J.R. Collins has given a voice to an ancestor, Jeb Collins, who was almost killed at birth – twice. His survival is significant for that, but also for the fact that in another part of the Georgia mountains, a Cherokee boy, Wolf, is born on the same night. The families of the two boys will meet and mix in the early days of American settlement when everyone had to struggle for survival, and such friendships were still possible.
Jeb learns smatterings of Cherokee language, and Wolf and his kin pick up English with a sharp mountain twang from their settler neighbors. Together Jeb and Wolf explore the mystical, mountainous part of Appalachia named Cho-E-Sto-E for the prevalence of rabbits there.
Both of the boys’ fathers remember and despise the British who killed the American rebels and betrayed the Indians who agreed to help them; and both hate all evil-doers, like the ones who kidnapped Jeb’s sister or the sneak-thieves who stole from Jeb’s family. But most of all, they will stand united against a nearby tribe that wants Wolf’s sister as a bride for their leader.
The author grew up in the region he describes so vividly in this, his first novel, and has a sequel, the award-winning, Living Where the Rabbits Dance. The story, focusing on the boy’s view of a sometimes-dangerous world, is told in a satisfyingly recognizable dialect, using many endearing folk expressions – one of our favorites being, My heart melted like butter on a hot biscuit.
This multilayered saga presages the time that will come when the Cherokees will be marched away on the Trail of Tears, and family connections like those depicted here will be destroyed in the name of Manifest Destiny. It is heartening to read about the few years enjoyed by such friends as Jeb and Wolf when they could roam the land together with the approval of their elders. There is a finely-honed homage paid to two religions, the Christianity of the Collins clan and the animist visionary beliefs of the Cherokees, each playing a role in Jeb’s perceptions of the world around him.
From learning to fish to making bead bracelets from local gemstones, to seeing visions invoked by Cherokee spirits, here is a tale of a boy coming of age in a significant time and place. Collins’ book records that history, that atmosphere, with equal measures of zeal and reverence.
The Boy Who Danced with Rabbits by J. R. Collins won First Place in the 2017 CIBAs for the Goethe Awards, Western Fiction.
While mothers are as varied and diverse as the many varieties of flowers in the world, none of us would be here without them! When I think of the word “mother,” there is no possible way I can disassociate the word from my mother. She is strong-willed, strong-minded, and strong-opinioned. And her love rivals the strength of the greatest army the world has ever known. She is my mother. She is the one person who loves me enough to tell me when I am wrong and, yet, loves me anyway.
How and When was “Mother’s Day” Started
As all things of Western Civilisation seem to have started in ancient Greece it seems (reference: My Big Fat Greek Wedding), so did Mother’s Day. Well, sort of, honoring the goddess, Cybele/Rhea (depending on time and region). The early Christian Church co-opted the day, calling it “Mothering Sunday,” a festival day in which the faithful would return to the church of their birth.
When is Mother’s Day Celebrated Around the World?
Mother’s Day is celebrated on thesecond Sunday in May, in the USA, Canada, most European countries, Australia, New Zealand, India, China, Japan, the Philippines, and South Africa.
The UK and Ireland celebrate Mother’s Day on the fourth Sunday in Lent.
Most Arab countries celebrate Mother’s Day on March 21st (vernal equinox).
Most East European countries celebrate Mother’s Day on March 8th. For a complete overview of the dates of Mother’s Day around the world see Mother’s Day on Wikipedia.
The Rise of Mother’s Day in America
Before the Civil War, Ann Jarvis and her friend, Julia Ward Howe decided to set up regional clubs, “Mothers Day Work Clubs” designed to teach young mothers how to care for their infants. Their involvement and the clubs continued throughout the Civil War and once the war ended, they held a Mothers’ Friendship Day and invited both Union and Confederate soldiers and their mothers to attend. Big strides toward reconciliation were made through the efforts of these women.
The women who inspired Mother’s Day were social activists, abolitionists, suffragettes, and educators who wanted to make their world – and their children’s world a much better place. And that is something to celebrate!
