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traffic light. When they were finally able to 

 return home, they discovered that the walls, 

 floors and windows were demolished. 



More than 850 Princeville homes were 

 destroyed, and almost 2,000 people were left 

 homeless. The children missed nearly a 

 month of classes. 



When Lavada is sent to a new school 

 temporarily, she draws a picture of her mom, 

 Jimmy and herself standing in front of their 

 destroyed home. At the top she writes, "We 

 still have each other." 



The people of Princeville have been 

 sharing this attitude for many years. The town 

 was established in 1885 as the first founded 

 and governed by former slaves. Their 

 heritage is important. Weatherford shows that 

 when the people of Princeville are faced with 

 the choice of saving their community or 

 moving to higher ground, they have an 

 important decision to make. 



Douglas Alvord's thoughtful illustra- 

 tions will remind the townspeople of 

 Princeville — and many other eastern North 

 Carolina communities — of Lavada' s words, 

 "We still have each other." 



THE NIGHT FLYERS, by Elizabeth 

 McDavid Jones, Pleasant Company Publica- 

 tions, Middleton, WI 53562. 139 pages. 

 Hardback, $9.95, ISBN: 1-56247-815-X. 



World War I is a time of uncertainty for 

 1 1 -year-old Pam Lowder. With her father 

 overseas fighting in World War I, nothing is 

 the same at home in Currituck. And, Henry 

 Bagley, her bratty classmate, seems to make 

 life impossible for her at school. 



Her spelling lessons are suffering 

 because of all the extra time she has to spend 

 helping out at home, and she feels that her 

 life is overturned since her dad's absence. 

 Yet, Pam's mother reminds her of a special 

 talent: "Who else has a loft of pigeons that 

 will home at night in the worst of weather?" 



Indeed, Pam and her father have raised 

 the best homing pigeons on the North 

 Carolina coast — homers with the rare ability 

 to fly at night. 



When a strangely dressed man with a 

 thick foreign accent moves to Currituck, the 

 whole town starts talking. Could the mysteri- 

 ous man be a German spy? And what's more, 

 he wants to buy Pam 's pigeons! 



When Pam declines his offer, her 

 pigeons suddenly begin to disappear. The 

 search for them leads her to a far more 

 elaborate adventure than she could 

 have ever set out to find - one which 

 teaches her greater lessons than the 

 ones in her spelling book. 



Night Flyers was the winner of 

 the 2000 Edgar Allan Poe award 

 for best juvenile mystery. The 

 book is a part of the popular 

 American Girl collection's 

 History Mysteries line. It was 

 voted "favorite new series" by 

 children's booksellers in a recent 

 Publishers Weekly survey. 

 Following the conclusion of 

 Jones' story, an illustrated essay 

 teaches readers what life was like for people 

 living in a town like Currituck, as well as for 

 the soldiers off fighting for their country. 



BLUE CRABS: CATCH EM, COOK 



'EM, EAT 'EM, by Peter Meyer, Avian- 

 Cetacean Press, Wilmington, NC 28408. 

 128 pages. Paperback, $13.95, ISBN: 

 0-9628186-3-1. 



When dining out, it seems like menu 

 items with crabmeat are the tastiest — and the 

 most expensive and elaborate. Meyer takes 

 away the mystery of crabbing and adds 

 intrigue, not only explaining how easy and fun 

 crabbing can be, but making it accessible to 

 children. 



"Crabbing, especially crabbing with 

 children, is more than just inexpensive 

 entertainment," he says. "Crabbing educates 

 youngsters, too. When children (and adults) 

 go crabbing, they learn respect for the 

 wonders of nature. They also acquire the 

 ability to provide food for the table, and they 

 can even become proficient at cooking the 

 family's food." 



Meyer 

 divides his 

 guide into 

 three 

 sections, 

 where readers 

 of any age can 

 learn six different 



ways of 

 catching blue crabs, 



a few simple 

 methods of cooking 

 them, and more than 

 25 different ways to 

 eat them. 



Walking his 

 readers through every 

 detail, Meyer gives 

 personal anecdotes about his family and offers 

 insider tips. In one of the many photographs, 

 he kisses a fish before tossing it into the crab 

 trap for bait. "Smooching the bait before 

 placing it in a crab trap is said to generate a 

 good harvest of blue crabs," Meyer explains. 



After offering detailed, yet simple 

 instructions telling how to prepare and cook 

 the crabs, he gives recipes ranging from crab 

 omelets for breakfast to seafood gumbo for 

 dinner. 



Meyer ends his book with more 

 illustrations and interesting clips of informa- 

 tion on the crab's life cycle, anatomy, defense 

 mechanisms, reproduction and prey, as well as 

 information on commercial crabbing methods. 



He supplements his passages with lots of 

 photographs and drawings. Seeing the 

 expressions of enthusiasm on the kids' faces 

 as they catch the crabs — as well as the looks 

 of satisfaction as they eat them — will make 

 even the crabbiest person want to run out to 

 the dock with fresh bait and a trap, s 



22 HIGH SEASON 2002 



