Song of the South Books

Though Disney hasn't released the DVD yet, it has been released through affiliates who have links to disney.com. Search "Song of the South" on your web browser and you should come up with it. I think Disney is afraid to release it under their name, but are doing so undercover. I got one. The live scenes are a bit fuzzy, but not bad. The cartoon characters are clear and apparently were digitized. I doubt it will be on amazon for awhile as the sellers are few and want to maintain a higher price.

I am so glad I found this. Does anyone else think it's ironic that they changed the tar baby to a tar bunny?

What a treasure! Please release this wonderful film on DVD. It makes many important social comments & is very entertaining. This is one of Walt Disney's hidden treasures.

Please release Song of the South for all of us who remember seeing this movie as a child. I would love to share this movie with my child. It will always be one of my favorite movies. My mother, my sisters and myself going to see this movie is one childhood memory that I will always cherish. Please consider making this excellent movie available to us. Thank you!!

Song of the South is one of the most influential movies that I saw as a child. It shows us how to be happy in a lot of different situations. To have a positive attitude. The minority group should be very proud of this movie because the stories Uncle Remus told were positive reflections of life.
This day and age we need more old stories of being happy in tough times. Please release this movie. It is a part of history that should not be hidden.

Even if you don't live in the Southeast, this book will wow you with truly gorgeous photography. Highest recommendation from me!!

I saw the book over at a friend's house and started looking thru it...limited on time and cound not read much. The pictures are the first thing that caught my attention; so much nature and serenity. I couldn't help but come home and order the book thru amazon and have not been disappointed. It sits in my living room where I can pick it up and look thru it on a regular basis. The stories of their travels make you feel you are there with them. Would highly recommend this book to anyone who is into nature, the river or just down to earth living.

I ordered this book for research on a screenplay I'm writing about Atlanta. The detailed information was thorough, easy reading and quite useful. I wasn't really expecting the beautiful photographs, which also added a certain "atmosphere" to the screenplay as it developed. Makes a great coffee table book.

If you appreciate old fashioned values and true Americana, get this book. Truly unique and is capturing a part of our histroy that is being lost to development.

This book has won a Southern Books Competition Award of Merit in Book Design from the Southeastern Library Association. This award is given in recognition of the book's aesthetic appeal and design and for fine craftsmanship in its printing and binding. Congratulations to authors Joe Cook and Monica Cook, designer John Langston, printer Pacifica Communications, and the University of Alabama Press.

I bought this as a gift for a couple that loves poetry, but one is fluent in English and the other person in Spanish. Needleless to say, they loved it! It has a very complete collection of Julia de Burgos poetry and the translations are true to the meaning in Spanish.

This volume was ok. I did not like the fact that the editor/translator failed to include the original publication year of the poems and the name of the original book that the poems came from. Other than that, it is a very extensive collection of poems by Julia de Burgos.

"Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos" is a landmark volume for Puerto Rican studies. This book brings together all 203 known poems by de Burgos, who was born in Puerto Rico in 1914 and died in New York City in 1953. This is a bilingual edition, with the author's Spanish poems paired with the English translations by Jack Agueros. Agueros also compiled this volume, and wrote a fascinating introduction.

De Burgos writes about politics, nature, inner emotions, and the poet's vocation. She often advocates Puerto Rican independence, but her political ideas also encompass a vision that is pan-American, and even global. She pays tribute to a number of iconic figures from Latin American culture: Pedro Albizu Campos, Jose Marti, Simon Bolivar, and Jose de Diego.

Much of her work has a surreal, hypnotic quality. She often uses startling, Daliesque language that is rich in images from the natural world. Her love poetry ranges from the melancholy to the ecstatic. Her voice is often paradoxical, often mystical--at times she reminds me of Emily Dickinson. One of my favorite romantic lines comes from poem #63, "Inward Song": "Don't remember me! Feel me! / A nightingale has us in his throat."

