Book Store News

Ingold To Visit Fact & Fiction

By Allen Jones, 7-05-05

From our friend Barbara Theroux, we’ve learned that Montana author Jeanette Ingold will soon be visiting Barbara’s independent book store in Missoula, Fact & Fiction. A specialist in historical fiction aimed at the young adult market, Ingold’s books nevertheless have lessons for all ages.

Her book The Big Burn is about the largest wildfire of the century – the blow-up of 1910. A portrait of a time and a place, and an event that changed the way we fight wildfires, Ingold manages to put a human face on events that altered the landscape of Idaho and Montana, and transformed forever the lives of the people at the front lines.

Another title, Mountain Solo, features a young girl who divides her time between New York City and Missoula. Tess is a young musical genius who moves with her mother to New York, where she is enrolled in a special school for violin. In the summer she visits her father and stepmother where trips into the Rattlesnake wilderness give peace of mind and a historical research project. Failure has many meanings for a sixteen year old and important decisions are never easy to make.

Her newest release, Hitch, concerns a young boy from Texas who is brought to a camp in Eastern Montana. As a teenager growing up during the Depression, Moss Trawnley lies about his age and heads west to join Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps. While working to protect Montana's wildlife, he goes to school, makes lifelong friends, falls in love, and gains a future. The CCC camp in the book did not really exist, but the story gives good background about the depression, Montana agriculture and the Civilian Conservation Corps.

Meet Jeanette Ingold on August 23 at 7:00 pm at Fact & Fiction, 220 North Higgins. Hear first hand about her research on Civilian Conservation Corps, find out how she writes her books and ask questions of your own.

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