Did you know each state had its own “National Day”? Us either, if truth be told. But while there are some dubious stories as to how these days got proclaimed for celebration, it presents a wonderful opportunity to highlight some sections of our collection. We missed National Pennsylvania Day (July 20th), but we caught this one in time – so here’s to The Palmetto State itself, South Carolina.
South Carolina / Ivey Page ; with photographs by the author – South Carolina is a destination steeped in fascinating history and natural beauty. With Page Ivey’s advice, you can experience everything the Palmetto State has to offer. (917.5704 PAG)
Raising the Hunley : the remarkable history and recovery of the lost Confederate submarine / Brian Hicks and Schuyler Kropf – Based on research by the scientists who unsealed the Hunley, an account of the Confederate submarine relates its disappearance on February 17, 1864, after a confrontation with a Union battleship, and its miraculous recovery from Charleston Harbor in 2000. (973.757 HIC)
My losing season / Pat Conroy – The author reflects on the place of sports in his life, describing his love of basketball, the role of the athlete for young men searching for their own identity, his education at the Citadel, and his journey to best-selling writer. (796.323 CONROY CON)
My vanishing country : a memoir / Bakari Sellers – The small town of Denmark was once a thriving hub of South Carolina’s idyllic Low Country. Today, this majority African-American town with a population of 3,500 is emblematic of the “Forgotten South.” For Sellers, Denmark is the land on which his forefathers toiled to build lives of meaning and substance, despite systemic racism and Jim Crow laws. He shines a light on life in today’s rural South, where Americans still struggle for the basics of modern life: internet access, groceries, medical care, and clean water. (328.73092 SEL)
The invention of wings / Sue Monk Kidd – The story follows Hetty “Handful” Grimke, a Charleston slave, and Sarah, the daughter of the wealthy Grimke family. The novel begins on Sarah’s eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership over Handful, who is to be her handmaid. “The Invention of Wings” follows the next thirty-five years of their lives. Inspired in part by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke (a feminist, suffragist and, importantly, an abolitionist), Kidd allows herself to go beyond the record to flesh out the inner lives of all the characters, both real and imagined. (FIC KIDD S)
The bone code / Kathy Reichs – On the way to hurricane-ravaged Isle of Palms, a barrier island off the South Carolina coast, Tempe receives a call from the Charleston coroner. The storm has tossed ashore a medical waste container. Inside are two decomposed bodies wrapped in plastic sheeting and bound with electrical wire. Tempe recognizes many of the details as identical to those of an unsolved case she handled in Quebec years earlier. With a growing sense of foreboding, she travels to Montreal to gather evidence. (FIC REICHS K)
Dreams of falling / Karen White – On the banks of the North Santee River stands a moss-draped oak that was once entrusted with the dreams of three young girls. Into the tree’s trunk, they placed their greatest hopes, written on ribbons, for safekeeping – including the most important one: Friends forever, come what may. But life can waylay the best of intentions… Nine years ago, a humiliated Larkin Lanier fled Georgetown, South Carolina, knowing she could never go back. But when she finds out that her mother has disappeared, she realizes she has no choice but to return to the place she both loves and dreads – and to the family and friends who never stopped wishing for her to come home. (FIC WHITE K)
Drums of autumn / Diana Gabaldon – Cast ashore in the American Colonies, Claire and Jamie Fraser are faced with a bleak choice: return to a Scotland fallen into famine and poverty or seize the risky chance of a new life in a New World, menaced by Claire’s certain knowledge of the coming revolution. (CD FIC GABALD D)
The underground railroad : a novel / Colson Whitehead – Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood–where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned–Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted. (FIC WHITEH C)