In poem #71, "My Road Is Space," de Burgos writes, "I am the dancing imbalance of the stars." This is a good image to apply to her poetry: celestial, joyous, with its own inner logic. All who love Latin American literature or 20th century poetry should explore the bountiful "Song" of Julia de Burgos.

"...The translated poems stand tall as de Burgos herself." --Publishers Weekly

"Perhaps this is an omen, for as we stand on the eve of one hundred years of the United States' colonial relationship with the island of Puerto Rico, perhaps the publication of this book is a symbolic representation of Puerto Rican authenticity and a sign of how seriously it must be taken." --American Book Review

"Julia de Burgos (1914-1953) is considered Puerto Rico's greatest female poet... Seductive in their raw emotional honesty her poems define and make concrete the spongy category of love poetry...Here, poetry is the poet incarnate: defiant, proud, a 'nude of restlessness.'" --Harvard Review

Julia de Burgos is probably Latin America's greatest female poet. Although she never gained the mass media attention Gabriela Mistral gained after winning the Nobel Prize in Literature, de Burgos' work is eternally mesmerizing. Here is a woman who led an unhappy life searching for love, only to find heartbreak most of the times. A protege of Neruda's, de Burgos' political activisim in supporting various causes (including criticism of the Franco regime in Spain and Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic, in addition to her passionate support for independence for Puerto Rico) is clearly shown in her work. Her romaticism and her cultural reconnection can also be read in some of her poems. The one that realy captivated me was Poem #37, "I Love You," which will cause the reader to grasp their chest with the emotion she has poured in letting the love of her life know how much he moved her world.

Ms. De Burgos died a tragic death in New York, however after it was discovered she had been buried on Hart Island (New York City's version of a potter's field) a movement to give her a proper and glorious funeral took place and although she left the island as an unknown schoolteacher, she returned a national hero. Her glorious return to Puerto Rico was well deserving. I can tell you that reading this book brought me to tears. The great thing is that the entire book is a bilingual edition, which will allow both English & Spanish-language readers to discover one of the greatest poets of the 20th century.

A must have for readers of poerty, Latin American literature, and Spanish students. I also recommend it for those who love Neruda. Best book of poetry I ever read!

My son (and his daycare class) LOVE this book, especially with the CD. (It is kind of catchy.) Highly recommend.

This is a wonderful story- so many children i have shared it with have asked to hear it again and again. I have found this book to be a lovely way to metaphor more difficult times and choices in ones adult life. such as keeping your focus on the true light (Jesus/God) and not being distracted. I have recommended it to many. The CD is beautiful- altho the singer's voice is a little strange at the beginning you will find yourself thinking no one else could have done it justice at the end. enjoy and share it with many.

I'm just VERY impressed by the illustration. Incredible! Story line depicts faithfulness and freindship

This book was purchased for my class science library. My students instantly fell in love with it and it was one of the year's favorites. I have shared it with colleagues and gotten the same reaction. It's simply lovely!

I found this book at the Natural History Museum (Smithsonian) in Washington, D.C. I first noticed the hadsome boy on the cover and then decided to see what the story was about. It is an excellent story about a kid who cares about animals and nature. It is a cute story of the boy protecting a baby turtle from harm. He is a good protector of this turtle until it finds safety by "following the moon". I read this story to the children in my YMCA school program and they loved every moment. It definately kept their attention.

Hunt Augustus has created an excellent first book. It is riveting. You can feel the metal deck of the ship underneath your feet while going through the smoke and chaos of war. The relationships developed throughout the book are as intense as the battles fought for land in the South Pacific. Song of the Solomons is a must read book for those who want a gripping story of what WWll was like for friends, enemies, and the world.

First time author E. H. Augustus has created a thoroughly entertaining WWII adventure novel in "Song of the Solomons, Part 1, Faultlines in the Pacific". A truly incredible first effort, by book's end you cannot help but look forward to the next book!