It was all made a legal holiday when Anna Jarvis, inspired by her social activist mother, Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis, decided to memorialize a day in which to celebrate her mother. In 1907, three years after her mother’s death, she did just that. She chose a white carnation to inspire people to remember their mothers and what they sacrificed for them.
“Its whiteness is to symbolize the truth, purity and broad-charity of mother love; its fragrance, her memory, and her prayers. The carnation does not drop its petals, but hugs them to its heart as it dies, and so, too, mothers hug their children to their hearts, their mother love never dying. When I selected this flower, I was remembering my mother’s bed of white pinks (flowers)…” – Anna Jarvis (quote)
It wasn’t until 1914 that Woodrow Wilson signed a decree that designated the second Sunday in May as the United States official day to celebrate Mother’s Day. Of course, Mother’s Day is celebrated all over the world (in at least 49 countries) on different days.
It should be noted that Anna Jarvis wasn’t very happy with the commercialization of Mother’s Day and she fought long and hard to try and get it withdrawn as a national holiday, but we all know how that ended. And if you don’t, well, let’s just say it is a most intriguing mystery…
Suggested Reads
Because mothers are incredibly diverse in their habits and reading lists, we invite you to dive into our reviews and choose what’s you think your mother would like to read most and to perhaps enjoy the books yourself.
Chanticleer Mother’s Day Reading List!
Jaimie Ford‘s Love and Other Consolation Prizes is powerful storytelling from a master storyteller! Jaimie Ford breathes to life a little-known piece of Seattle history spanning the early to the mid 21st century. And a truly unique story of the many ways a mother’s love can manifest itself.
Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate is a disturbing look into what those who should know better, choose to do to society’s most vulnerable during the 30-years between 1920 and 1950 at the Tennessee Children’s Home Society.
Diana Forbes‘ Mistress Suffragetteexamines the facts of life, the challenges of social restrictions, and the woes of youthful love through the eyes of a sharp-minded, sharp-shooting young woman. Mistress Suffragette is now available on Audible!
Nicole Evelina‘s Madame Presidentessis a fascinating story of a woman’s meteoric rise from rags to riches, from subservience to achievement – based on a true story that was instrumental in propelling the Suffragette Movement.
A Theory of Expanded Love by Caitlin Hicks is a bold, authentic, & captivating –a young teen in the 1960s confronts doctrine when it threatens to outweigh compassion.
Caregiving Our Loved Ones by Nanette Davis, Ph.D.Dr. Davis passes on her knowledge to caregivers for dealing with the ongoing emotional, financial and health toll of taking care of someone who will never get better.
Nick Adams‘ Away at War: A Civil War Story of the Family Left Behind is a rich and fascinating account of day-to-day life in rural America in the mid-19th century set against the backdrop of the Civil War. Taken from primary sources, this narrative brings to life all that was loved and all that was lost.
This is just the beginning of our list! To find more amazing reads in every genre, please click here to discover our favorites!
We would like to wish all mothers, mothers-to-be, stand-in mothers, and those who possess the mothering instinct, a very Happy Mother’s Day!
In 1902, the year of the Boxer Rebellion in China, five-year-old Yung Kun-ai watches as his mother buries his newborn sister in a tiny grave that she has dug with her fingers. The starving mother hadn’t been able to feed her. She kisses her son and gives him her only possession, a filigreed hairpin, then tells him he must remain in the cemetery until his “uncle” comes to take him to America, to a new life in a new world. “This is my gift to you,” she says as she shuffles away.
These words, and the poignant story that follows, bring to mind two words from the title of author Jamie Ford’s New York Times bestseller first novel—‘bitter’ and ‘sweet’. This is his third…worthy of equal praise.
Yung spends that chilly night shivering, in fear of the nearby fighting between rebels and soldiers, and in doubt of his future. But his mother’s gift does indeed come to pass. A voyage of many weeks in the hold of a freighter takes him to Seattle. His early years there are not easy, however. Fathered by a white missionary, he is a half-breed and the brunt of taunting and worse by both his peers and his elders. Nonetheless, he ably gains an education, takes the name of Ernest Young, and begins to earn a living as the twelve-year-old houseboy and driver at a high-class brothel called The Tenderloin in Seattle’s Garment District. The other occupants—servants as well as the ‘working girls’—become the family he has yearned for. Some years later, he has his own family with Gracie, a Japanese immigrant known as Fahn when he met her (for the second time) at The Tenderloin.
