Book Recommendations - Young Adult Novels by Mississippi Authors

As part of our Mississippi History display, we're sharing some awesome recommendations for young adult fiction and nonfiction! Swing by the Brandon Library for more.

YA Fiction

Revolution by Deborah Wiles

It's 1964, and Sunny's town is being invaded. Or at least that's what the adults of Greenwood, Mississippi are saying. All Sunny knows is that people from up north are coming to help people register to vote. They're calling it Freedom Summer. Meanwhile, Sunny's life--and family--is getting complicated. And things get even trickier when Sunny and her brother are caught sneaking into the local swimming pool, where they bump into a mystery boy whose life is going to become tangled up in theirs.

Find it in the CMRLS here!

Strands of Bronze and Gold by Jane Nickerson

When seventeen-year-old Sophia Petheram’s beloved father dies, she receives an unexpected invitation from the mysterious Monsieur Bernard de Cressac, her godfather. With no money and fewer options, Sophie accepts, leaving for the lavish Wyndriven Abbey in the heart of Mississippi.
Sophie has always longed for a comfortable life, and she finds herself both attracted to and shocked by the charm and easy manners of her overgenerous guardian. But as she begins to piece together the mystery of his past, Sophie knows she’s trapped in the passion and danger of de Cressac’s intoxicating world.

Find it in the CMRLS here!

Mosquitoland by David Arnold

After the sudden collapse of her family, Mim Malone is dragged from her home in northern Ohio to the “wastelands” of Mississippi, where she lives in a medicated milieu with her dad and new stepmom. Before the dust has a chance to settle, she learns her mother is sick back in Cleveland.  So she ditches her new life and hops aboard a northbound Greyhound bus to her real home and her real mother, meeting a quirky cast of fellow travelers along the way. But when her thousand-mile journey takes a few turns she could never see coming, Mim must confront her own demons, redefining her notions of love, loyalty, and what it means to be sane.

Find it in the CMRLS here!

YA Non-Fiction

The Freedom Summer Murders by Don Mitchell

In June of 1964, three idealistic young men (one black and two white) were lynched by the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi. They were trying to register African Americans to vote as part of the Freedom Summer effort to bring democracy to the South. Their disappearance and murder caused a national uproar and was one of the most significant incidents of the Civil Rights Movement, and contributed to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. THE FREEDOM SUMMER MURDERS will be the first book for young people to take a comprehensive look at the brutal murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, through to the conviction in 2005 of mastermind Edgar Ray Killen. 

Find in the CMRLS here!

A Wreath for Emmett Till by Marilyn Nelson

In 1955, people all over the United States knew that Emmett Louis Till was a fourteen-year-old African American boy lynched for supposedly whistling at a white woman in Mississippi. The brutality of his murder, the open-casket funeral, and the acquittal of the men tried for the crime drew wide media attention. Award-winning poet Marilyn Nelson reminds us of the boy whose fate helped spark the civil rights movement. This martyr’s wreath, woven from a little-known but sophisticated form of poetry, challenges us to speak out against modern-day injustices, to “speak what we see.”

Find it in the CMRLS here!

Events That Changed the Course of History: Mississippi Becoming a State 200 Years Later by Amanda Hutchins

Two hundred years ago, on Dec. 10, 1817, Mississippi became the 20th state to join the Union. Follow Mississippi on its long path to statehood, from the habitation of the Chickasaw, Choctaw and other tribes dating all the way back to 10,000 B.C., to its first European settlement in 1699, to eventually becoming a U.S. territory after the Revolutionary War.

However, Mississippi only enjoyed its status as a state for about 43 years before its citizens voted to secede from the Union in early 1861, just a few short months before the beginning of the Civil War. In this book, you will learn just why Mississippi seceded, how the state fared during the war, and how it dealt with reconstruction after the Confederacy was dissolved.

From the development of the Blues, to the Civil Rights Movement, to the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina, there have been a great number of changes, both good and bad, in Mississippi in the past century, and there are sure to be more to come. Take a closer look at the Magnolia State's history and learn how its past has shaped the culture and people of Mississippi today.

Find in in the CMRLS here!

All summaries acquired via Goodreads.

Mississippi Book Recs!

As part of our Mississippi History display, we're sharing some awesome recommendations for adult fiction and nonfiction! Swing by the Brandon Library for more.

ADULT FICTION:

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

When thirteen-year-old JoJo's father is released from prison, his mother Leonie packs her kids and a friend into her car and drives north to the heart of Mississippi and Parchman Farm, the State Penitentiary. At Parchman, there is another thirteen-year-old boy, the ghost of a dead inmate who carries all of the ugly history of the South with him. He too has something to teach Jojo about fathers and sons, legacies, violence, and love.

Find it in the CMRLS catalog here!


