Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings grew up loving to write and hoping to become an author. Later she moved to Florida, where she lived out in the country at Cross Creek in an area called the Big Scrub. She met the people who lived there, the so-called Crackers. Their simple way of life fascinated her, so she wrote stories about them. One of her books, called The Yearling, was about a boy and a pet deer. This book won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Her dream of becoming a famous writer had come true. Ages 9-12 Next in series > > See all of the books in this series

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings worked hard to become a published author, and her efforts finally paid off when she moved to Cross Creek and met the Florida Crackers.

PRAISE FOR Wanda Duncan: "In Cracker Gothic, Wanda Duncan writes about the intersections between family and place with precision, wit, and loving detail. Capturing moments that are at times humorous and at other times heartbreaking, Duncan makes spending time in the Florida swamp an unexpected, lyrical pleasure." - Aimee Mepham, author of "Raving Ones"

A companion to Rawlings' Cross Creek--the author's account of her life in a small Florida hamlet--this collection of traditional Southern recipes is spiced with delightful anecdotes and lore. "One of the best and most concentrated and most authentic books on Southern cooking".--Craig Claiborne. Illustrations.

'Cross Creek' is an autobiographical account of the author's relationships with her neighbors and her beloved Florida hammocks. The book's author happens to be Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, who won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1939 for her work The Yearling. Her experiences living in Cross Creek serves as the inspiration for said work, and in this publication we get to see exactly the wondrous experiences that Rawlings had living there as a member of the community.

A Land Remembered has become Florida's favorite novel. Now this Student Edition in two volumes makes this rich, rugged story of the American pioneer spirit more accessible to young readers. Patrick Smith tells of three generations of the MacIveys, a Florida family battling the hardships of the frontier. The story opens in 1858, when Tobias and Emma MacIvey arrive in the Florida wilderness with their son, Zech, to start a new life, and ends in 1968 with Solomon MacIvey, who realizes that his wealth has not been worth the cost to the land. Between is a sweeping story rich in Florida history with a cast of memorable characters who battle wild animals, rustlers, Confederate deserters, mosquitoes, starvation, hurricanes, and freezes to carve a kingdom out of the Florida swamp. In this volume, meet young Zech MacIvey, who learns to ride like the wind through the Florida scrub on Ishmael, his marshtackie horse, his dogs, Nip and Tuck, at this side. His parents, Tobias and Emma, scratch a living from the land, gathering wild cows from the swamp and herding them across the state to market. Zech learns the ways of the land from the Seminoles, with whom his life becomes entwined as he grows into manhood. Next in series > > See all of the books in this series