The story hops back and forth between the first and seventh decades of the century, centering on Seattle’s Alaska-Yukon-Pacific (AYP) Expo in 1909 and the city’s World Fair in 1962. A raffle at the former is what brings Ernest to The Tenderloin. During the latter, Ernest and Gracie’s daughter Juju, a journalist, has been asked by her editor to write a then-and-now story of the two fairs, based on interviews with old-timers who have been to both. Her primary interviewee is to be her father, she thinks, but he stalls her, offering only tidbits—nothing that would put her story on the front page. Why is he so reluctant? Is there a tale he doesn’t want to share, not only with the newspaper’s readers but even with his daughter?
This historical novel is brought to a literary level not only by the author’s expertise with language but also by the extent of his research into the facts around which the story is woven. In an Author’s Note, Ford explains that his inspiration for writing is a “never-ending appetite for lost history—the need to constantly turn over rocks and look at the squishy things underneath.”
For this novel, one of those rocks was the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. From yellowing newspaper articles relating to the Expo, he learned that both the suffrage movement and “social evils” such as brothels (not only the moral evil but the spread of syphilis) were at their height in Seattle at that time. One article told of a child (named Ernest), who was donated by the Washington Children’s Home Society as a raffle prize at the AYP. Another described a climb up Mount Rainier by Washington suffragettes. Much was written about the plight of East Asian immigrants, economically forced into servitude and prostitution. Jamie Ford drew on these articles and other historical documentation to create this touching story and to bring to life its colorful and accurately drawn characters.
Stunt-pilot, 21-year-old Skylar Haines, honed by a childhood of adversity and trauma, is ambivalent about flying eight new maneuvers for which she’s had little preparation and no in-air practice. A lot could go wrong.
Her father, a pilot, was killed in a plane crash before she was born, triggering her mother’s downward spiral into a life of booze, drugs, and prostitution. When Skylar was seven, her mother died. As an orphan, Skylar fell into the system until her grandfather stepped in — no bed of roses there. Although she emerged an independent, savvy, and street-smart survivor who’d learned to fly along the way, those painful memories of her youth are always fresh in her mind.
Why had she agreed to fly in tandem with her mentor, Jake Brennen, for this performance? She might have said it was a lifelong dream. Or, that she did it out of love. Both would be true, but, of course, there is more…
Before she realizes it, she’s flown into the bowels of a storm, loses radio contact with Jake, and struggles to keep her plane aloft. After a near miss with another aircraft, she regains radio contact. A stranger talks her down into a world before her time.
Skylar uses everything she knows, and everything she’s learned to survive. Dylan Haines, who’s not yet her father, saves her, and she becomes entangled in his life in ways that stretch the imagination. He is caught in a web of danger and deceit destined to kill him. Skylar is tempted to intervene, but she knows his fate is set. Her father has to die, in order for her to live.
Like a modern-day H.G. Wells, Kaylin McFarren’s High Flying, ventures boldly into the fourth dimension, where history is reimagined, and epiphanies come in three-dimensional, real time. This gritty, emotionally penetrating story, set in Nevada, that not only touches upon social concerns with roots in the past but reaches into the future. The characters have depth, and the dialogue is sparkling authenticity. Here’s a story where everyone has an agenda, there are more crooks than cops, and bullets fly with abandon. In other words, a deliciously twisted sci-fi mystery with plenty of danger and romance!
A lonely child’s fantasy life intersects with reality in this Korean War-era tale of separation and reunion.
At almost nine, Jake often escapes into his imagination, blotting out a couple of situations developing around him. He and his mother are hoping against hope that his father might someday return from the Korean War, and Jake cannot read. Words just seem to jumble up before his eyes, the other kids make fun of him, and worse – bullying has become routine. These days, Jake tries every ruse to skip school until he is referred to a reading counselor who figures it out. Jake is dyslexic, as is the counselor, and this may mean he is, in fact, more intelligent than average, as well as unusually intuitive.
