M. C. Higgins, the Great

M.C. Higgins, the Great lives in the shadow of a spoil heap from a coal mine and the lives with the nightmare that the spoil heap will one day bury his home and his family under its oozing mass.  He lives with the beauty of the hills of Appalachia, so hauntingly evoked by Virginia Hamilton's words, and with a family who love and care for each other and who live, for the reader, through the author's skillful characterization.  And he lives with friends and strangers who move purposefully through the story contributing to M.C.'s growing awareness of how past and present help to mold the future bu never rob a person of the initiative to make decision about that future.  Each reader will find passages that make the book special and unforgettable.  It is a story as unique and strong as the forty-food pole on which M.C. sits to look out over his mountain.