Barking At a Fox-fur Coat

Winner of YALSA Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults

Highly acclaimed, award winning author Donald Davis wants us all to remember and share our family stories. Among other tall tales, he writes about how his uncle hung onto the multitudinous Democratic votes of the Ratherton clan while at the very same time keeping them from shooting Davis' squirrels in a lean year; how he got Phyleete, wife Jolly, their eleven sub-natural sons and one forgettably natural daughter to move their log house from the unlikely place they'd built it; and how he tried to solve the problem of the chatty Misses Lena and Lucy Leatherwood, who clogged up the eight-party telephone line so badly that Uncle Frank paid for his new phone four months before he ever got the chance to talk on it.

Davis offers seventeen vintage family stories, including “Rainy Weather,” “The Southern Bells,” and “Old Man Hawkins' Lucky Day.” These stories from North Carolina make use of historical context with references to sharecropping and emancipation. The adventurous tricksters in these stories emphasize the importance of kindness, fairness and respect.