Intuition begins to seep into Jake’s life as he spends time in the attic arranging the Christmas ornaments, wishing it could be “Christmas forever” for himself, and for everyone. One of the decorations is a porcelain figure of an old bearded man, Ebenezer, who holds a mysterious, unreadable scroll. Deciphering the scroll’s message will lead Jake into a world of psychic visions, ultimately leading to his conviction that his father is alive. Jake’s mother, who has built a sentiment-laden shrine to her lost love, holds on to the last shreds of hope even as her soldier husband is officially presumed dead. Together, she and Jake will learn the surprising truth.
Author Clausen (Prairie Son) has an excellent grasp of the emotive power of the past to awaken the reader to timeless influences. In this story, the Ebenezer ornament said to be 100 years old, links old customs with a child’s search for peace and reassurance in the present. As the boy travels through time with the ancient sage, he becomes stronger, better able to face his current struggles.
Clausen writes with authority about these two subjects, dyslexia and its effects on the mind, and “The Forgotten War” in Korea, where thousands of American soldiers remain unaccounted for to this day. He also links the earnest, childlike wishes of Jake to find solace and create solutions to the pervasive sadness of a mother mourning her husband while doing her best to support and encourage their only child.
The novel begins and ends in a present-day framework in which we learn that Jake has incorporated his childhood adventures into an adult striving to expand the “forever Christmas” concept to a broader spectrum.
Plausible fantasy with a clear connection to our national past composed by a practiced wordsmith, My Christmas Attic can be appreciated as a classic seasonal saga with a cinematic quality that speaks of broader possibilities.
If you ask the district attorney of this affluent Louisiana community where a man has shot and killed another man, and the murder captured live on TV, there is no justification.
Jack Carney sees it differently. An affluent middle-aged civil attorney, he considers the killing to be the result of a man pushed beyond his limits by another who seemingly destroyed his marriage, kidnapped his son, and might have been planning a horrible fate for the boy he stole.
There are real-world consequences to Jack’s taking the case. The shooter, a childhood friend, has no money, so Jack volunteers to take the case free of charge. Jack’s law firm is dismayed, his wife is unhappy with his decision, but Jack’s conscience, his religious convictions, and his military honor will not let him ignore his troubled friend.
There is no question about whether Connor Padget committed the crime. The real suspense is whether Jack can still lessen the charge of murder to manslaughter when the DA is determined to show no mercy to the defendant; when Connor’s wife and Connor himself put obstruction after obstruction in front of Jack in his determination to have the law do right by his friend.
While the crime story is suspenseful, it is nearly matched by other nuances that lift this novella well beyond the usual legal procedural.
Rarely does a book about the law take you this close into the mindset of an attorney. Carney isn’t a criminal attorney but his ability to think “legal” demonstrates how a well-trained mind can work even in a foreign territory like criminal law. His familiarity becomes our familiarity. This is not a blockbuster case; no mob bosses will fall; no bombastic courtroom duels await. What is showcased here, however, is good lawyering, legal competence, and a writer’s commitment to sharing his love of the law with his readers.
Familiarity also extends to the book’s Louisiana setting. With small but well-crafted touches, you are introduced to the writer’s south, not so much of a bus tour as a first-person sharing of the places where the characters live. You know he knows and loves his south and brings you along for a first-person ride.
Two marriages—the client’s and the lawyer’s – are central to understanding the fates of both Connor and Jack. Neither is happy nor conventional. Jack’s marriage is particularly at odds: his wealthy wife plans to build a home in an affluent neighborhood and live there whether Jack joins her or not. Their sexuality flourishes, but will the marriage survive? As for Connor’s marriage, the fact that the murdered man played a part in the dissolution of his marriage is clear, but what part remains an open question. Unlike the portrayals of the law and the south in this novel, the path ahead for both marriages remains mysterious throughout.
This reader can only hope the author rescues Jack Carney from the obscurity he seems determined to want and bring him back for another round or two of tussling with the law and his conscience.
When 17-year-old high school student, Stevie Wales, suddenly blossoms, she and her best friend, the ever-popular Winter, have some adjusting to do. Sometimes, however, adjusting to new information between friends isn’t possible.