All that she carried : the journey of Ashley’s sack, a black family keepsake / Tiya Miles – In 1850s South Carolina, just before nine-year-old Ashley was sold, her mother Rose gave her a sack filled with just a few things as a token of her love. Decades later, Ashley’s granddaughter Ruth embroidered this history on the bag–including Rose’s message that ‘It be filled with my Love always.’ Historian Tiya Miles carefully follows faint archival traces back to Charleston to find Rose in the kitchen where she may have packed the sack for Ashley. From Rose’s last resourceful gift to her daughter, Miles then follows the paths their lives and the lives of so many like them took to write a unique, innovative history of the lived experience of slavery in the United States. (305.48896073 MIL)
A walk to remember / Nicholas Sparks – A romance featuring a troublesome teenager in South Carolina who is changed for the better by the love of a girl. She is the angelic daughter of a local minister and the boy joins her in doing good deeds. But she has a secret which will break his heart. (FIC SPARKS N)
One summer / David Baldacci – Jack, terminally ill and preparing to say goodbye to his family, has a miraculous recovery after his wife is killed in a car accident and struggles to reunite his family at her childhood home on the South Carolina oceanfront. (FIC BALDAC D)
Net numbers : a South Carolina number book / written by Carol Crane ; illustrated by Gary Palmer – Called the “great blue mountains of god” by the Cherokee, the Blue Ridge Mountains are only one of the wonders you will read about in Net Numbers: A South Carolina Number Book. Hours of entertainment await you as you learn about everything from Frogmore Stew and Clemson Blue Cheese, to Four Holes Swamp and Catawba Pottery. Whether spotted salamanders, 1000-year-old trees or sandy beaches, there is plenty in South Carolina to discover by the numbers. (J 975.7 CRA)
South Carolina : the Palmetto State / by Kristin Schuetz – As one of the original thirteen colonies and one of the most important states in the American Revolution, South Carolina is rich with history. It was even the battle of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor that ignited the Civil War in 1861. Students will learn all about the Palmetto State, including its geography, industries, and festivals. (J 917.57 SCH)
Hold the flag high / Catherine Clinton ; illustrated by Shane W. Evans – Describes the Civil War battle of Morris Island, South Carolina, during which Sargeant William H. Carney became the first African American to earn a Congressional Medal of Honor by preserving the flag. (J 973.734 CLI)
Robert Smalls : the boat thief / [Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.] ; illustrations by Patrick Faricy – Robert Smalls was a true American patriot. Despite the burdens America laid upon him, he loved our country. He believed in the “inherent justice” of American democracy and in the principles espoused in the Declaration of Independence. (JB SMALLS ROBERT KENNED)
Brown girl dreaming / Jacqueline Woodson – Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child’s soul as she searches for her place in the world.
(JB WOODSO JACQUE WOODSO)
The beach house / Hallmark Channel presents ; a Hallmark Hall of Fame production – Cara Rutledge thought she had left her Southern roots and troubled family far behind. But an unusual request from her mother, coming just as her own life is spinning out of control, has Cara heading back to the scenic Low country of her childhood summers. Before long, the rhythms of the island open her heart in wonderful ways as she repairs the family beach house, becomes a bona fide ‘turtle lady’ and renews old acquaintances long thought lost. (DVD HALLMA BEACH)
Doc Hollywood / Warner Bros. presents a film by Michael Caton-Jones – Ben Stone is a brash, newly-minted MD whose cruise toward the medical fast lane of a Beverly Hills plastic surgery practice takes a small-town detour. He ends up in Grady, South Carolina, Squash Capital of the South and home of salt-of-the-earth folks who know it’s better to follow your heart than your wallet. (DVD DOC)
The patriot / Columbia Pictures presents a Mutual Film Company production – A hero of the French and Indian conflict, Benjamin Martin had renounced fighting forever to raise his family in peace. However, when British troops arrive at his South Carolina home and endanger his family, he takes up arms alongside his idealistic patriot son, Gabriel. (DVD PATRIO)
Radio / Revolution Studios presents a Tollin/Robbins production – The story of the relationship between a prominent high school football coach in a small South Carolina town and the illiterate, mentally-challenged man nicknamed Radio whom he mentors. Although their friendship raises some eyebrows at first, Radio’s growth under the coach’s guidance ultimately inspires the local townsfolk. (DVD RADIO)