The Foxfire 45th Anniversary Book

June 13, 2011
Written by students who collect oral histories from Appalachian locals, Foxfire magazine preserves the traditions of the mountain folk culture. The current collection continues to survey the simple life with recollections that go "back to the times of one-room schools, first automobiles, and just plain hard living." "Daddy Was a Farmer" offers an account of the Farm Families school program, when sharecroppers were given a farm to work and required to attend adult education classes. The crafts chapter covers such topics as braiding a bullwhip and chair-bottoming with poplar bark. Outstanding are 130 pages on the bluegrass musicians who took that "high-lonesome sound" from family reunions and county fairs all the way to the Grand Ole Opry. (These profiles can be amplified by ordering an accompanying CD from foxfire.org.) The book's introduction is annoying because it has no facts on how the Foxfire program began in the 1960s, but readers can find much of value in this superb survey of the arts, crafts, language, and lifestyles of another time. Photos.

July 15, 2011

A combined scrapbook, best-of anthology and nostalgic look backward celebrating the homespun birth of the Foxfire empire.

Empire isn't far from the mark, for in the 1970s, the Foxfire series of books edited by the since-disgraced Appalachian teacher Eliot Wigginton and his students became bibles for back-to-the-landers, especially in the South, and sold by the armload. Wigginton began the project as a practical way to get his students interested in writing, and so he put them to work going beyond the confines of the exclusive school and into the mountains of northeastern Georgia, gathering stories from and about the lives of local people. As the current crop of editors note at several points, that was precisely the time of Deliverance, which was emphatically not good press for the area, though it had its uses—as banjoist Wallace Crowe recalls, "Although it was bad on one hand, it was good for bluegrass music because now if someone hears the banjo, that's what they are reminded of." Foxfire and its successor volumes did much to redeem Southern Appalachia from dark images of toothlessness and fallen logs. As with those volumes, this anniversary commemorative offers both theory and practice, the latter ranging from how to live on practically nothing to the fine arts of tying knots, building sleds, caning a chair and raising azaleas from seed. Highlights abound, including an interview with an agriculture inspector who warns of faux-organic stuff on the market, a profile of a local who recalls, "You either moonshined or you sold corn to moonshiners," and a slew of truly scary ghost stories that would do M.R. James proud.

Every school needs a Foxfire project of its own. Here's a blueprint and instruction manual, as well as ideal bedside reading for those seeking the simple life.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

September 1, 2011
Foxfire's 45th anniversary book focuses on its preservation of Appalachia's stories and customs and its celebrations of a simpler life by spotlighting the region's music and folk legends. For many, music was the dominant force in tent revivals and other gatherings; later, on radio; and then on black-and-white TVs via the one station serving the region. This latest in a series of invaluable and enjoyable Foxfire books is rich in old photographs and recollections of everything from bank robberies to the Grand Ole Opry as well as of growing up on a Depression-era farm, making moonshine whiskey and all kinds of music, mountain magic, haunted cemeteries, encounters with the devil, and hard times (If people had to live now like I was raised up, they'd shoot themselves). Sections also cover farming and hand-crafting tools and furniture. With hand-drawn maps and diagrammed instructions, a resource of endless usefulness and inspiration.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)

July 15, 2011

A combined scrapbook, best-of anthology and nostalgic look backward celebrating the homespun birth of the Foxfire empire.

Empire isn't far from the mark, for in the 1970s, the Foxfire series of books edited by the since-disgraced Appalachian teacher Eliot Wigginton and his students became bibles for back-to-the-landers, especially in the South, and sold by the armload. Wigginton began the project as a practical way to get his students interested in writing, and so he put them to work going beyond the confines of the exclusive school and into the mountains of northeastern Georgia, gathering stories from and about the lives of local people. As the current crop of editors note at several points, that was precisely the time of Deliverance, which was emphatically not good press for the area, though it had its uses--as banjoist Wallace Crowe recalls, "Although it was bad on one hand, it was good for bluegrass music because now if someone hears the banjo, that's what they are reminded of." Foxfire and its successor volumes did much to redeem Southern Appalachia from dark images of toothlessness and fallen logs. As with those volumes, this anniversary commemorative offers both theory and practice, the latter ranging from how to live on practically nothing to the fine arts of tying knots, building sleds, caning a chair and raising azaleas from seed. Highlights abound, including an interview with an agriculture inspector who warns of faux-organic stuff on the market, a profile of a local who recalls, "You either moonshined or you sold corn to moonshiners," and a slew of truly scary ghost stories that would do M.R. James proud.

Every school needs a Foxfire project of its own. Here's a blueprint and instruction manual, as well as ideal bedside reading for those seeking the simple life.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)