I'm Ann Bocock and welcome to "Between the Covers."

Kim Michele Richardson is the bestselling multi-award winning author of five books, including "The Unforgettable", critically acclaimed work of historical fiction, "The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek."

It received best book nods from Forbes, and People magazines, Oprah, and the National Book Association, just to name a few.

For readers that want more of these fierce "Book Woman", well, guess what?

You're in luck.

There's a new book.

It happens to be both a sequel and a standalone and the title is "The Book Woman's Daughter."

Please welcome, Kim Michele Richardson.

Hi Ann, thank you for having me today.

Oh, I am so glad you're here.

And for a fan of the first book, let me say you have made a lot of readers happy with a new one.

And I think before we start talking about the new one if we could take a giant step back and let's look at history.

We've got, in the beginning, the 1930s, the Great Depression, Appalachia, and yes, as bad as it was everywhere, it was just a dire situation in Kentucky.

Can you paint the picture of that for us?

Yes.

It was just a horrific time for the world I guess, but more importantly, Kentucky, because these pack horse librarians had to suffer treacherous terrains, starvation pellagra, their own pandemics, and so many things, mistrust isolation and to give books to the people in those hills and doing it all during Kentucky's most violent era the Kentucky bloody coal mine wars.

Now I know a lot of us, we knew about the good, the new deal we learned what Franklin Roosevelt had done but the pack horse librarians were really this little known program and yes it got books to rural areas, but these, and for the most part, women were a lifeline weren't they?

Yes, it was mostly women driven.

And the interesting thing about that, Ann was in 1913 the Kentucky Federation of Women's Club went to a wealthy coal bearer and down there in Eastern Kentucky Appalachia.

And they asked them to find a pack horse librarian project.

And he said, sure, but unfortunately he passed a year later and so did the program.

So with that, it would take 20 years and the women would go to the new deal.

Roosevelt's WPA and say we want to restart this program again.

So what was interesting is they said, sure we need to put women to work.

And that was the sole effort.

But we're not gonna give you any mounts any books or any places to house your books but we'll pay you that $28.

They paid them $28.

Okay.

They actually on horseback would carry the books to these places.

It's just amazing to me, because this was treacherous.

Was it not?

Oh, yes.

As I said, the landscapes and were treacherous, there's no roads inaccessible roads and so forth and wooded areas.

And it was very dangerous they would have to ride, no sleep, rain and hundreds of miles a week.

There is also a second storyline in your books and it has to do with a rare genetic disorder that, and it's true.

And it turned the skin, a blue color.

Now this was new to me.

And yes, of course I Googled.

And I researched it and I was really impressed with how you put this in the story.

And the impact was pure racism.

Do you wanna talk about this?

Yes.

That's the blue skin people of Kentucky suffered from methemoglobinemia and that's due to a recessive gene, less oxygen in the blood.

It causes the skin to turn blue and there's congenital or acquired in.

They had congenital.

Acquired is where you have a heart disease or drug.

Certain drugs can cause the skin.

So yes, they came over in the 18 hundreds, a French orphan married a redheaded white Kentuckian.

And what is the chances across the ocean that they would both carry that recessive gene metH Carried the recessive gene.

But what happened was that, and this really did happen.

There were laws against intermarriage.

People were discriminated against.

That's something that I...

It was certainly not in my history books.

So, I wanna thank you for doing the research and put but this was difficult for these people.

Was it not?

Right?

And it's really simple.

And any time that you have different people that look different than you or us, there comes a lot of fear and ignorance, and that can bring toxicity into cultures and hatred as well.

The new book.

"The Book Woman's Daughter" picks up with the daughter.

Her name is Honey, and she literally has to survive because her parents have been taken away for they have done something illegal at that time.

They have been put away.

They're in prison.

She is a minor, she needs to survive.

The only thing that she knows how to do would be to take up her mother's, following her mother's footsteps and also become a pack horse librarian.

So there's a lot to unpack here.

The first thing I wanna ask is because she was a poor child.

What would have been her fate?

A poor child alone at this time?

Well, you could, they had the Kentucky House of the Reform where they sent children to labor, work the rock until they were 21, or she could have been in an orphanage.

Unfortunately, Honey didn't have any relatives to take her in.

So there were, few choices especially in poverty stricken, Eastern Kentucky.

So she would have been sent she could have been sent to what appears from your writing to have been like a child prison work camp?

Yes, absolutely.