I'm not normally a fan of war novels, so I wasn't expecting to like this book so much when a friend recommended it. Truthfully, I couldn't put the book down and read it in one long day. The author writes in an engaging way which draws the reader into the struggles, heroics and day-to-day lives of people who fought and loved during World War II in the South Pacific. Against the backdrop of battles both on land and sea, the author introduces unforgettable characters who you will want to follow long after the last page is turned. The blend of history, facts and the author's ability to develop imagery of the scenes in the mind of the reader completely sweeps the reader along in a fast paced series of story lines. I can't wait for the next book to find out what happens at the coastwatcher outpost on Santa Isabel Island.

I am an avid reader--I download books to my Ipod and am usually working on one or two other books which I carry with me everywhere. My tastes include fiction, historical novels, biographies, etc. I picked up Song of the Solomons on a lark, because I'm interested in WWII and particularly the South Pacific. There are multiple movies and books on what happened in Europe at that time, but there is not that much on the So. Pacific.
WAS I IN FOR A SURPRISE! I was irrevocably caught 30 minutes into the book and did not want to put it down. I'll do my friends a favor and recommend it to all. There's enough action, romance and intrigue to appeal to anyone with intelligence and imagination.
I'll look forward to Mr. Augustus' next book.

This first novel by author E. Hunt Augustus brings the reader intimate and immediate entrance into the action that was Guadacanal. This novel puts the reader on a coastwatcher's island, on board the heavy cruiser, Cheyenne, and at once at home base and in love.
The story is the same thousands of Americans lived and died. But, significantly, the story that is told is very much a Japaneese tale as well. Mr. Augustus examines the enemy's experience through the story of Colonel Sato. You will find yourself, like me, hoping the next novel will be out soon.

I totally enjoyed this book - Linda Scott DeRosier tells it like it is. She adds humor and that is one thing that makes life so much fun - humor -and I'm a Southern woman. :-)

There seems to be a lot of talk about Tom Brokaw's latest: A Long Way from Home: Growing Up in the American Heartland. What he has done for South Dakota and the generations that came before him, Linda Scott DeRosier has done for Appalachia and her people. This is a beautiful memoir: honest, intelligent, loving, and most of all human. I definitely recommend this book.

This book reminds me of my own family. I'm not from KY, but our lives our similar, but I never could have told the story as well as DeRosier. This is really a great book - she revisits her raising, as well as that of her parents, grandparents, and as far back as she could find genealogical information. It's been a long time since I read a book from cover to cover and enjoyed every chapter. She tells honest, charming, and heartbreaking stories with sensitivity, humor, and the kind of wisdom families used to pass on. Songs of Life and Grace is one I'll be reading again. This is a great author; highly recommend this book.

"Songs of Life and Grace" addresses, among other things, the primacy of the married state [for better and worse as they say]-not only its impact on every aspect of the couple's life but even their offspring. Strongly recommend this memoir for the following disciplines: women's studies, cultural/regional studies, family, and oral history. I recommend this as strongly as C. Bateson's autobiographical material. DeRosier writes well and the text is strong from beginning to end, enjoyable and thoughtful.

Quite simply, Songs of Life and Grace is proof that each person makes all the difference in his or her own life. But they don't do it alone. As a native Kentuckian I am proud of where I come from. It's rare though to find a book that addresses the good things about Appalachian families. But this book isn't just for Appalachian families. It's for anybody who loves to read a good memoir. She's telling stories about her family that take place over the past century or more. But it's more than that. She's talking about the coal mines, the changes in women's lives in the past few decades, the value of remembering with pride where you come from.

DeRosier could have lingered on what was missing, on weaknesses, but she didn't. She zoomed in on the strengths that were present; saw in them her family's gifts to her. She succeeds, in part, because she knows where to focus. She knows finding the good always beats finding the bad. She understands each of us builds a life on the shoulders of those who came before.

