Kizzy Ann Stamps is starting at a new school, the just-integrated public school, and she’s worried. She’s worried that the white students won’t like her, and she’s worried they’ll stare at the scar that runs from the tip of her right eye to the corner of her smile - the scar a neighbor boy gave her, in a farming accident. But now this same boy won’t stop following Kizzy and Shag, her beloved border collie, everywhere they go - even when they’re practicing for an upcoming herding competition. And though Kizzy and Shag have been training hard, Kizzy and her coach aren’t sure they’ll even let her, a black girl, enter the competition.

The Stantons and the Nortons were families in the truest, oldest sense: extended networks of kin stretching across the mountains, everyone within hiking distance. They’d come from the British Isles and settled in the Appalachians of North Carolina during the 1700s, bringing with them their dearly loved songs and their clannish ways, their ties to the land ultimately becoming as strong as their ties to one another.

When a 70-year-old woman finds a five-year-old girl abandoned on her doorstep, she is thrust into a sorrowful past that can only be conquered with the help of the girl who opened her memory - the very girl she is trying to save. This first novel, according to author Jacquelyn Mitchard, is one of "exquisite power, honesty, and conviction...quite nearly without flaws."

This heartwarming fictionalized autobiography tells the story of what it is like for a little girl to be growing up in an unfamiliar place. While other girls her age were enjoying childhood in America, Jean Fritz was in China in the midst of political unrest. During this time, foreigners were becoming more and more unpopular, and evacuation at a moment’s notice was imminent. Although Jean appreciated the beauty of China - the mountains, the countryside, the sea - she knew she belonged in America and longed to make her home there.

Eleven-year-old Delphine and her younger sisters Vonetta and Fern travel to Oakland to meet their mother, Cecil, who abandoned their family years earlier. But even when Cecil gets them to her house, she shows no interest and seems to view them as nothing but a nuisance.

In A Measure of Mercy by acclaimed author Lauraine Snelling, 18-year-old Astrid Bjorklund’s opportunity for formal medical study in Chicago doesn’t arrive until shortly after her heartthrob Joshua Landseer returns to Blessing, North Dakota. They agree to exchange letters while she’s in Chicago. And, for a time, love blossoms—until the letters from Joshua stop coming. Convinced he no longer loves her, Astrid makes an impetuous and heart-wrenching decision.

Fragrant blossoms herald spring, but the orchard is also a place of secrets and heartache. After the death of her husband Frank, Eliza is left with three young children and mounting debts. When a gentle stranger enters her orchard, she experiences a peculiar sensation of familiarity with the man. But will his unknown past jeopardize all that she has fought for?

A moving, exciting, and heartfelt American saga inspired by the author's own family memoirs, these words belong to Sarah Prine, a woman of spirit and fire who forges a full and remarkable existence in a harsh, unfamiliar frontier. Scrupulously recording her steps down the path Providence has set her upon - from child to determined young adult to loving mother.

Abilene Tucker feels abandoned. Her father has put her on a train, sending her off to live with an old friend for the summer while he works a railroad job. Armed only with a few possessions and her list of universals, Abilene jumps off the train in Manifest, Kansas, aiming to learn about the boy her father once was. Having heard stories about Manifest, Abilene is disappointed to find that it's just a dried-up, worn-out old town. But her disappointment quickly turns to excitement when she discovers a hidden cigar box full of mementos.

When Eben McAllister reads about the Seven Wonders of the World, he longs to escape the small farming community of Sassafras Springs and do some exploring of his own. No one else ever seems to want to leave Sassafras, however, not even his best pal, Jeb, and so, for now, Eben figures he's stuck on the farm with Pa and Aunt Pretty until he grows up. All that changes when Pa, tired of Eben's moping, challenges him to find the Seven Wonders in Sassafras Springs.

In the waning years of the 19th century, Bessie Daniels grows up in the small town of Hot Springs in western North Carolina. Secure in the love of her father, resistant to her mother's desire that she be a proper Southern belle, Bessie is determined to forge her own way in life. Or, as her Cherokee great-grandmother Elisi puts it, to be a whistling woman. Life, however, has a few surprises in store for Bessie....

Three audiobooks in one volume. This family saga follows three generations of 13-year-old girls and their families from 1941 to 1982 Appalachia.

Mattie Gokey has a word for everything. She collects words, stores them up as a way of fending off the hard truths of her life, the truths that she can't write down in stories.

Orphaned when her father dies in the Civil War, Molly Petree is taken in by Uncle Junius on his Agate Hill plantation. But the terminally ill Junius is manipulated into marriage by his housekeeper, Selena, who inherits Agate Hill upon his death. Neglected and abused under Selena's watch, Molly escapes to a better life with help from her father's closest battlefield companion. But as she grows into a refined, educated woman, Molly remains haunted by tragedy.

Author of many novels and short stories, best-selling writer Lee Smith has received numerous awards for her works, including two O. Henry Awards. Fair and Tender Ladies is an epistolary novel that traces the life of Ivy Rowe, born in the isolated Virginia mountain community of Sugar Fork.