But children, I guess at this time were a valuable commodity because they needed bodies to work.

Right.

Especially in rural areas, they were very important to the father.

In this book.

Honey is young.

She is not of legal age but yet if she got married, she would be fine.

Can you talk about that for a moment?

So marriage happened to be an alternative for or was that creative license on the author's part?

No, we still have child brides in a lot of areas.

Some children still getting married at 11, 12, 13, not just in Kentucky, but I started researching that Archaic laws and talked to a good friend of mine, the Honorable Judge Susan here in Kentucky.

And we both went down the rabbit hole on child marriages.

And it was very much true if you married, you were considered an adult, whether you were 12 or 13 or 18, and that could have, that could save you.

So the laws are really different back then.

I have to look at your research, you had to have done an amazing amount of historical research in this.

How did you start?

Well, my Kentucky history, it's my home and my place and I'm an old girl.

So I know a lot of my history.

I know these are my people and this is my home.

So once I just get started in something I just go full blast.

There was one thing there.

Honey is isolated because she's trying to survive.

And she needs to kind of be under the radar for a lot of her experience.

And I, as a reader, I loved when she had a new experience.

Because the book is not all doom and gloom.

There are some moments in there that are a little bit lighter.

And one of those had to be when she was trying to use a telephone for the first time.

And obviously she had not seen this.

She'd also not seen the phonograph, the record player, but you did research this, this would have been of the era.

Absolutely.

And Ann, we talked earlier about the telephone booth and behind me and I remember the teens all coming over and it has a rotary dial phone in there and they don't know how to use it.

So it was the same for Honey.

She's in a very isolated spot.

She's only seen things through books or magazines but she's never had the opportunity.

She's a young girl in the book.

She's not the only young woman that you write about in here.

But I have to say you, in both of your books there is this empathy that you have for young girls also when it comes to child abuse and domestic abuse as well.

And I know that prior to these books you wrote a memoir about your childhood.

You talked about horrible suffering.

The book was called "Unbreakable Child."

Was it difficult to draw upon your childhood for this?

Because I'm guessing that's where the gut feeling comes from and aren't there parallels?

Well, I have great empathy for people.

I've suffered homelessness, hunger, abuse and so many things.

So it's not hard to reach in and feel other people's sufferings.

It's very easy for me.

You make us feel it.

And I'm not going to belabor this because this is personal to you.

Have people, women told you, thank you for putting it out there?

Yes, of course.

Yes.

I've been very honored, and it's an honor when and especially young people that it touches.

So I've been blessed, but Ann I wanted to tell you, it wasn't until the 1990s that police could go to a house and they would see a woman or child bloody and bruised standing and broken bone.

They couldn't do anything about that because the Kentucky law and other states mandated that they had to witness the misdemeanor assault.

So it was until then that the law all started changing.

So they actually could only arrest the perpetrator if he did the assault in front of them on a child or a woman.

So unfortunately many women and children died as a result of that.

Thank you for sharing that as you said that was the 1990s.

It doesn't seem like the, should have been happening at that point.

I think that your books, these "The Book Woman" books I think they're love letters to librarians.

And that's how I feel.

And if you could tell us about the power of literacy and how it's used in this book.

Literacy empowered the women you're talking about.

Yes, these women were so brave and fierce.

And like I said doing things just the way we've been doing things and all librarians, during the pandemic and social unrest and so many things, they suffered all that but librarians are nothing short of community treasures.

They wear so many hats.

Peacemaker, a babysitter, resource finder, just it goes on and on they're the helpers.

Has this been personal?

Is there a librarian or an incidence that was of importance in your life?

Yes I remember one summer being in foster care before I was homeless and it was a very lonely experience and I made it to the local library and I just didn't even really understand how it worked.

But anyways, I found the book and I took it up to the counter and she said you look like you have more than one book in you.

And so she snapped open a big bag and took me over and started helping me get books.

I think I'm gonna use that.

You've got more than one book in you.

I like that.

It brings me to book banning.

And that's because in the book you quote, I think it's Honey is quoting what her mother told her.

And I think I have it right?

That says you grow readers, expand minds if you let them choose, but you go ban and read and you stunt the whole community.

What do you think?

And I think that's just simple and it's true.

It becomes dangerous because you're taking away knowledge and knowledge is power for all of us and the education you're stomping down on that.

What's very, very true.

It was true then, which, I mean, truly those women went out on a limb to deliver books that quote could have been banned or they shouldn't be reading.

