Sunfish

"This deeply researched, fascinating portrayal of the Ridges provides a muchneeded broadening of our perspective of perhaps the greatest and saddest epic of Indian-white history in the United States. It is indispensable to the scholar, but also enthralling and eye-opening to the general reader."—Alvin M. Josephy, Jr. "A classic in the field of Cherokee history."—William G. McLoughlin. The book begins in 1770 with the birth of Major Ridge, and ends with the reprisals against the Ridge family shortly after the removal of the Cherokee to Oklahoma. It gives great insight into the "Trail of Tears" and the role of the Ridge family in encouraging the Cherokee to emigrate to the West. A Children's Book Murray, Marguerite. A Peaceable Warrior. 176 pages. New York: Atheneum, 1986. Hardback in dust jacket. $11.95. A twelve-year-old boy spends the summer in the Blue Ridge and finds he has to deal with contemporary issues—about violence and the environment—as well as personal choices. An exciting and thought-provoking book. Sunfish It was childhood's blithest hour when I drew them with a silken string glittering, glinting from the shining shallow stream— small as the palm of my small child's hand— like sun-flakes, like stained-glass shards, like gold-grains, shimmering, shedding drops of rainbow— precious as golden ducats. With gold-leafed fingers I carried them home as innocent fee-payment. Mealed and fried— served up for lunch— the bone-filled morsels of my childhood we ate with tiny careful bites. —Barbara Mabry What the Squirrel Sees Within the arc of it the squirrel sits. We hear but do not see the soft rain of hickory. Billions of leaves brush, blossom and whisper. The fabric of trees grows a pattern in the grain. Our own skins twitch with hieroglyphs that fall through themselves like the mysteries of forests that the squirrel sees. —Joe Survant 78 ...