Little Joe (Round Rock) - Hardcover

Michael E Glasscock III

3.33

97 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1608325660 ISBN 13: 9781608325665

Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Llc, 2013

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A boy who has lost everything learns that love and friendship can bloom in the most unlikely of places.

When Little Joe Stout survives the car accident that took his parents' lives, he is sent to live with his maternal grandparents in the small town of Round Rock, Tennessee. Orphaned and missing his Texas home, Little Joe is reluctant to adapt. But his grandparents, especially his grandmother, are up to the challenge of raising him despite their own struggles. Soon, childhood friendships are forged in the oddball duo of Sugar and Bobby, and--with the help of a new canine companion--Little Joe begins to see that his new home offers the comfort and love he thought was lost forever.

Set against the drama of World War II and the first sparks of the civil rights movement, Little Joe's new home is a microcosm of America in the 1940s. A frightening incident with a Chinese motorist traveling on the wrong side of town, the migration of troops across the countryside, and a frank discussion of Jim Crow laws are just a few of the local events mirroring the radio broadcasts that bring the news of the day into his grandmother s kitchen.

Little Joe begins a four-part series from Michael E. Glasscock III that explores the intricate social cloth of Round Rock, Tennessee.

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About the Author:

For the first eight years of his life Michael E. Glasscock III lived on his grandfather's cattle ranch, about five miles south of the small community of Utopia, Texas. Michael decided to study medicine, and he graduated from the University of Tennessee Medical School at age twenty-four. Nashville, Tennessee, was the site of Dr. Glasscock's otology/neurotology practice, where he was associated with Vanderbilt University as a clinical professor, and where he continues to be part of the faculty as an adjunct professor. Dr. Glasscock retired from full-time clinical practice in 1997 and moved back to Texas where he continues to work as a consultant for three major medical device companies. He now lives in Austin, Texas, and performs surgery at the Glasscock Hearing Implant Center in Houston.

From Booklist:

Nine-year-old Little Joe Stout is leaving his home in Corpus Christi, Texas, in the fall of 1942, on the way to his navy pilot father’s new duty station, when a car accident that barely injures him kills his parents. He’s sent to live with grandparents Frances and Persifor Washington on their farm in Round Rock, Tennessee, where Little Joe, grieving and feeling guilty about the accident, is unhappy about everything from the cold to his grandmother’s southern cooking to the idea of killing living creatures in order to eat them. But book-loving Frances and skilled handyman Persifor handle the situation with aplomb, with Frances the evenhanded disciplinarian reading aloud to Little Joe from classics at night and taciturn Persifor teaching the boy how to whittle, shoot, fish, and deal with the schoolyard bully. The first of a projected four books in the Round Rock series, this is as true to its times, with effects of the war increasingly felt at home and racism still rampant, as it is to the childhood adventures and misadventures portrayed in a down-to-earth storytelling style. --Michele Leber

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