'Bracingly original' Kathryn Hughes, Guardian 'A mixture of travelogue, local history and reportage, Swamp Songs brims with evocative word sketches' Times Literary Supplement From Romney Marsh to the Danube Delta, from Cyprus to the bayous of Louisiana and on to the Bay of Bengal, Tom Blass crosses swamps, marshes and wetlands to meet the people who have made these in-between worlds their homes. Here are true stories and myths of smugglers and runaway slaves, of fishermen, shepherds and salt-gatherers – and of tiger gods, flamingos and floods. A dazzling exploration of the precarious lives led where land and water tussle, Swamp Songs is a vital reappraisal and vibrant celebration of people and environments closely intertwined.

A poet, now an English professor in Iowa, reminisces about her youth and family in Louisiana.

..".It is the music that makes the difference in the read-aloud version...The wonderful jazzy introductory music matches the loose, easy-going illustrations and sets the tone...Tom Chapin's friendly, relaxed voice invites us along...[his] alligator voices are excellent...This delightful audiobook takes its story beyond what reading alone can do." - AudioFile Magazine

A search for the sources and sounds of an often overlooked sister genre of Cajun and zydeco music

“This is not merely a stellar book. It is absolute ballad put to page.” —Southern Living Lewis Nordan’s fiction invents its own world--always populated by madly heroic misfits. In Music of the Swamp, he focuses his magic and imagination on a boy’s utterly helpless love for his utterly hopeless father--a man who attracts bad luck like a magnet. Nordan evokes ten-year-old Sugar Mecklin’s world with dazzling clarity: the smells, the tastes, and most surely the sounds of life in this peculiar, somewhat bizarre, Delta town. Sugar discovers that what his daddy says is true: “The Delta is filled up with death”; but he also finds an endless supply of hope. An ALA Notable Book Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Fiction Award

With the rhythm of the familiar poem "Over in the Meadow", this vibrant book introduces animals native to the Okefenokee Swamp, and highlights much of the flora and fauna that is recognizable in swamps and bayous elsewhere. Colorful, detailed illustrations and additional facts round out this appealing, rhyming exploration of a fascinating eco-system.

Catfish Kate and her all-girl band liven up the bayou with their rockin’ tunes, but the Skunktail Boys are demanding a little peace and quiet. The boys want to read. The girls want to play. And the swamp’s not big enough for the both of them! Or is it? A rhythmic read-aloud about the power of compromise from bestselling author Sarah Weeks. Catfish Kate is a pure swampy delight, full of sass appeal for crooners, rockers, and readers alike.