In their case, Stevie winds up alienated from Winter and the group in her Puget Sound Island community. She decides to become what she believes they all see – the weird girl. As her oddity status rises, so does her anger. When she takes a job at an equine therapy ranch, tending the horses used in the program, she discovers her unusual ability to take away pain in both animals and humans.
As she begins to feel needed, she lets go of some of that anger, but then, an accident with one of the horses leaves Stevie seriously injured. Her life becomes a twisted version of an already blurry existence as she struggles to find “normal” again.
Stevie embarks on a journey to find her father, a man the world believes dead. She convinces her mother and therapist that she needs to go to Australia, the place where the wreckage of her father’s boat washed ashore. Her search takes her to a strange continent, and though this exploration becomes much, much more, she may find a truth she isn’t ready to accept.
Despite being set in a not-so-distant future, Stevie’s teenage world isn’t so different from now. Mean girls are still mean girls, and the smart, shy students often feel like they don’t belong. So many teenagers, both male and female, may find Stevie’s (partially self-imposed) alienation relatable. Her artistic talents and her empathy for others are endearing traits that help bring Stevie to a culminating awareness. Both of these carry Stevie full-circle to find her version of normal, her definition – not the world’s. Seeing Stevie evolve into a confident young woman through her efforts is nothing short of inspirational.
While Stevie can take away the pain of others, she struggles to keep her gift and the consequences of using it a secret. However, it is only when she stops trying to keep it under wraps, is she able to heal herself as well as those around her.
One of the most engaging parts of the novel is Stevie’s time in Australia. This exotic, culturally diverse continent becomes a character unto itself, drawing Stevie into the adventure of a lifetime while giving her the closure she desperately needs. Pulled into the mysterious murder of a boy she meets, Stevie encounters others who inspire and help her find her father. She learns true contentment by assisting the family of the dead boy all while searching for her own history. Ironically, amid death, she finds life as she navigates a land as wild as her emotions.
Beautiful and imaginative, Flowerantha is a magical tale of two young girls who fall through a portal into an unknown world. With the help of restless boy Mash and aspiring soldier Bushraal, Beverly and May Lynn must travel among rising tensions to make it home safe.
No visitors have traveled to Flowerantha since its last visitor turned corrupt and started a war ten years prior. Mash is a young tree dwelling boy who desires nothing more than to go to the strange land that the visitors come from. When Mash finds out there are visitors, he volunteers to help them get home with the intention of following them through the portal.
Getting Beverly and May Lynn home is not as simple as initially believed. Magic is weakening, and Bushraal, ready to prove his worth as a future soldier, sees Mash as a burdened addition to his quest. All must put their particular prejudices aside to keep Flowerantha off the brink of another war and to keep two innocent girls protected on their journey home.
Bek Castro is a skillful writer who excels at building a world that feels alive. Flowerantha is a world saturated with magic and is in everything from the flowers that cover the sprawling landscapes to the wishing abilities of its people. The success and beauty of this short novel come from its central theme that no matter if a family is small, big, or adopted, they are all still family. Loss of loved ones is also prevalent and is not simplified for the sake of young audiences.
Settle in a comfy car during a rainy spring day and learn all about the world of Flowerantha as the rain feeds the flowers outside.
Floweranta won First Place in the 2017 CIBAs for Early Readers, the Gertrude Warner Awards.
Seventeen-year-old mathematical genius Willoughby has the weight of the world on his shoulders ─ literally. As part of a secret time travel organization known as Observations, Inc., Willoughby and his team, usually silent observers in their travels, are tasked with keeping the balance between control and chaos.
Yet after the murder of their friend and mentor H.S. a year ago, Willoughby and his team have sought answers to questions they don’t even know how to ask. Everyone on the team has suffered, and Willoughby can’t help but feel he could have done more to help H.S. and more to keep his team, namely his girlfriend and musical prodigy Sydney, safe.
Willoughby can “see” time code and take advantage of time junctions, he has a natural connection with time and can sometimes even track people throughout the time grid, a skill his nemesis, a man-like creature known as Beelzebub, takes credit for. Unfortunately for the Observations, Inc. crew, Beelzebub can also manipulate time but in a much more advanced way.
