River Runs Deep
Page 21
O’Connor Olson, Colleen. Mammoth Cave by Lantern Light: Visiting America’s Most Famous Cave in the 1800s. Dayton, OH: Cave Books, 2010.
O’Connor Olson is a ranger and historian at Mammoth Cave. This book is indispensable for learning more about the cave at the time of the novel’s setting, the hospital experiment, and the celebrated guides. It also recounts many of the cave’s famous visitors and anecdotes that could inspire entire novels of their own.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to many, many people for their support and interest in this book. To Angie Wright . . . just because. Jacqueline and Josh Hawkins, for your friendship and reading of the manuscript at just the right moment. Stephanie Guerra, thank you for reading this book countless times, and for always finding the right ways to challenge me. To the ladies of the Sunday writing group, thanks for hearing those early chapters and asking for more. Thanks to my mom for asking when I was going to write a Kentucky book, and for reading repeatedly without complaint when I did. To Ron Spoelstra for teaching me about carrier pigeons and sharing your story with me.
This book would not exist (or at least the historical portions would be far less rich!) without the help of the many talented National Park rangers and historians who were kind enough to respond to my e-mails and phone calls. Special thanks to Joe Williams and Gabe Esters for the tour and for letting me hang back and furiously scribble notes. Thanks to Joy Medley Lyons—both for her beautiful book and for answering my questions about Nick, Mat, and Stephen. Many, many thanks to Colleen O’Connor Olson for answering my e-mails, for the chance to talk and walk the cave with you, and for offering such helpful feedback on the innumerable details of the cave, the history, and this story.
And I’m so thankful to the many people who helped this story become a real live book. Thanks to Rick Britton for the painstakingly created map, to Grady McFerrin for the just-right cover, and to Michael McCartney for making this book (and all the others) so beautiful. A whole cave full of thanks to Beth Miller and Robin Rue—there’s no other team I’d rather be on this adventure with. And, of course, to Caitlyn Dlouhy, for being the best guide a writer could hope for.
Most of all, thanks to Evie and Arun for your patience when the writing was hard and your encouragement when it was working. Your stories are still my favorites to tell. And finally to Jimmy, for taking all those tours with me, for never minding when I asked you to read it again, and for always being the light that led me back home.
Jennifer Bradbury is the author of A Moment Comes, Wrapped, and her debut novel, Shift. Shift—which Kirkus Reviews gave a starred review, calling it “fresh, absorbing, compelling”—was picked as an ALA and a School Library Journal Best Book for Young Adults and is also on numerous state reading lists. A former English teacher and one-day Jeopardy! champ, she lives with her family in Burlington, Washington.
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A Moment Comes * Shift * Wrapped
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ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS * An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division * 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020 * www.SimonandSchuster.com * This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. * Text copyright © 2015 by Jennifer Bradbury * Jacket illustration copyright © 2015 by Grady McFerrin * Map on pages vi–vii by Rick Britton * All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. * ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc. * Atheneum logo is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc. * For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or business@simonandschuster.com. * The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com. * The text for this book is set in Dante MT. * Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data * Bradbury, Jennifer. * River runs deep / Jennifer Bradbury. — First edition. * pages cm * Summary: Twelve-year-old Elias is sent to Mammoth Cave in Kentucky to fight a case of consumption—and ends up fighting for the lives of a secret community of escaped slaves traveling along the Underground Railroad. * ISBN 978-1-4424-6824-5 (hardcover) * ISBN 978-1-4424-6826-9 (eBook) * 1. Mammoth Cave (Ky.)—Juvenile fiction. [1. Mammoth Cave (Ky.)—Fiction. 2. Tuberculosis—Fiction. 3. Slavery—Fiction. 4. Fugitive slaves—Fiction. 5. Underground Railroad—Fiction. 6. African Americans—Fiction.] I. Title. * PZ7.B71643Ri 2015 * [Fic]—dc23 * 2014049034