Molly didn't know what to say after all that, so she just didn't say anything, which was probably the best course. The old woman put the poem back in her pocket and in its place came up with a silver needle and a spool of gold thread, which she handed to Molly. ''Thank you,'' Molly said, but to tell the truth she was a little disappointed. She was hoping for something more useful. ''Is that all?'' she asked ''that and this,'' the old woman replied, and before anybody could stop her she began to recite another poem: Gold and silver, sun and sea / Love and courage set them free. And then she was gone. And so Molly went on her way, ever closer to the ogre's dark den. And she found it the only way she could, by falling in it herself.

An adventure story of a young man hiking the Appalachian Trail and the friendship that develops with a red-tail hawk.

A spirited group on a romantic adventure along the Appalachian mountains in 1884, travel on horseback from Abingdon, VA to the fashionable resort of Asheville, NC. Novelist Marian Coe and artist Paul Zipperlin have woven an imaginative odyssey based on the true account by Charles Dudley Warner of just such a trip published in the Atlantic Monthly of the time.

Landry notes that Tellin' It for the Truth is a collection of sixteen true stories, and as Ray Hicks' always said, "When you hear someone say, 'He's tellin' it for the truth, ' you know something good is coming " The book includes Bill's favorite longer stories, some of which have never been published. It even includes an epic poem about a love sick one-armed, one-legged Pirate, named Paddy O'Dea. According to Landry, "All great stories once told are told again."

While taking a graduate course in Appalachian literature at the University of Tennessee, Stacy Sivinski was surprised to discover that much of the folklore she had heard while growing up in Schuyler, Virginia, was rarely represented in popular published collections. In particular, they lacked the strong female heroines she had come to know, and most anthologies were full of Jack Tales—stories that focus on the adventures of the character from “Jack and the Beanstalk.” Feminist critics have long discussed the gender inequalities and stereotypes that fairy tales often promote. With Fairy Tales of Appalachia, Sivinski asks whether such conclusions are inevitable and invites a fresh analysis of these regional tales with a contemporary sense of wonder. These tales, carefully and thoughtfully transcribed by Sivinski, have been passed down through Appalachia’s oral histories over decades and even centuries. This wonderful selection was mainly drawn from the Archives of Appalachia at East Tennessee State University and special collections at Berea College. Drawing on the work of other regional archivists and folklorists, Sivinski grapples with issues of gender balance in Appalachian storytelling. The problem, Sivinski posits, does not rest with the fairy tale genre itself but in the canonization process, in which women’s contributions have been diminished as oral traditions become transcribed. Appalachian women have historically demonstrated resilience, wit, and adaptability, and it is time that more collections of regional folklore reorient themselves to make this fact more apparent. Stories are living, breathing narratives, meant not just to be read but to be read aloud. This timely selection of unique stories, along with beautiful, evocative illustrations, makes Fairy Tales of Appalachia an intriguing addition to the much-contested “fairy tale canon.”