THE SEVENTEENTH CHILD

by Dorothy Marie & Lucille Mabel Walthall Payne Rice ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 30, 1998

Collaborating with her daughter, Payne reminisces about growing up in a large family of Virginia sharecroppers during the Great Depression--or, as she calls them, ""Hoover Times."" She remembers what a child would remember: wrapping hair with saved pieces of string; tucking her dress into her panties to keep it clean before sliding down a hill; believing that babies came from tree stumps; suspecting that a neighbor who wore a wig was a witch because she could take her hair off; never questioning segregation in general, but resentful that white children rode a bus to school. Her theme is making the best of things in hard times; her anecdotal memories of childhood are happier on the whole than those in Leon Walter Tillage's intense memoir, Leon's Story (1997). Illustrated with a family tree and over a dozen black-and-white photographs.

Pub Date: Oct. 30, 1998

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 100

Publisher: Linnet/Shoe String

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1998

Categories: CHILDREN'S