are eager to explore and settle the forest frontier west of the Appalachian mountains.  This is the setting of the new book (2021), “Blood and Treasure.”  The guide to this epic narrative is America’s first pathfinder, Daniel Boone – not the coonskin cap-wearing caricature of popular culture, but the flesh-and-blood frontiersman and Revolutionary War hero whose explorations would become the stuff of legend. HARDBACK VERSION By Bob Drury and Tom Clavin
  • “Wit, Wisdom and Other Stuff” is a compilation of 125 commentaries. He is a former reporter for The Associated Press and for newspapers in Ironton, Ohio, Ashland, Ky. and Huntington, W.Va. Keith Kappes is a retired university vice president who returned to community journalism to be publisher of the Morehead News Group for six years. Two years before this book project, he wrote and published “The View from my Keyboard." SOFTBACK VERSION By Keith Kappes
  • Sale!
    8-Book Christmas Package

    $75.00 Sale Price ($125.00 Retail)

    I’ll Be Home for Christmas, by The Library of Congress True Christmas Stories From the Heart of Appalachia, compilation published by JSF in 2019 Appalachian Christmas Stories, JSF published Snow Day, by Billy Coffey The Christmas Quilt, by Thomas J. Davis The Beatinest Boy, by Jesse Stuart Missing Christmas, by Jack D. Ellis Christmas Day in the Morning, by Pearl S. Buck, illustrated by Mark Buehner
  • Sale!
    True Christmas Stories From the Heart of Appalachia SOFTBACK VERSION ~ FULL COLOR INTERIOR Appalachia Christmas Stories SOFTBACK
  • Sale!
    This book captures the spirit of Christmas in 43 true stories by 39 authors. Thirty-five of the stories are set in Kentucky and the others are from neighboring states. All of these powerful and well-written stories emanate from the heart of Appalachia, and many attach themselves to your heart. This is a great Christmas gift book! SOFTBACK VERSION FULL COLOR INTERIOR (You will receive 5 copies of this book for the price of 4)
  • Sale!
    The Christmas Hope Collection ~ Five Bestselling Beautiful Stories of Love and Faith
    The New York Times bestselling novel The Christmas Shoes is based on the #1 hit single from NewSong. In this heartwarming, unforgettable story, a little boy teaches a man that love, giving, and family are the most important things in life. The Christmas Shoes was made into a TV movie starring Rob Lowe. In the sequel to The Christmas Shoes, a young girl and boy teach a man to lead a life of true courage in The Christmas Blessing. This beloved TV movie first aired in 2005 and stars Neil Patrick Harris. A TV movie starring Madeline Stowe, The Christmas Hope is a novel about a couple filled with loss, a little girl needing a home, and a doctor who fulfills a last Christmas wish. The Christmas Promise, a beautiful, deeply poignant novel, follows seemingly separate individuals and how their lives intersect, reminding us that there is always a second chance. In The Christmas Secret, a young, single mother saves the life of an elderly woman, setting into motion a series of events that will ultimately lead her on the path to finding true love. HARDBACK BOX SET By Donna VanLiere
  • A fictionalized account of the life of Jennie Sellards Wiley, who spent a year as an Indian captive in Kentucky and eventually escaped and returned to her husband in Virginia. SOFTBACK VERSION By Arville Wheeler
  • Best known for his nonfiction work "Night Comes to the Cumberlands," Harry M. Caudill also wrote fiction, including “Dark Hills to Westward: The Saga of Jenny Wiley,” first published in 1969 and recently reprinted in a new softback edition by the Jesse Stuart Foundation. When Jenny was an old woman, a preacher had sat down with her and wrote out her captivity story. Although Jenny may have embellished it many times, it is the only first-hand account we have, and it’s the primary source for Caudill’s novel. Briefly, here is her story. Thomas and Jenny Wiley had pioneered land on Walker’s Creek in Bland County, Virginia. On October 1, 1789, while Thomas was away, a small band of Indians, seeking revenge for a recent defeat at the hands of white settlers, attacked the Wiley cabin and killed and scalped Jenny’s three older children and her brother. Jenny, seven months pregnant, was taken captive along with her baby son, Adam. SOFTBACK VERSION By Harry M. Caudill
  • The Enduring Hills was the first of many novels Janice Holt Giles wrote in her lifetime. Based in part on her own experience with the Kentucky mountain country, this is the story of Hod Pierce, a young man who grows up on Piney Ridge, where generations of Pierces have made a living from stubborn soil. Hod loves his people and the land but longs for wider horizons, for more education, and for the freedom he imagines can be found in the outside world. It takes World War II to carry Hod away from the Ridge and out into the world, and it takes his city-bred wife to make Hod realize that Piney Ridge will always be home. SOFTBACK VERSION By Janice Holt Giles
  • Miss Willie, first published in 1951, is part of Giles's Piney Ridge Trilogy. It tells the story of an earnest teacher who moves to the hills of Kentucky to teach in a one-room schoolhouse. Zealously, she tries to change the ways of the stubborn and proud Appalachian people, but to no avail. They listen to her ideas about sanitation and other foolishness because to argue would be rude. But in the end they quietly go about their accustomed ways. Ultimately, Miss Willie realizes that the hill customs have a beauty and dignity of their own and that some of her efforts to reform them were ill-conceived. Her warmth, generosity, and humor help her bridge the gap and find fulfillment in Piney Ridge. This is a story of reconciliation and the coming together of two different ways of life. Above all, it is a story of people and of the land to which they belong. SOFTBACK VERSION By Janice Holt Giles
  • How to Build Your Dream Cabin in the Woods: The Ultimate Guide to Building and Maintaining a Backcountry Getaway This ultimate resource includes photos, blueprints, and diagrams, and covers the steps to constructing the cabin you've always wanted such as:
    • Selecting a site
    • Gathering construction materials
    • Deciding on a design that is right for you
    • Managing your property
    • Building add-ons, including shooting ranges, an outhouse, or an outside fire ring
    • Installing cabin security
    • And more!
    For generations, nature lovers, writers, and sportsmen have found an escape from their day-to-day world in living closer to nature. J. Wayne Fears offers a complete guide to building without the hassle of a construction crew or outrageous costs. SOFTBACK VERSION By J. Wayne Fears
  • The Scotia Widows: Inside Their Lawsuit Against Big Daddy Coal On March 9, 1976, a violent explosion, fueled by high concentrations of methane gas and coal dust, ripped through the Scotia mine in the heart of Eastern Kentucky coal country. The blast killed fifteen miners who were working nearly three and a half miles underground; two days later, a second explosion took the lives of eleven rescue workers. For the miners’ surviving family members, the loss of their husbands, fathers, and sons was only the beginning of their nightmare. By Gerald M. Stern
  • Look through the lens of this kaliedoscope of Kentucky women and prepare to be dazzled! The biographical essays of the 95 women featured in this book are as varied as the loose bits of colored glass in the kaleidoscope, and their stories are just as spellbinding. Thirty-one scholars and history aficionados who generously contributed essays to this book agree that women's contributions are part of this state's history and heritage. With its scrapbook of photographs and biographies, this book introduces only a symbolic few, an inspiring group who represent Kentucky Women. HARDBACK VERSION By Eugenia K. Potter
  • "God knew that it would take brave and sturdy people to survive in these beautiful but rugged hills. So He sent us His very strongest men and women." So begins the heartwarming story of Verna Mae and her father, Isom B. ""Kitteneye"" Slone, an extradordinay personal family history set in the hills around Caney Creek in Knott County, Kentucky. SOFTBACK VERSION By Verna Mae Slone
  • The Hunters of Kentucky: A Narrative History of America’s First Far West, 1750-1797 covers a wide range of frontier existence, from daily life and survival to wars, exploits, and even flora and fauna. The pioneers and their lives are profiled in biographical sketches, giving a rich sampling of the personalities involved in the United States' westward expansion. Author Ted Franklin Belue's colorful, vivid prose brings these long-forgotten frontiersmen to life. HARDBACK VERSION By Ted Franklin Belue
  • SOFTBACK VERSION By Wilma Dykeman
  • SOFTBACK VERSION By Wilma Dykeman
  • Lydia Moore grew up in the Appalachian region before the Civil War and married Mark McQueen shortly after it began. Her husband went off to fight for the Union while her father and brother fought for the Confederates. While the men were gone, outliers raided Lydia's mother's home, assaulting her and stealing the livestock. SOFTBACK VERSION By Wilma Dykeman
  • JSF Associate Memberships