Hellbent on finding the Prime Hole Facility, a time hub created by Earth’s historians the otherworldly Atlanteans, Beelzebub wants to recreate history, restructure mankind’s past, and plunge the planet into chaos. He and his Dark Edge Brotherhood will stop at nothing, having already killed Willoughby’s boss and mentor since Willoughby is the key to unlocking a gateway of power, unleashing unlimited control over man. Before he can harness his full potential, he and his team will have to solve millennia old clues while searching for a lost ancient princess and steering clear of the Dark Edge, but very soon, both Willoughby and Sydney will learn the real cost of his power.
A prevailing idea within the novel is self-discovery. The characters often delve deep within themselves to find that hidden spark, that “push a little harder” mentality to solve the issues thrown at them by forces that want nothing more than to drown creativity, thus ridding the world of enlightenment and plunging it back into darkness. The characters have to stop fear’s subjugation and free themselves enough to look inside for the answers that are quietly waiting for daylight. Through that self-discovery comes growth but only when the characters stop looking to the world to define themselves (a lesson most people need). Only by genuinely finding the power within can Willoughby save humanity, but he can’t do that alone.
The bond between the characters is not only the key to survival in this high-stakes time game but is also a strength of the novel. Since Dark Edge Rising is the third in the Cryptic Spaces series, the Observations, Inc. team is firmly established; however, this pre-established bond will not keep the reader from enjoying the character interactions. Each team member has their own unique ability or place on the team in this something-for-everyone narrative. Despite their individualism, the characters’ friendship dominates. Repeatedly, the theme of unity saves the day and keeps the plot rolling steadily along. Each member brings something new to the story, and the alternating point of view keeps the story fresh and the reader engaged.
Cryptic Spaces, Book Three: Dark Edge Rising won First Place in the 2017 CIBAs in the Dante Rossetti Awards for Young Adult novels.
Bryce Bumps His Head: A Sierra the Search Dog Novel is a heartwarming chapter book perfect for the young reader who loves animals. Despite being the fourth book in the Sierra the Search Dog series so far, readers will not have any trouble jumping right in with this story of a dog’s not so typical day on the job.
Sierra and her handler, fifteen-year-old Bryce, are having a practice session when Rusty the Great Dane, and Sierra’s best friend, escapes his house and is set on playing with Sierra, but Sierra takes her job seriously and only plays with her friend once she finishes her job. The next day, a Girl Scout Troop is hiking on a rather cold and rainy day. Mrs. James almost cancels the hike but decides it would be a great opportunity to teach her girls how to stay safe in inclement weather. At the same time, Bryce is giving a rundown of the basics of Search and Rescue to David and his dog Harper.
After giving a successful survival lesson to her troops, Mrs. James is negligent in keeping track of the Girl Scouts on the hike back and notices two Scouts are missing and cannot be found anywhere. Bryce and Sierra are called in to help in the search, and Sierra catches onto the scent right away after diverging off the beaten path. The rescue mission then takes a dangerous turn and Sierra finds herself in a situation where she doesn’t only have to save a missing girl in the woods, but her own handler and companion. She must rely on her training from Bryce to save the day.
Robert D. Calkins delivers a charming story for middle-grade readers. The writing style is relatively simple while still being engaging and exceptionally educational, teaching many lessons on service animal etiquette, survival skills, following directions, and always trying your best in any situation. And while the author includes educational aspects to tell the story, readers will have to fill in details with their own imaginings of the characters’ surroundings, which is especially difficult if readers are not familiar with the Pacific Northwest. That being said, this shortcoming is rather minor as readers will be too busy caught up in the suspenseful tale of Sierra trying to save the day.
Set in the beautiful landscape of Green Mountain along the Suiatte River in Washington State, readers will be instantly enchanted by the courageous Sierra and her young handler Bryce, as she aids in the search for lost people in the wilderness.
Beautiful and imaginative, Flowerantha is a magical tale of two young girls who fall through a portal into an unknown world. With the help of restless boy Mash and aspiring soldier Bushraal, Beverly and May Lynn must travel among rising tensions to make it home safe.
