"Homespun Tales" is a collection of adventure stories by author Kate Douglas Wiggin. The setting is inspired by the countryside of York County, in the State of Maine. In the author's words, "Here, then, are the three simple homespun tales. I believe they are true to life as I see it. I only wish my readers might hear the ripple of the Maine river running through them; breathe the fragrance of New England forests, and though never for a moment getting, through my poor pen, the atmosphere of Maine's rugged cliffs and the tang of her salt sea air, they might at least believe for an instant that they had found a modest Mayflower in her pine woods."

Rose o' the River tells the story of Rose Wiley, the prettiest girl in her little Maine village, who is the center of a typical circle of small town admirers, dangling them all but laying most carefully the chosen suitor Stephen Waterman. They become engaged, but she has doubts about farm life, having dreams of tasting city glamour, so when a neighbor's city-dwelling nephew begins paying his attentions to her she is drawn away from Stephen. The Old Peabody Pew is a charming Christmas story of the Dorcas Society in a small Maine town. This is a society, formed from the women in the community, for the purpose of renovating their church building. Just before Christmas they are putting on the finishing touches; laying new carpet, washing the pews and mending the cushions. Susanna and Sue is the tale of Susanna Hathaway, who runs with her daughter from a bad marriage, to live in a 19th century Shaker village. Though her husband was not an abusive man, he was a shallow and thick and Susanna has had enough. She goes to live and work with Shakers and they encourage her to renounce the outside world and join their idyllic community. Shakers are portrayed as strict and eccentric religious community, their ideals are described and their virtues touted as Susanna struggles to decide her next move. Kate Douglas Wiggin (1856-1923) was an American educator and author of children's stories, most notably the classic children's novel Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. She started the first free kindergarten in San Francisco in 1878 (the Silver Street Free Kindergarten). Kate Wiggin devoted her adult life to the welfare of children in an era when children were commonly thought of as cheap labor.

Coretta Scott King 2021 Honoree A winner of the ILA 2021 Children’s and Young Adults’ Book Awards in the fiction category. NCSS 2021 Notable Social Studies Book Maine Lupine Award Winner A CBC Recommended Book • A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year A New York Public Library Best Picture Book of 2020 Kirkus Starred Review PW Starred Review School Library Journal Starred Review Told by a succession of exuberant young narrators, Magnificent Homespun Brown is a story -- a song, a poem, a celebration -- about feeling at home in one’s own beloved skin. With vivid illustrations by Kaylani Juanita, Samara Cole Doyon sings a carol for the plenitude that surrounds us and the self each of us is meant to inhabit.

About 40 miles east of Pittsburgh is the small town of Latrobe, Pennsylvania, the place Arnold Palmer called home. The world knew Palmer as The King. But the Palmer Latrobe knew was funnier, goofier, saltier, and less grandiose than the one justifiably loved around the globe. In Arnold Palmer: Homespun Stories of the King, journalist, Latrobe resident, and accidental Palmer insider Chris Rodell draws upon over 100 interviews with the golf great conducted over 20 years, providing an intimate, charming, and at times irreverent glimpse at the icon outside the spotlight.

They began their existence as everyday objects, but in the hands of award-winning historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, fourteen domestic items from preindustrial America–ranging from a linen tablecloth to an unfinished sock–relinquish their stories and offer profound insights into our history. In an age when even meals are rarely made from scratch, homespun easily acquires the glow of nostalgia. The objects Ulrich investigates unravel those simplified illusions, revealing important clues to the culture and people who made them. Ulrich uses an Indian basket to explore the uneasy coexistence of native and colonial Americans. A piece of silk embroidery reveals racial and class distinctions, and two old spinning wheels illuminate the connections between colonial cloth-making and war. Pulling these divergent threads together, Ulrich demonstrates how early Americans made, used, sold, and saved textiles in order to assert their identities, shape relationships, and create history.