From fairy godmother to leg-breaking godfather, deities have risen and fallen in the hearts of men and women; and the Judaeo-Christian religion has developed into a powerful and dominant force in the world. It is the contention of the author of this book, however, that the Bible, while being revered and upheld as the one true word of the gods, is not in fact such, and that its theology and doctrines were not, as some seem to believe, dropped from the edge of a cloud upon which a divine being was riding. In this work Collins considers the origin and history of the basic tenets of...

The first book in the Eastern Kentucky Girl series, The Soup Bean War relates the escapades and antics of five-year-old Emily Conn during the summer of 1957. Emily is the next to youngest child in a family of five girls growing up in Floyd County, Kentucky. In this volume she finds herself caught up in a string of mysteries, mishaps, and misadventures. She endures an outbreak of the measles, a flood, a house fire, and a run-in with the law and a mysterious old man. With her Michigan cousin Brad by her side, Emily experiences the most exciting and adventurous summer of her young life. Based on...

All summer long, Emily Conn dreads starting school. Finally, the time comes for her to join her older sister Laura as a first grader in the little one-room school by the side of the dirt road in front of her home on Mare Creek in Floyd County, Kentucky. Emily decides that she does not like school and is not going to listen or learn. However, when her own life gets caught up in the mystery of a backwoods family, she not only learns reading, writing, and arithmetic, but she also discovers that another culture exists outside her little world. She experiences her first love and her first...

The fifth book in the Eastern Kentucky Girl series, This Little Light looks in on Emily Conn as a somewhat more mature girl, and she becomes a teenager before the book's end. The challenges she faces in this volume are no longer childish adventures and mishaps. Emily's troubles have become more difficult to accept, work through, and move forward from. Will her indomitable spirit prevail, or will grief and sorrow completely tear her world apart? Based loosely on the life of the author, This Little Light continues the tale of Emily Conn as she grows up in Appalachian Floyd County, Kentucky....

It's 1966 and Emily Conn is fourteen years old and in eighth grade. She loves living in Betsy Layne, a small community in Floyd County, Kentucky, and enjoys going to school and being with her friends. In this final volume of the Eastern Kentucky Girl series of books, Emily begins to blossom as a writer as well as in her understanding of what it means to be a loving sister and friend. She comes to appreciate the struggles of others, finally comprehending lessons she received early in life about the familial bond of all people. Reaching the conclusion that change is the only constant, Emily...