Description

Soft Hardcover

For years, a mining familys life revolves around their table. Its where they eat, read, sew, laugh, and pay the bills; its stained with easter egg paint, warmed by fresh biscuits and the soft morning sun.

Outside the house, though, Appalachia changes. The coal mine closes, and the bills keep coming. Eventually, theres no choice but to move on and to say goodbye to the table.

But then: When a young girls father sees the table by the road, he slams on the brakes. A lifelong carpenter, he can see its something special. They bring it home and clean it up; sitting around it, they eat and work and laugh. The girl wonders if another child once sat there, if they were anything like her. Shell never know . . . but the table remembers.

The Tableis a stirring contemplation on the similarity between even people whose lives are entirely different. The details of these different lives take many forms, but the love underlying both of these families makes them much more similar than they are different. The center of this book is family love, and the many important connections we share with the family we live with. Even in strife, this book shows, love provides a literal support.

Expressively illustrated by Caldecott Honoree Jason Griffin, the story is deeply personal to coauthors Wiley Blevins, raised in West Virginia, and Winsome Bingham, who immigrated as a child from Jamaica to the U.S. South.