The Gulf Coast: A Literary Field Guide (Stories from Where We Live)

Written especially for families (with children ages 9 and up), this collection of stories, poems, and essays explores what makes the Gulf Coast region distinct, both culturally and environmentally.

Four sections cover adventures (scalloping and hurricanes, for example); great places (swamps, bayous, lakes, and beaches); reapers and sowers (from cotton farmers to berry pickers); and wild lives (focusing on alligators, egrets, manatees, and other creatures). Featuring Choctaw legends and songs from the cotton fields, this book evokes the literature, history, geography, ecology, and society of one of America’s treasured regions.

Gr. 7-12. In the latest in a series of regional anthologies, St. Antoine has brought together a fine array of essays, poetry, short stories, and excerpts from novels, all having something to do with the Gulf Coast locale. Nineteenth-century naturalist John Muir writes of getting lost in a Florida swampland; Dorothy Shawhan pens a witty piece on mosquito lore in the Mississippi Delta; and you can taste the fried buffalo fish and hear the blues refrains when Kathy Starr writes of her grandmama's Mississippi cafe. Teachers of creative writing will find much to offer students here. Attractive ink drawings embellish the text, and an ample appendix offers more information on the Gulf region. Anne O'Malley
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