Paper Son by S.J. Rozan

When Lydia Chen's mother tells her a cousin Lydia didn’t know she had is in jail in Clarksdale, Mississippi—and that Lydia has to rush down south and get him out—Lydia finds herself rolling down Highway 61 with Bill Smith, her partner, behind the wheel. She soon finds that nothing in Mississippi is as she expected it to be. Including her cousin’s legal troubles—or possibly even his innocence.


Find it in the CMRLS catalog here!



Desperation Road by Michael Farris Smith

Russell Gaines has been in Parchman penitentiary for eleven years. His sentence now up, Russell believes his debt has been paid. But when he returns home, he realizes others don't feel the same. Meanwhile, a woman named Maben and her young daughter trudge along the side of the interstate, spending their last dollar on a room for the night. By morning,  a dead deputy lies in the middle of the road, and all signs point to Maben. When their paths cross as morning dawns, Russell must decide whose life he will save—his own or those of the woman and child.

Find it in the CMRLS catalog here! 

ADULT NONFICTION:

Goat Castle: A True Story of Murder, Race, and the Gothic South by Karen L. Cox

In 1932, the city of Natchez made national news when Richard Dana and Octavia Dockery--known in the press as the "Wild Man" and the "Goat Woman"--enlisted a black man named George Pearls to rob their reclusive neighbor, Jennie Merrill, at her estate. During the attempted robbery, Merrill was shot and killed.  Pearls was killed by an Arkansas policeman in an unrelated incident before he could face trial. 

However, the white community demanded "justice," and an innocent black woman named Emily Burns was ultimately sent to prison for the murder. Dana and Dockery not only avoided punishment but also lived to profit from the notoriety of the murder. Karen Cox highlights the larger ideas that made the tale so irresistible to the popular press and provides a unique lens through which to view the transformation of the plantation South into the fallen, Gothic South.

Find it in the CMRLS catalog here! 

Dispatches from Pluto: Lost and Found in the Mississippi Delta by Richard Grant

Richard Grant and his girlfriend of New York City buy an old plantation house in the Mississippi Delta on a remote, isolated strip of land, three miles beyond the tiny community of Pluto, where they learn to hunt, grow their own food, fend off alligators, and more. Grant brings an adept, empathetic eye to the fascinating people he meets, capturing the rich, extraordinary culture of the Delta, while tracking its utterly bizarre and criminal extremes. Reporting from all angles as only an outsider can, Grant also delves deeply into the Delta’s lingering racial tensions. Yet even as he observes major structural problems, he encounters many close, loving, and interdependent relationships between black and white families—and good reasons for hope.

Find it in the CMRLS catalog here!

The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist: A True Story of Injustice in the American South by Radley Balko and Tucker Carrington

Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks spent a combined thirty years in prison before finally being exonerated in 2008 for the assault and murder of two three-year-old girls in rural Mississippi while the real killer remained free. Balko and Carrington chronicle the careeres of medical examiner Dr. Steven Hayne, who performed the vast majority of Mississippi's autopsies, while his friend Dr. Michael West, a local dentist, pitched himself as a forensic jack-of-all-trades. Together they became the go-to experts for prosecutors and helped put countless Mississippians in prison. But then some of those convictions--like that of Brooks and Brewer--began to fall apart. Balko and Carrington raise sobering questions about our criminal justice system's ability to address its issues with racism and forensic failures.

Find it in the CMRLS catalog here!

Summaries collected and condensed from Goodreads.

Friday Reads: Mississippi Authors!

Hi, y'all! In honor of Brandon Library's massive Mississippi History display, we're sharing a list of some truly spectacular Mississippi authors! Be sure to check them out (ha!) from your local CMRLS branch and let us know your favorites!

Angela Thomas

Angie Thomas was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. A former teen rapper, she holds a BFA in creative writing from Belhaven University. Her award-winning, acclaimed debut novel, The Hate U Give, is a #1 New York Times bestseller and major motion picture. Her second novel, On the Come Up, is on sale now.

https://angiethomas.com/

Laurie Parker

Born in Bruce, Mississippi, Parker moved to Starkville before turning one and has lived there since. She wrote and illustrated her first book, Everywhere in Mississippi, which was released in 1996. In 2013 she switched from poetry to prose and released her first “big person book,” The Matchstick Cross. In 2014, Parker’s work was recognized by the Mississippi State Committee of the National Museum for Women in the Arts.

http://www2.netdoor.com/~lauriep/writer/about_files/Page400.htm 

Mary Abraham

Mary Abraham grew up in Greene County, Mississippi. She is a graduate of Leakesville High School and the University of Mississippi Medical Center School of Nursing. Her years in nursing were spent at UMMC in Jackson and Forrest General Hospital in Hattiesburg. She is married, has two children, and three grandchildren, and lives in Hattiesburg. Where the Creek Runs is her first novel. 

http://www.greenewoodspublishing.com/about.html

Jesmyn Ward

Jesmyn Ward's works have received of two National Book Awards for Fiction for Sing, Unburied, Sing and Salvage the Bones. She is also the author of the memoir Men We Reaped, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize and the Media for a Just Society Award. She is currently an associate professor of creative writing at Tulane University and lives in Mississippi. 

