A New Civil War Book Comes to Town

Warriors in Mr. Lincoln’s Army, by Quita V. Shier, to quote from the book’s dust jacket, “offers a comprehensive profile study of each officer and enlisted American Indian soldier in Company K, First Michigan Sharpshooters, who served in the Civil War from 1863 to 1865.” Many Native Americans served in the military during the Civil War, on both sides and in various companies, but Company K from Michigan was the only company with all and only indigenous enlisted men on its roster. 

The author of this book has gathered together information from military service records, medical files, pension files, and personal interviews with descendants of some of the men profiled. A scrupulous researcher, she offers a detailed index, as well. 

Sample pages from index

Since several of the men in Company K came from Leelanau County, Warriors in Mr. Lincoln’s Army is an important addition to local Leelanau history, as well as to Native American history, Anishnabe history, and the history of the State of Michigan. A large format, with generous typeface, line spacing, and margins also make for very readable text in the physical sense.

Detail from cover: Payson Wolf from Northport

Sample text pages

Warriors in Mr. Lincoln’s Army: 

Native American Soldiers Who

Fought in the Civil War

by Quita V. Shier

Hardcover with dust jacket

555pp w/ index

$39.99

A New Children’s Book For Your Cottage

Twenty years ago A. K. (Kirk) Johnston told his own kids a story. They kept telling him it should be a book. Now it is.

Onslo is a goose who likes to read. He also has friends among the ducks. For both of these reasons, he is often teased by other young geese. But Onslo’s learning and friendships may come in handy someday. How might that happen?

This book will be all the more attractive to my customer friends in Leelanau Township in that the story is set right in our own backyard. You will recognize familiar places on the maps, although the name of a key lake may surprise you — remember, lakes and towns and islands in Michigan have had different names at different points in history.

Illustrations complement the text beautifully. I particularly love Onslo’s little pilot cap (see book cover at top of post). There are a lot of words on each page, so adults or older children will probably want to help younger ones or maybe read the story to them. All will enjoy it.

Onslo

by A. K. Johnston

Illustrated by Kristen & Kevin Howdeshell

Paper, 46pp

$15

Recent Inventory Additions on Related Themes

I’m happy to announce that Dog Ears Books is now carrying An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (see my review here), winner of the 2015 American Book Award, and I look forward to stocking a new version of the book for young people that should be available before the end of July. There are over 500 federally recognized Indigenous nations in the U.S. today, and Dunbar-Ortiz gives us American history from their perspective.

Books about immigration, the frontier, and our southern border are one of my bookstore features this summer, beginning with a novel I’ve written about on my “Books in Northport” blog, Lost Children Archive, by Valerie Luiselli. Besides the plight of Latin American refugees, another focus of the novel is Apache history, so it connects with the history book referenced above. Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions, also by Luiselli, also tells of child asylum seekers. 

Two Michigan anthologies deal with immigration poetically. They are Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice, edited by, and. The latter collection presents prose memoir pieces, along with poems. 

An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States 

by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Paper, 296pp

$16

Lost Children Archive 

by Valerie Luiselli

Hardcover, 383pp

$27.95

Tell Me How It Ends:

An Essay in Forty Questions

by Valerie Luiselli

Paper, 119pp

$12.95

Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate 

on Social Justice

ed. Ron Riekki & Andrea Scarpino

Paper, 297pp

$26.95

Immigration & Justice For Our Neighbors, 

ed. Jennifer Clark & Miriam Downey

Paper, 115pp

$10

All Aboard for Greilickville!

A new book out this season from Kathleen Firestone is only the first in what will be a new series of harbor histories from this dedicated Northport historian. Printed on high-quality paper and beautifully hardbound, the book’s illustrated front board gives a good idea of what to expect inside, and the pages within fulfill the cover’s promise. Photographs from the earliest history of this sheltered Lake Michigan harbor to boats of the present day are accompanied by Firestone’s always well-researched text, sure to fascinate every northern Michigan boater and amateur historian, as well as the rest of us who have simply seen the area change in recent years and wonder what it was like in bygone times. A must for your regional library.

Meet Me at the Dock 

in Greilickville, Grand Traverse Bay, 

by Kathleen Firestone

Hardcover, $40

We Are Back!

We have some wonderful new books for our 2019 season, with more to come soon. One I don't want you to miss -- whether you're a parent yourself or just somebody's child (and aren't we all?) is Hillary Danaher's hilarious Curse of the Purse. Not only is it full of therapeutic laughs for the stressed-out parent, but it also a relaxing coloring book. Really!

See the right-hand column for this season's Thursday Evening Author guests, one every other week beginning in late June.

And don't forget, we always have a tempting selection of previously owned volumes to suit every pocket, with a special sale at present on mystery novels. 

Featured Book of the Last Week of November

No less a literary icon than Kathleen Stocking (my bestselling author of 2016) wrote to me this fall saying, “I distracted myself during the elections by reading HARD CIDER and loved it. I liked her novelistic explorations of the surrogacy issue.” Kathleen also appreciated Barbara’s “depictions of Northport.” So here you have it -- a taste of Northport! If you love our village, you'll love this book!

Note also that this week is the last week of the Dog Ears Books 2018 season and that we won’t be back until sometime in May, so let's exchange holiday greetings while we have the chance.  

Here for the Rest of November!

Wednesday, 11/21: OPEN 11-5 (Take a bookstore break from mixing up cranberry relish and bread stuffing and baking pies.)

Thursday, 11/22: CLOSED FOR THANKSGIVING

Friday, 11/23: OPEN 11-5 WITH BEGINNING OF HOLIDAY SALE: 20% off everything in stock!

Saturday, 11/24: OPEN 11-5. OPEN HOUSE IN BUSINESSES THROUGHOUT VILLAGE. HOLIDAY SALE CONTINUES. VILLAGE TREE LIGHTING 6 p.m. LIVE MUSIC

Sunday, 11/25 CLOSED

Monday, 11/26: OPEN 11-5 for CIDER MONDAY — YOUR LOCAL ALTERNATIVE BY SHOPPING ONLINE! HOLIDAY SALE CONTINUES.

Tuesday, 11/27: OPEN 11-5 HOLIDAY SALE CONTINUES

Wednesday, 11/28: OPEN 11/5 HOLIDAY SALE CONTINUES

Thursday, 11/29: OPEN 11-5 HOLIDAY SALE CONTINUES

Friday, 11/30: OPEN 11-5 LAST DAY OF THE BOOKSTORE YEAR??? Don't miss us! Many treasures -- new books and old, fine bindings and paperbacks, classics, signed copies, history, how-to, escape, etc., etc.

Saturday, 12/1: Who knows? Not sure yet! Friday, 11/30, may be our last day of the season, so don’t wait for December 1st to do your holiday shopping at Dog Ears Books!

Then, happy winter! We'll see you again in the spring!