Al C. (vavoice) -
Helpful Score: 7
This is a very somber historical fiction depicting the bloody feud between the Hatfields and McCoys in the late 1860s, as seen through the eyes of young Fanny McCoy. The story is well written and will hold your interest throughout. However, you may want to have a much lighter novel close at hand, because you'll need it to lift your spirits once you have finished this one.
Debra - , reviewed The Coffin Quilt: The Feud Between the Hatfields and the McCoys on + 148 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
The story and the characters in this book is mostly true...the passions, hatred, jealousy, misunderstandings are mostly true but softened for the young reader...this is a good book and a good story of history, love and not being a teenager I enjoyed the reading......the characters, the settings and places....make you want to know more....deb
Susanna S. (quilt938) reviewed The Coffin Quilt: The Feud Between the Hatfields and the McCoys on + 125 more book reviews
I think this book was written for pre-teens/teens but I read this book in my mid-late 30's and found it fascinating. I've never been a big history buff so I don't know how much is factual and how much is just speculation/fiction but this book held my interest with all the drama. I really enjoyed the story and loaned the book to a co-worker who's even older than me and she enjoyed it as well.
I was hooked right away! This was an emotionally draining and eventful book, written in the viewpoint of a little girl caught up in the middle. The ending is haunting and left me hoping for a sequel. I know this is written for young adults, but as an older adult, I enjoyed this book thoroughly. Ann Rinaldi has a new fan!
C. L. (fullybooked) -
Fanny, the youngest of the McCoy clan, gives voice to the events of the famous Hatfield-McCoy feud. Set in 1800's Appalachia, this is a tale of trouble between two families which escalates into violence when the oldest McCoy daughter, Ro, falls in love and runs off with a Hatfield boy.
Throughout the story, Fanny is haunted by "Old Yeller" and Ro's work on the morbid coffin quilt which seems to create a shadow of future loss. The dramatic retelling of the fates of these two families will keep you absorbed to the bitter end.
Throughout the story, Fanny is haunted by "Old Yeller" and Ro's work on the morbid coffin quilt which seems to create a shadow of future loss. The dramatic retelling of the fates of these two families will keep you absorbed to the bitter end.
Lori U. (oneangel) reviewed The Coffin Quilt: The Feud Between the Hatfields and the McCoys on + 43 more book reviews
This book looks very interesting, but I have too many unread books, so I am posting in case someone else is interested in WV lit. :)
Feuds among the mountain folks of West Virginia and Kentucky, particularly the bloody skirmishes between the Hatfield and McCoy families, are often celebrated in American legend and folksongs. In The Coffin Quilt, Ann Rinaldi mines this rich vein of Americana for a fascinating tale that closely follows the real events of the Hatfield-McCoy feud, but which also has implications for our own violent times. Rinaldi--known for Cast Two Shadows, An Acquaintance with Darkness, and other historical fiction novels for teens--suggests in her author's note that "the Civil War conditioned men who fought in it to kill and to hate." Consequently, men came home from the war to their mountains with minds and rifles primed to react to the slightest trespass upon their exaggerated loyalty to kinfolk. The story is told by Fanny, the youngest of the fourteen McCoy children, who traces the beginnings of the famous feud to a confused Civil War shooting and a dispute over a herd of pigs. When her favorite older sister, the beautiful Roseanna, runs off with handsome Johnse Hatfield, it's like a bucket of gasoline thrown on the smoldering hatred between the two families. Warned by the apparition she calls Yeller Thing, Fanny is nonetheless a helpless witness to ambushes and killings, burials and retribution. Too late she realizes that Roseanna's obsession with sewing a traditional but gruesome coffin-decorated quilt is a sign of her evil attraction to deliberately stoking the fires of the feud--providing a psychological thriller ending for this dramatic tale of hillbilly love and revenge. (Ages 10 to 14)--But, it looks like it will read well for an adult; it would just be a shorter read.
Feuds among the mountain folks of West Virginia and Kentucky, particularly the bloody skirmishes between the Hatfield and McCoy families, are often celebrated in American legend and folksongs. In The Coffin Quilt, Ann Rinaldi mines this rich vein of Americana for a fascinating tale that closely follows the real events of the Hatfield-McCoy feud, but which also has implications for our own violent times. Rinaldi--known for Cast Two Shadows, An Acquaintance with Darkness, and other historical fiction novels for teens--suggests in her author's note that "the Civil War conditioned men who fought in it to kill and to hate." Consequently, men came home from the war to their mountains with minds and rifles primed to react to the slightest trespass upon their exaggerated loyalty to kinfolk. The story is told by Fanny, the youngest of the fourteen McCoy children, who traces the beginnings of the famous feud to a confused Civil War shooting and a dispute over a herd of pigs. When her favorite older sister, the beautiful Roseanna, runs off with handsome Johnse Hatfield, it's like a bucket of gasoline thrown on the smoldering hatred between the two families. Warned by the apparition she calls Yeller Thing, Fanny is nonetheless a helpless witness to ambushes and killings, burials and retribution. Too late she realizes that Roseanna's obsession with sewing a traditional but gruesome coffin-decorated quilt is a sign of her evil attraction to deliberately stoking the fires of the feud--providing a psychological thriller ending for this dramatic tale of hillbilly love and revenge. (Ages 10 to 14)--But, it looks like it will read well for an adult; it would just be a shorter read.