    $15.00$1,000.00
    Becoming an Associate Member in the JSF is an important way to support efforts to preserve the human and literary legacy of Jesse Stuart and the Appalachian way of life. An Associate Membership lasts one full year. At the time of joining and renewing, Associate Members receive:
    • a gift premium in the form of a discount on the first purchase or a gift certificate that can be used at any time by anyone;
    • a 10% discount on all purchases in the JSF Bookstore;
    • the JSF Update newsletter (via e-mail or US mail) and invitations to all JSF events
    NOTE: After purchasing, you can expect to receive a communication from the JSF with details of your membership benefits.
  • Everything from gritty reality to the supernatural rears its head in Clement County: Tales of Mystery & Intrigue from Kentucky. The authors write of the fictional southeastern Kentucky county through an anthology drawn from their over 40 years of writing together. SOFTBACK VERSION By Hal Blythe and Charlie Sweet
  • Traveling The Underground Railroad: A Visitor's Guide to More Than 300 Sites describes current private homes, churches, restaurants, and halls in the United States and Canada that once served as Underground Railroad sites, and includes contact information for tourism offices and historical societies. SOFTBACK VERSION By Bruce Chadwick
  • Out of stock
    This thorough ethnological study is both scholarly and highly readable. In it the author objectively traces the roots of one of America’s more obscure peoples, the Melungeons. SOFTBACK VERSION By Bonnie Ball
  • As early as 1654, English and French explorers in the southern Appalachians reported seeing dark-skinned, brown- and blue-eyed, and European-featured people speaking broken Elizabethan English, living in cabins, tilling the land, smelting silver, practicing Christianity, and, most perplexing of all, claiming to be Portyghee. Declared free persons of color in the late 1700s by the English and Scottish-Irish immigrants, the Melungeons, as they were known, were driven off their lands and denied voting rights, education, and the right to judicial process. The law was enforced mercilessly and sometimes violently in the resoundingly successful effort to totally disenfranchise these earliest American settlers. SOFTBACK VERSION By Brent Kennedy
  • Doc, My Tiger's Got An Itch: The True Story of a Kentucky Hill Country Veterinarian Who Occasionally Runs Away With The Circus HARDBACK VERSION By John G. Martin
  • America is ready to remember and honor the men and women who courageously served the nation during World War II. To celebrate those brave souls and their families, and the spirit that carried them through our nation's darkest days, the Library of Congress has created a magnificent gift book. Themed around memories of Christmas during the war, I'll Be Home for Christmas: The Spirit of Christmas During World War II is a unique and handsomely packaged collection of poignant stories, correspondence, more than 100 photographs and illustrations, and diary excerpts from those who went off to war and those who kept the home fires burning. HARDBACK VERSION

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