Ashton Lee

Ashton Lee was born in historic Natchez, Mississippi, into a large, extended Southern family which gave him much fodder for his fiction later in life. Ashton inherited a love of reading and writing early on and did all the things aspiring authors are supposed to do, including majoring in English when he attended The University of the South, also known as Sewanee. Ashton lives in Oxford, Mississippi.  He is author of the popular Cherry Cola Book Club series.

Darden North

Darden North's mystery and thriller novels have been awarded nationally, most notably an IPPY in Southern Fiction for Points of Origin. His fifth novel, The 5 Manners of Death, was nominated for the 2018 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award in Fiction. Darden has presented or served on author panels at writing conferences including the 29th Natchez Literary and Cinema Celebration. 

https://www.dardennorth.com/

John Grisham

Born on February 8, 1955 in Jonesboro, John Grisham graduated from law school at Ole Miss in 1981 and went on to practice law for nearly a decade in Southaven. One day at the DeSoto County courthouse, Grisham overheard a harrowing testimony and was inspired to start a novel, A Time to Kill, and finished it in 1987. Spending 47 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, Grisham’s second novel, The Firm, became the bestselling novel of 1991. There are currently over 300 million John Grisham books in print worldwide.

https://www.jgrisham.com/

Greg Iles

Greg Iles was born in Germany in 1960, spent his youth in Natchez, and graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1983. While attending Ole Miss, Greg lived in the cabin where William Faulkner and his brothers listened to countless stories told by “Mammy Callie,” their beloved nanny, who had been born a slave. Iles wrote his first novel in 1993, a thriller about Nazi war criminal Rudolf Hess, which became the first of twelve New York Times bestsellers. His novels have been made into films, translated into more than twenty languages, and published in more than thirty-five countries worldwide. 

https://www.gregiles.com/

Donna Tartt

Donna Tartt was born in Greenwood, Mississippi, and was raised in nearby Grenada. She enrolled in the University of Mississippi in 1981, where her writing caught the attention of Willie Morris. Following a recommendation from Morris, Barry Hannah, then an Ole Miss writer-in-residence, admitted the eighteen-year-old Tartt into his graduate course on the short story. She transferred to Bennington College where she graduated in 1986. Her novel The Goldfinch won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2014. That same year she was included in Time magazine’s list of the “100 Most Influential People.”

Jackie Warren Tatum

Jackie Warren Tatum’s Unspeakable Things is a tale of loss and devastating truth woven into a crime thriller. Since the book's release, the author has spoken to and/or participated in author events in three states. She has been a classroom teacher and a corporate trainer, conducted a rural law practice, and served as a Mississippi special assistant attorney general. Jackie is the mother of two sons and the grandmother of eight grandchildren and one grandson-in law. She is writing her second novel and chasing her rescue dog Dallas out of the front yard vegetable garden.

https://jackiewarrentatum.wordpress.com/

Willie Morris

Morris was born in 1934 in Jackson, Mississippi and moved to Yazoo City when he was six years old. After a short time in graduate school at Stanford, he moved to New York City where he landed a job as editor of Harper’s Magazine. Morris’s writings deal with his personal experiences in the the South. He is known for Good Old Boy, My Dog Skip, and more. Morris died in September of 1999 of a heart attack. 

Barry Hannah

Barry Hannah, author of numerous Southern novels and short stories, was born in Meridian and grew up in Clinton. Geronimo Rex, Hannah’s first novel, earned him the William Faulkner Prize for writing and a nomination for the National Book Award. Hannah has twice been nominated for the National Book Award and honored by the American Academy for Arts. In 1987, Hannah also received the Mississippi Governor’s Award and the Letters Award. He was director of the MFA program at the University of Mississippi, where he taught creative writing for 28 years. He died on March 1, 2010, of a heart attack.

Natasha Trethewey

Natasha Trethewey was born in Gulfport, Mississippi. Encouraged to read as a child, Trethewey has earned an MA in English and creative writing and an MFA in poetry. A former US poet laureate, Trethewey is the author of five collections of poetry as well as a book of creative non-fiction: Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast (2010). Trethewey’s first collection, Domestic Work, won the Cave Canem Prize for a first book by an African American poet, the 2001 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Book Prize, and the 2001 Lillian Smith Award for Poetry.

Ace Atkins

New York Times Bestselling author Ace Atkins has been nominated for every major award in crime fiction, including the Edgar three times. He has written nine books in the Colson series and continued Robert B. Parker’s iconic Spenser character after Parker’s death in 2010, adding seven best-selling novels in that series. A former newspaper reporter and SEC football player, Ace also writes essays and investigative pieces for several national magazines including Time, Outside and Garden & Gun. He lives in Oxford, Mississippi with his family, where he’s friend to many dogs and several bartenders.

https://aceatkins.com/