cover image The Little Big Book of America

The Little Big Book of America

. Welcome Books, $24.95 (352pp) ISBN 978-0-941807-71-5

U.S. history and culture come to light through literary excerpts, short stories, poems, essays, speeches, letters and more in The Little Big Book of America, ed. by Lena Tabori and Natasha Tabori Fried. Presented chronologically, the volume opens with an impassioned plea for peace from Pocahontas's father, Chief Wahunsonacock, to Captain John Smith (1609) and closes with Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's address to mourners gathered at Yankee Stadium on September 23, 2001. Significant songs (""America the Beautiful"" and Bob Dylan's ""Blowin' in the Wind""), founding documents (the Declaration of Independence and the Emancipation Proclamation) as well as light-hearted fare, such as uniquely American recipes (apple pie and New England clam chowder, anyone?) and lore (""Casey at the Bat"") cover the range of Americana. Facts, from a listing of the nation's presidents and when they served to an overview of important American women and their accomplishments, are interspersed throughout; a bound-in blue ribbon acts as placeholder. (Sept.)