I read DeRosier's first book, Creeker [it was good too!] and am glad she has another one out. This book is nothing short of a glorious tribute to the power of family and place in our lives. If you enjoyed Creeker, you'll love this. If you haven't read Creeker... save yourself the extra shipping costs...buy both NOW!

The irony is that I had known the parents of Tom Sancton since 1972 (his mother, Seta, and I worked for the Tulane University Library from 1972 until 1979 when I became a social service worker); still, I knew nothing of what Tom Sancton writes in this book. Obviously, he learned both from his parents who taught him by example rather than just words, and from the Preservation Hall musicians. I hope he is proud of the fact that he, by his actions, contributed to the breakdown of racial barriers. He certainly has demonstrated that New Orleans can be a community where people can be together regardless of race, color or creed; and the book clearly reflects that.

As a fan of New Orleans and Dixieland jazz, I ordered this book as soon as it became available, and consumed it immediately. Tom Sancton met all my expectations, and also provided me with recent history of my favorite musicians, the Olympia Brass Band. He honestly described people and an era that will never be recaptured, with love, and affection, but without guilding the lily. These were real people, shown by Sancton with all their warts, and I miss them all greatly. On a visit to the Preservation Hall recently, I enjoyed the music provided by all white musicians and one black drummer, but was so aware of the loss of those originals. The drummer's father, one of the Fathers described by Sancton, is now gone, and we cried on each other's shoulders, over the loss of a music that can be preserved, but musicians who can never be duplicated. I am just so appreciative to Tom Sancton for producing this book, especially now that Katrina has erased so many of his memories.

Jealous
Boy, am I jealous of this guy! He lived a dream life as a teenager.
Every musician that reads this will envy this story. Well written and boy am I jealous!

Sancton has written an outstanding account of his coming of age in 60's New Orleans while learning trad jazz clarinet from George Lewis and other "old mens" at Preservation Hall in the French Quarter. Whether you love New Orleans and trad jazz, or not I think you'll enjoy Sancton's memoir. His story of being an Uptown white boy spending a lot of time with black musicians in the a world apart from where most of his comtemporaries were growing up is nothing if not unique. Sancton's day job after a Harvard degree turned out to be a correspondent for Time Magazine. So, he can definitely turn a good phrase. In addtion to documenting his interactions with the musicians, Sancton also writes about race, culture, and history in New Orleans. He also explores his relationship with members of his family, especially his writer father, who has an interesting story of his own, probably the subject of another book.Just a delightful read.

I thoroughly enjoyed Dr. Scruggs' book. It is written in such a manner that it draws the reader into the family circle while providing an amazing amount of detail into the history of the Legion and the personal recollections of Jud, the author's great grandfather.

I enjoyed reading Grandpa Scruggs' account of his experiences in Company K, Holcombe Legion of South Carolinians fighting for their state's freedom from the tyranny of the Union. The format of night time stories told by Grandpa Scruggs to his grandchildren kept a dramatic tension in the book that helped keep me reading. We learn about the courage and commitment of Judd and other soldiers to their cause. We learn of the hardships, boredom,and horror of life as a foot soldier. The ways captured soldiers were treated changed as the war progressed. Judd experienced both ways. Because of the personal focus of this book, we also learn how the war caught up extended families and effected them. We also get glimpses of life back at home while the men were at war. I highly recommend Eugene Scruggs' book.

