Mark Childress

When Daniel Musgrove's troubled family moves to Mississippi just before his junior year, he is appalled. On top of the usual teenage humiliations, he now has to learn to say "y'all" and "Co-Cola" or risk being ostracized as a Yankee. But Daniel's loneliness fades when he meets fellow outsider Tim Cousins. You only need one best friend, he figures, to make it through high school alive. Daniel and Tim become inseparable, sharing a fascination with ridicule,...

With his sharp observations of the American South, best-selling author Mark Childress draws favorable comparisons to Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird. Set in the volatile 1960s, this book takes flight in two separate directions when everyone goes a little crazy in rural Alabama. When Lucille can no longer bear her oppressive husband, she drops a little rat poison in his coffee. Decapitating him for good measure, she stuffs the wayward head...

The tale of Peejoe, an orphan boy who comes of age during a racially restless summer in the Alabama, and his aunt Lucille, who jumps at the chance to escape her life for a role on the "Beverly Hillbillies."