For two years, a mysterious and increasingly violent criminal terrorized the countryside near Shade Gap, Pennsylvania. One warm spring afternoon in 1966, he committed his penultimate outrage: he kidnapped a girl. Taken from her family at gunpoint, Peggy Ann Bradnick was dragged into the impenetrable forests of the Appalachian Mountains. Miraculously, the victim withstood not only the abduction, but the fame that followed it. Fifty years later, the survivor of that weeklong ordeal at the hands of a deranged kidnapper tells her own story, as it has never been told before: not only of the crime that changed her life, but the lifetime that has followed.

A rich mosaic of photographs, words, and songs, Voices from the Mountains tells the turbulent story of the Appalachian South in the twentieth century. Focusing on the abuses of the coal industry and the grassroots struggle against mine owners that began in the 1960s, Guy and Candie Carawan have gathered quotations from a variety of sources; words and music to more than fifty ballads and songs, laments and satires, hymns and protests; and more than one hundred and fifty photographs of longtime Appalachian residents, their homes, their countryside, the mines they work in, and the labor battles they have fought. The "voices" that speak out in these pages range from the mountain people themselves to such well-known artists as Jean Ritchie, Hazel Dickens, Harriet Simpson Arnow, and Wendell Berry. Together they tell of the damage wrought by strip mining and the empty promises of land reclamation; the search for work and a new life in the North; the welfare rights, labor, antipoverty, and black lung movements; early days in the mines; disasters and negligence in the coal industry; and protest and change in the coal fields. Dignity and despair, poverty and perseverance, tradition and change--Voices from the Mountains eloquently conveys the complex panorama of modern Appalachian life.

Using tape recordings, videos, and the ideas of Antonio Gramsci and Raymond Williams, this work examines the uses of radio for development, the impact on oral culture, and the use of radio by indigenous people in Ecuador and miners in Bolivia. Few anthropologists have studied radio, and The Voice of the Mountains is a unique and important text due to its approach to the field of "radio."

Caldecott Honor Book! "An evocative remembrance of the simple pleasures in country living; splashing in the swimming hole, taking baths in the kitchen, sharing family times, each is eloquently portrayed here in both the misty-hued scenes and in the poetic text." -Association for Childhood Education International

In spite of the tragedy that first befalls Daniel, the subject of the story, The Voice of the Mountain is a warming tale of human perseverance in the face of adversity. It shows that people can still overcome obstacles in their way and meet their destiny. The book illustrates that many things in this life can be relative and our worldly knowledge subjective. Yet absolute truth is discernible and we have an innate ability to understand metaphysical veracity. The messages that Daniel is given are actually a result of genuine channeling and will truly amaze the reader with timeless knowledge and wisdom beyond question. The Voice of the Mountain is also a compelling and fast-paced story and right from the very first page you cannot put it down. The author has created a spellbinding story woven around these incredible messages that really will change the way you see the world.

Howes and others give scathing review of this work as unreliable. Drannan's wife may have actually written most of the book, based on her husband's stories. Drannan has himself as the rescuer of Olive Oatman, and a companion of Kit Carson.