Over on the River

By: Louise A. Jackson & George Ancona 
Publisher: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1980
Age Level: 9-12
Language: English
ISBN: 0-688-41945-3

OUT OF PRINT

Today there is a deep blue lake where Papa and Mama and Lucy and Malinda lived. Their home was a little gray house that sat in a valley, with hills all around. Not many people know that deep down under the waters of the lake is the place where Lucy and Malinda’s baby brother was born, where Mama killed a rattlesnake as big around as a man’s wrist, and where Papa chopped weeds out of his cotton patch.

Author Jackson and photographer Ancona have collaborated to bring to life stories the author’s mother used to tell about her childhood: stories that always began, “When we lived over on the river…” The result is a rich portrait of life as it was in early twentieth-century rural America.