Grandpappy Ump

About the Book

"My, my." The fat lady clucked like a chicken. She looked at my foot and poked at it some while I hollered to thunderation. Then she wrote down my name; "Minerva Cagle", and my age, "eleven year old" and I saw she wrote beside it, "Possible fracture." I didn't like the sound of that. Then she said the doctor would see me directly.--And so begins the year Minerva sees her community fractured just like her foot by the formation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Written in an anecdotal style and based on the author's own family experiences "Minner's" voice rings true as she gives an account of her family's struggle to hold on to their heritage.

About the Author

Mary McCracken has worked as a librarian, a children's book specialist, and as a storyteller in Washington, D.C., Virginia, Kentucky, and Maryland. She has a particular interest in local dialects and works to keep the speech patterns true to the place of origin of the stories she tells.