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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 -
Betty Pace walks readers through a tumultuous year in the life of Fern, an adventurous, trailblazing first-year teacher, who has traveled deep into the hills of Eastern Kentucky in August 1961 to teach twenty-one students in a one room schoolhouse. Before the sun rises, Fern begins her day trudging through the thick terrain and hollers of Twisting Sourwood where she happens upon wild animals, small town secrets and a murder of a young boy and his mother. Fern and two other teachers leave their homes across Kentucky and West Virginia to board with the Sizemore family who teach the young educators how to cook, pack in coal, play Rook and steer clear of feuding families and flooded waters as they navigate their way through reading, arithmetic and writing lessons with their students. While nestled in a schoolhouse deep in the Appalachian mountains, Fern aspires to raise enough money to travel to exciting places that she has read about where she will eat in fancy restaurants that are surrounded by tall building stocked full of sharp dressed businessmen who work in high paying jobs. SOFTBACK VERSION By Betty Pace -
Written and created by Joan Litteral, Angel: A Donkey's Tale is a full color, fully illustrated children's book. Illustrations by Evan and Joe Kovach. HARDBACK VERSION Joan Litteral -
A When you read this book, you will not find stories about Joe Bates, Terry McBrayer, Billy Ray Cyrus, Jesse Stuart, Don Gullett or dozens of other Greenup Countians who have achieved fame and prominence. This book is about the county’s hidden heroes, the everyday folks whose hard work and public responsibility have made Greenup County successful. These hidden heroes are representative figures. They represent thousands more whose daily lives improve the quality of life in Greenup County. For the last two decades, Greenup County has suffered several major economic misfortunes. In response to these difficulties, Greenup Countians displayed courage and character, and today the county is not just surviving—it is thriving, and that’s a tribute to the county’s hard-working, caring, responsible people. Their stories need to be told for their legacy matters to present and future generations.—James M. Gifford
SOFTBACK VERSION (320 PAGES) Compiled and edited by James M. Gifford and Linda Harbison -
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. -
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 -
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 -
Out of stock
This book contains the memoirs of Harry J Rust, a lifelong Kentucky attorney and farmer. The significant events are written from family accounts, written history and office records retained in Rust's 52 plus years of legal practice. Details of his farm life, particularly from the 1930s through the 1960s, are intertwined with his legal beginnings and career with Appalachian culture as the backdrop. HARDBACK VERSION Harry J. Rust -
Presidents have been visiting Kentucky since 1819 arriving by horseback, carriage, train, steamboat, bus, and airplane. Presidential Visits to Kentucky: 1819-2017 details more than 120 occasions when the President of the United States came to the Commonwealth. It chronicles when the president came, why, where he went, and who he saw as he made history. HARDBACK VERSION By Wayne Onkst -
Articles from the Ashland Daily Independent by George Wolfford. Compiled & Edited by David Wolfford. HARDBACK VERSION George Wolfford -
The Big Sandy Valley — sometimes called Kentucky's last frontier — has been shaped by a series of extraordinary individuals and families over the course of the past 200 years. Hidden Heroes of the Big Sandy Valley profiles and celebrates an exclusive group of these people. The book contains 22 biographical essays and one cultural essay by 17 authors. The people who are profiled in this book are true representatives of millions of people who have populated the Big Sandy Valley for more than two hundred years. HARDBACK Compiled and edited by James M. Gifford -
Jesse Stuart labored eleven years over Album of Destiny. The idea for this work came to him in 1932 as he idly turned through the pages of an old family album which contained pictures of his youthful mother and father, posing before apple trees in bloom. Later pictures showed them worn and aged, and Stuart thought how he who was now young and in the vigor of his life must complete the same cycle that his parents had gone through. He began to write poetry for this volume in the 1930s. Before he was through he had written two thousand poems. HARDBACK, LIMITED EDITION By Jesse Stuart
