Edith M. Hemingway

Book Title: ROAD TO TATER HILL 
Publication Date: September 8, 2009

Publisher: Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books

ISBN: 978-0-385-73677-0
Author’s Website: www.ediehemingway.com

Description of Book: 

The U.S. Air Force is always moving Annie Winters’ family around, but the one thing she knows she can count on is spending the summer at her grandparents’ mountain home, playing with her best friend, Bobby Miller, and picking blackberries on Tater Hill. This year Annie is extra excited—Mama is expecting a baby soon, and Annie’s wishing for a little sister. Just before Daddy leaves for his latest air force assignment in Germany, he gives Annie a journal for her happy summer memories. When he returns, they’ll read the journal together. 

But now Annie is grieving over the death of her newborn sister. How can she tell Daddy that ever since baby Mary Kate died, Mama has been slipping farther and farther away? Just writing those words in her journal makes Annie scared that Mama will never be her old self again. 

Unable to confide even in Bobby, Annie finds comfort in holding an oblong stone she calls her rock baby—the only thing that fills the hole inside her. Then she secretly befriends Miss Eliza McGee, a mysterious mountain woman living in an abandoned house that folks say belonged to a murderer. Miss Eliza helps Annie come to terms with her loss, while Annie tries to bring Miss Eliza back into the mountain community. When a crisis reveals their unlikely alliance, these new friends are suddenly at the center of an unexpected turn of events. 

Set in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina in 1963, Edith M. Hemingway’s graceful debut novel tells the story of a wise and resourceful girl who struggles through grief and finds solace in surprising places. 

About the Author: 

Edith M. Hemingway, like her character Annie Winters, grew up in Florida and spent part of every summer at her grandparents’ home in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. Blackberry picking on nearby Tater Hill was one of her favorite activities. When it was time for college, the North Carolina mountains drew her back. She earned her bachelor’s degree at Appalachian State University in Boone. More recently she completed her MFA in writing for children at Spalding University in Louisville, KY. Edie now lives in Maryland with her husband in their 1930s log cabin, Misty Hill Lodge, nestled against the rocks of Chigger Hill. When she’s not writing or teaching creative writing workshops, she enjoys kayaking with her family and learning to play the mountain dulcimer (or the hog fiddle, as Annie calls it). Road to Tater Hill is her first “solo” novel. You can read more about Edie and her two co-authored Civil War novels at www.ediehemingway.com.

Excerpt: 

    Who was that farther over in the woods? It looked like a girl, but who would be walking around in the woods alone? The flickering sunlight and shadows made it hard to focus. Maybe the person was a small woman, not a girl. She used a walking stick and wore a long dress and a floppy old-lady sunbonnet on her head. 

    Ignoring yet another of Grandma’s calls, I kept watching. The woman didn’t turn her head, but continued up the steep hill crouched a little lower, as if she didn’t want anyone to see her. 

    If I hadn’t been barefoot, I would have followed at a distance. Grandpa always said I’d make a good scientist or detective because I liked to investigate. I stared at the disappearing figure until the woman blended in with the trees and bushes and shifting shadows. I wondered if I had really seen anyone at all.

Grandma’s Blackberry Jam