Down Down the Mountain

Down Down the Mountain by Ellis Credle

This lovely illustrated book for children is my absolute favorite of all the books we have in stock here at the shop. It's a sweet story, set in the Blue Ridge Mountains and was heralded when it was first published in 1934 as "the first picturebook ever done of the Blue Ridge country." The simple tale  of Down Down the Mountain follows the fortunes of two mountain children who set to work, on the advice of their grandmother, to grow turnips so that they can each buy themselves their first pair of shoes. They then travel down the mountain to sell their product and have adventures along the way.

Ellis Credle, a native of North Carolina born in 1902, used the experiences of her childhood and stories from her time as a teacher in the Blue Ridge Mountains as well as traditional tales from North Carolina for plots for her books for children. Her first successful title, Down Down the Mountain, led to the publication of several other books with similar themes. She struggled with a few career setbacks and some of her earlier stories are criticized for their negative portrayal of African Americans but her later work is praised by some for its authentic portrayal of life in the rural South for African Americans in the 1930s.

The story is lovely in Down Down the Mountain, with an elegant moral and a fun plot twist at the end. But the artwork of this book lifts it out of the ordinary scope of books for children and makes it something special. The two-color pictures have an easy style that captures the setting and portrays the people of the mountain with dignity and respect. There is a lot of fun in the pictures and I think adults will be as enchanted as their children with this lovely work.

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