The Mountains We Call Home

Cussy and her family are back.  This book picks up a bit after the beginning of the Book Women’s Daughter because it seems Cussy is new to the women’s prison and she is still sporting a broken arm.  We have heard what happened to Cussy’s daughter Honey during this time period, now it is time to hear Cussy’s story.  Cussy finds out the prison librarian has gone and she puts in for the job, Cussy shows she has no fear and she will deliver book to sections no one else did like the death row inmates.  But what the inmates want most is to hear Cussy read books to them and soon it is very apparent to the guards and there fore the warden is how the inmates are calmed.  The warden allows Cussy to start a program to teach the inmates to read (this has also become a requirement of parole) as lon as she does her regular book keeping in the dinning hall (food is much better when she is there).  The program is so good the warden of the men’s prison asks and is granted to have some of the men to come as well.  Word gets out and a Louisville Librarian asks the governor to allow Cussy to come to her library for a length a time to set up the program there.  This is were the story gets interesting, and Cussy finds her champion in her fight for release. 

This is such a wonderful book.  I can attest that the places the author mentions are very real as I now don’t live far from the women’s prison in Pewee Valley and pass the men’s penitentiary in Buckner on my way to work.  I have a friend that worked at the Western branch of the Louisville free public library (LFPL).  My kin still live on the Virginia side of the Appalachian and are right next to Letcher County.  Growing up I had heard stories of the Blues, but never knew of the awful laws imposed on them in the past, like the horrible mass sterilization of all the women that get into trouble. I love the characters and everything about this awesome book it is so real and heart breaking at the same time.  If you have read the other books in this series or maybe you just want to read a wonderful nostalgic book set in Kentucky that is unlike any you have read before, I think you will love this brief trip back in time to a historic place with fictional characters and the stories they have to tell.

PS we still have a picture of a packhorse librarian at my library.