Do you have concerns that this was 90 years ago that we're talking about that?

The, maybe we're looking at this again It's scary.

It's just terrifying that we are and that people do thing.

And it's just terrifying.

There is one thing, one other thing that we didn't talk about, not only did they bring books, they also brought scrap books.

And when we use the term scrap books, today I think people think of, it's got my vacation pictures and the kids draw drawings and whatever but this was a different scrapbook and they really did take these to people.

And it's how they got information about the world.

If you could explain what these books were.

Yes and we had some pictures too and what you can find on my website, and also in the books, but it, they were provided books.

They had to come up with their own way.

So they started putting these scrapbooks together and writing poems or cutting little comics out of the newspapers that would come in from around the country even writing little stories, recipes, tips and they would just pass them around.

Because they were so short on books.

She also would deliver magazines.

I think that maybe they were told they shouldn't read but I absolutely loved this scrapbook idea.

It was the news.

Maybe it was the news of six months ago, but it was new to them.

Rugged and it became empowerment for them.

Because again, Kentucky this part of Eastern Appalachia still suffers, from their own things.

Even when Johnson came in 65 I believe and declared his war on poverty.

Well that it was the poorest place.

That's why he started that here.

But not much has changed.

There's hard to get clean drinking water all kinds of things, opioid crisis.

So there's a lot of help still needed for that area.

I'm gonna switch gears totally just for a minute.

And that's because anytime anyone pays-it-forward, I just wanna thank them.

And you have this tiny home in the wilds of Kentucky that you built and you call it Shy Rabbit.

And what you do is this is for authors and talk about that if you would.

Yes.

I wanted to pay it forward.

When I start "Book Woman', by the way.

in "Book Woman" sold in 2017 and it took me five years to write that but never did I ever dream that it would kinda mirror today's charged and tumultuous world.

My whole point was if I dropped seeds of kindness and compassion through "Book Woman" that was all I could hope for.

But anyways, we built a tiny home on some acres and little wilded spot and we invite writers around the country.

Come on a scholarship that we provide.

Where did the name come from?

Yeats.

"Isle in the Water."

I love it Shy Rabbit.

And I've seen picture and it is absolute.

I think I could even write if I was in that environment, who knows?

You talked a moment ago about how Kentucky is today how Appalachia is today, but there is a love for Kentucky that oozes out of your books.

It probably it's in your veins, correct?

Yes I have a great, great love and admiration for the people of Kentucky.

It's my home.

I don't know any other place really, but I always want to honor and look them up.

And we do talk about a lot of social injustices because that's just the way life is.

And I have to be authentic and depict my area, honestly, and the people.

Your books have been favorites of book clubs and the character studies are so fabulous.

There's one other character that I happen to admire who is a four-legged one.

And if you could talk about Junior because she's just a treasure.

Well, thousands and thousands of hours were spent on research for "Book Woman" first book.

And the last thing, I talked to coal miners, fire tire lookouts, studied everything.

Roosevelt's new deal.

But the last thing for me to do was to ride a mule and I was going to do that with a fellow author and friend, Sarah Grimm, but I fell down these mountain stairs and received seven breaks to my arm.

So that was the only thing that I had left to do was to ride a mule.

So I had to instead talk to mule skinners and read books.

But she is... She also is a fierce character.

Junior?

Junior.

Yeah.

Yes.

And she's gonna have a little competition in the new book, "The Book Woman's Daughter."

So you'll, I hope readers will enjoy her.

What do you want readers to take away from these books?

I just think that, like I said if I drop seeds of kindness, courage and compassion, I've done everything I need to do.

No doubt.

When you've speak to book clubs, what is their favorite thing that they have taken?

I think some of the first letters I started receiving for "Book Woman" was the kindness, in such a really charged and tumultuous world, it really resonated with them.

And Kim Michele, not only does it resonate in the south, not only does it resonate in our country but it's all over the world.

How far has this taken you?

We're in Bulgaria, Spain, Canada, Serbia.

I don't know.

We're in a lot of places.

Well, those pack horses have traveled the world by now.

The title is "The Book Woman's Daughter."

It's a story of courageous women fighting racial prejudice and ignorance.

And as Honey says in the very last paragraph of chapter 19 "Books are the key to freedom."

Kim Michele Richardson.

This has been such a pleasure.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm Ann Bocock.

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You can find our podcast GO Between the Covers wherever you get your podcast.

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