Eugene Scruggs has made a valuable contribution to the history of the War Between the States with his account of the exploits of his great grandfather, Judson Puryear Scruggs, as an enlisted man in the Holcombe Legion, South Carolina Volunteers. To be sure, Scrugg's book is another in the "Johnny Reb and Billy Yank" tradition of oral history accounts from the point of view of the ordinary foot soldier. However, it is given context by a body of historical research, and a truly insightful introduction to some of this conflict's enduring themes. For many readers, the most interesting parts of the narrative will be those about life under horrible conditions in the POW camp at Elmira, NY, Judson's resourceful escape therefrom, and his traverse through enemy territory to Virginia.
In my opinion, however, as an avid student of the conflict rather than a professional historian, Scrugg's finest achievement was in his reconstruction of Judson's narrative within a quasi-fictional framework, in which he recreates not only the voice of his great-grandfather, but also that of the grandchildren who are auditors of the story. This teachnique not only creates a sense of immediacy in the flow of the narrative, but instills a kind of novelistic suspense which makes it enjoyable for the reader. This approach also permits Scruggs to render narrative as a truly "oral history," in that he has recreated the language of the period --- the regional dialect of 19th century Southerner. His handling of the artistic problem of the use of "eye dialect," moreover, is deftly handled: instead of generating pages of mangled orthography, Scruggs includes only occasional phonetic spellings, opting instead for the dialectal phrase, the idiom, and the speech rhythmns of his people. Professional historians may take issue with Scrugg's decision to treat his material in this way; other readers may enjoy it as thoroughly as I did.

Roger Cole
January 29, 2007

With the help of his older relatives, Gene Scruggs has gathered together the oral history left by his great grandfather, Sergeant Judson Scruggs, who served in South Carolina's Holcombe Legion during most of the Civil War.

Almost nothing has been written about this effective fighting unit which was organized early in the war by Peter F. Stevens, a former superintendent of The Citadel. 'Shanks' Evans, whose brigade included the infantry regiment of the Holcombe Legion, regarded it as his best fighting unit. During Lee's 1862 campaign, the accomplished Stevens often led Evans' entire brigade on the many occasions when Evans was posted to the divisional level.

In his stories, Judson recalls training camps around Charleston, the battles of Malvern Hill, Rappahannock Station, Second Manassas, Lee's First Maryland Campaign, Kinston (NC), and Jackson (MS). In the summer of 1864, the Holcombe Legion was detailed to guard the Petersburg & Weldon Railroad and (luckily) was not with Evans' Brigade at the Battle of the Crater. However, Judson was captured while guarding the Stoney Creek (VA) station and bridge and sent to the infamous Elmyra (NY) Prison. Perhaps Judson's most interesting stories recount his tunnelling out of prison in October 1864 and his experiences of running, hiding, and working his way home by late May of 1865.

Gene Scruggs includes glimpses of the daily lives of his Spartanburg District ancestors as he fashions the war stories as if his great-grandfather was telling them to his grandchildren in nightly installations. This is a "good read" for anyone interested in this troubled time in American history.

Southern in terms of south of Virginia, Kentucky, Arkansas and east of Texas. This book focuses on Civil War sites in the deep south.

If your thing is dragging the wife and kids to every CW site within fifty miles of your vacation jaunt, this book is for you. It is a handy guide with a glossary, information on the organization of armies and character close ups (though I think anyone who would pick up a book like this would know these items already).

The tour information is well organized by state with battle summaries (or "what-happened-here" descriptions), tour organization, points of interest, dining and accommodations and "what it looks like today" discussions.

For the serious CW traveler, a helpful guide.

This book, although long, not only gives involved discussion of different sites and good directions from a man who has obviously been to all of these sights, but also a detailed account of what was going on at that time in the war. While a bit preachy at times, This book is very interesting, and reads as well as most novels. This book is not only an interesting read, but a travel plan that looks like a great option for this summer.

He reads this book over and over again. Beautiful illustrations and lots of detailed information about the Brazilian rainforest.

This book is a wonderful introduction to the rain forest and poison dart frogs for children. The story takes you through the life of a strawberry poison dart frog (my daughter Jessie's favorite frog) from egg to adult. The story is excellent and the pictures are fantastic! I have been to La Selva twice so I can say that the story and pictures are realistic. A picture quiz at the end of the book will keep your eyes open for other rain forest wildlife living in the pictures of this wonderful book. I instruct environmental education programs and use this book often. Enjoy!