Review by Jon C. Stott Writing a biography for young readers is a challenge. Much of the life chronicled covers the subject’s adult years, many aspects of which may be beyond readers’ comprehension. When the subject is from another culture, the challenges increase because the social and spiritual milieu in…
Review by Mack Hassler “It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each…
Review by Jon C. Stott In the early 1960s, Bob (“R.H.”) Miller, an instructor in the English Department of Michigan Tech, discovered the joys of fly fishing in the Upper Peninsula’s many trout streams. Now, his fishing days over, he has delved into what he calls a “creel full of…
Review by Jon C. Stott Sharon Brunner, a member of the Sault Ste Marie Tribe of Chippewa (Ojibwa) Indians, has been a social worker, professor, educational consultant, and author – and wise woman (and still is). A student of her people’s history and culture, she has participated in such traditional…
Review by Sharon Brunner Jon C. Stott embraces the advent of the seasons, the mysterious and magical allure of nature and many treasured memories in his book “Wild Blueberry Summer: More Upper Michigan Moments and Memories.” Some of the main characters in his book were woodland creatures, waterfowl, old friends…
Review by Jon C. Stott “Travelling over the Mackinac Bridge always gives me a feeling of stepping back in time, where the pace of life slows a bit and folks wave as they pass on the road, whether they know you or not.” This is how Bob Otwell, who, with…
Review by Jon C. Stott Although Melville in Moby-Dick “Sailed the seven seas,” Whitman in Leaves of Grass embraced the entire United States, and Jack Kerouac in On the Road crisscrossed and re-crisscrossed the continent, many important American writers have explored their themes by setting their characters in specific locations….
Review by Mack Hassler Yooper Ale Trails: Craft Breweries and Brewpubs of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, a handsome publication by Classen and Stott from the publisher that is the imprint for so much directed at the UPPAA is a book filled with information, wonderful photos, and even a few “bookish” puzzles…
Review by Jon C. Stott In 1948, retired Michigan lumber company owner William S. Crowe, surprised to discover how little members of the Manistique community knew about the later 19th and early 20th-century white pine logging era of the Upper Peninsula, began writing for local newspapers a series of essays…
Review by Jon C. Stott “Nothing is impossible to a determined woman.” This statement by Louisa May Alcott, which introduces Chapter 38 of Linda Bakken’s On the Backs of Women: A Story about Family and Generations, encapsulates both the themes and the characters of a novel that is subtitled A…
Review by Jon C. Stott. Near the end of Sharon Kennedy’s The SideRoad Kids: Tales from Chippewa County, one of the characters muses: “It’s hard being 12. It’s like we’re in between.” Kate, who is in sixth grade, realizes that when the school year ends, an important stage in their…
Review by Jon C. Stott Roadkill Justice: Featuring Yooper Woodswoman Nettie Bramble is set somewhere in the north-central section of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (I think, maybe, in Baraga County), there’s a place called Budworm. Residing there are such people as Sammy Snert, Miss Linda Figgy (aka Miss Figgy), Tag Elder,…
Review by Sharon Brunner Jon C. Stott provided a colorful and realistic view of spending time at a cabin during the course of his life in his book “Summers at the Lake: Upper Michigan Moments and Memories.” The Upper Peninsula of Michigan (U.P.) renders many opportunities to explore the historical…
