When the Whippoorwill Calls

My seven-year-old daughter and I read together almost every night. In the past two years, no book (besides the Old Testament) has been her selection more than When the Whippoorwill Calls. The Blue Ridge family it depicts finds out the federal government is buying up their mountain to make way for the Blue Ridge Parkway. In the process, the seven-year-old protagonist learns a lesson of hope from the example of her father, who struggles with, but in the end adapts to, their move to the flatlands. The beauty of the story, though, is in its language. Like the mountain people she writes about, Ms. Ransom has a gift for expressing complicated sentiment in simple and concrete ways. After a number of readings, it dawned on me that I was reading good poetry. I should mention that the lllustrations are lovely and the layout of the pages is attractive and interesting.