Books published by publisher Jesse Stuart Foundation

Like a Kentucky version of Hemingway, Stuart never instructs or dictates. He lays back and lets the story do the talking. This story is an elegant bit of simplicity.A young boy reacts to the snakebite death of a local boy by attempting to kill every water moccasin he can find. And he does a pretty good job at it. Especially powerful is the way Stuart has the narrator boy reference his own memories of his parents each killing snakes in the past. Their actions inform and justify his actions. Of course then he is surprised when, having killed 53 snakes, his family and neighbors are far more interested in watching two copperhead snakes mate than look at his snake body count. The boy is still angry, and, notably, he does not demonstrate during the story’s conclusion what, if any, lesson he has learned from this incident.Stuart isn’t here to explain. He lets the ending rest with the same simplicity he used throughout the story. It’s up to the reader to make his or her own assessments, just as it’s presumably up to the narrator to glean his own lessons from the memory of this spring. And that’s quite a trick on Stuart’s part.

MAN WITH A BULL-TONGUE PLOW is a landmark in American literature. This memorable collection of sonnets created a sensation when it was first published in 1934. It immediately established Jesse Stuart as a major American writer, and it was the beginning of his distinguished literary career. It is a book with origins in the mountains of Kentucky where young Stuart worked a fifty-acre farm and somehow managed to find time to write down the poems that burned in his brain. Kentucky comes to life in every line of MAN WITH A BULL-TONGUE PLOW: sunlight on green fields, clean winds blowing through corn, the stars above the mountains, and other images of mountain life are lovingly recorded. Dozens of dramas and scores of characters crowd these pages. The nation s critics hailed MAN WITH A BULL-TONGUE PLOW as an outstanding American poetic work, and assigned its author to the company of Burns, Housman, Masefield, Masters, and Frost. The passage of time has not altered this verdict; for here, simple and effortless, in all its vigorous beauty and singing strength, is a truly extraordinary book. MAN WITH A BULL-TONGUE PLOW embodies the spirit and the essence of poetry. It cannot fail to win the unqualified admiration of all who read it.

For Shan, it began as an ordinary summer's day. He was doing what he liked best, walking barefoot down a wellworn cow path to a clover field where he knew a sweet apple tree grew. Then he met Old Ben, a big bull black snake, sunning himself in the clover, and that summer day and all the days that followed, until early fall, became extraordinary. "The only good snake is a dead snake." That's what Shan's father had always said. But Old Ben with his gentle, friendly ways changed that saying and brought a new understanding about snakes to every member of Shan's family. --This text refers to the hardcover edition of this title

Come to My Tomorrowland tells the story of a girl, whose polio requires her to use crutches, and an injured albino fawn that she finds in the forest. She nurses the young animal to health, and becomes convinced that her doctors can heal her as well. She is a girl who loves the outdoors, and dreams of a fantasy land where humans and animals talk with each other, living in harmony and peace.

Jesse Stuart tells the story of Andy Scott, who, although lives on a farm, has never had a pet. Then, the family cow gives birth to a muddy-colored calf. Andy’s dad tells him he can care for the calf, but eventually will have to sell the calf for veal to raise money for the family. Andy sets out to find a another wayto raise money in order to save his new pet.