Author, Radio Broadcaster
Rowena Cherry:
"Parents and teachers will love.... The Anna Mae Mysteries by Lillian Cauldwell
Lillian writes with a voice that speaks to the rich imagination of a child. A ten year old child's mind plays tricks. She fears dark places in buildings where the grown-ups are not, because she believes in ghosts and apparitions, and squeaking, creaking things that could be a monster spider's joints. Yet, she yearns to find buried treasure, or to make headlines in a good way, or to improvise and solve a mystery. One example of masterly "childlike" problem solving is the use of coat hangers as divining rods.... Dowsing is such a cool thing for children! Vivid images strike a chord in my memory, and linger in my mind of the phantom fist, the schoolyard bully, the horror in the air ducts, the dusty, thirsty hard work of digging in the fruit cellar... for buried gold. It's "real", it's delightfully scary in the way of all good and gripping page-turners, but it's not frightening. Perhaps Lillian's writing is so believable, and so immediate because Lillian pays attention to details - such as the ring on fourth finger of ghostly black fist. Parents and teachers will love Lillian's writing, too, not only because the children will be immediately engaged by the mystery, but because of the tie-in with history, including Jefferson Davis and Georgia's exciting past. Lillian Cauldwell is a splendid storyteller, and my child and I are eagerly looking forward to the next gripping tale in the series!"
~Rowena Cherry http://www.rowenacherry.com
"Hi Lillian:
When I sent you my Escaping Reality for your review, you sent me your Anna Mae Mystery. I was too busy to read through it then but I have had time in the last couple of days. When I realized it was not adult fiction I didn’t think I would enjoy it but I was wrong.
Although the editing work I do is for all genres for adult readers, I was very impressed with your work, The Anna Mae Mysteries: The Golden Treasure. I was caught up admirably by the spectre of the black gauntlet and its timely apparitions.
As a high school teacher (11 to 18) for thirty years I know plenty of pupils in the young teens who would be gripped by the antics of Anna Mae. Mover over Harry Potter and Shadowmancer! You might think their Britishness would hinder their appreciation of your American novel but although I had to look up Whippoorwill, kids over here adore American lifestyles, even those that flit randomly to Civil War Times!
Much of my criticism of writers focuses on their insufficient show instead of tell, but wow, Lillian, you demonstrate how it’s done! You use olfactory sense particularly well that poor Anna Mae had so many aromas spreading, creeping up and filling her poor nostrils. I loved it!
Youngsters rarely want very serious literature, nor characters that are too ridiculously comic for a whole book, but you grab the correct yet difficult balance.
Good luck with it."
Three 'tween sneaker sleuths face the unsolved mystery of Jefferson Davis'lost gold treasure with a little bit of help from a ghostly black fist and divining rods.
Twelve-year-old Anna Mae Botts, her eight-year-old brother Malcolm, and Anna Mae's best friend Raul Garcia, face a ghostly black fist on their first day of school. It blocks their entrance into school, while dropping paper clues about Jefferson Davis' lost Civil War gold. Things get more complicated when a school fire occurs.
Mysterious events soon overtake Raul, Malcolm, and Anna Mae at school as well as at home. Rats, alphabet noodle clues, floating chalk, and phantom false-bottom wagons lead the tweens to travel the same route by car that was taken by Jefferson Davis and his gold-laden wagon train.
With divining rods given to her by her granma, computer printouts, and Spirit Journey memories that take her back to a Civil War past, Anna Mae, Raul, and Malcolm find Jefferson Davis' lost gold treasure, part of it buried on Chennault Plantation and more of it in a vacant lot on the outskirts of Warthen, Georgia.
ANNA MAE MYSTERIES
Website design by Denise Cassino, WizardlyWebDesigns.com
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INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL , Winner of the N.O.R. Awards, Best Fantasy/Sci-Fi Romance:
Jacqueline Lichtenberg:
"Lillian Caldwell asked me to review for you her children's book/series The Anna Mae Mysteries. I had to email back and ask which books those were, because I didn't remember from the title. I'm a reviewer and I handle hundreds of titles a year for The Monthly Aspectarian, a New Age Magazine published on paper then posted to their website. My column is eventually archived on my domain -- http://www.simegen.com.
So Elizabeth reminded me this was the one about the BLACK FIST. I had read the manuscript several hundred books ago.
Now that black fist is the most cinematic image I've read in a long time in a children's book. It etches itself into the mind and won't go away.
It makes the entire book and all the characters instantly memorable. These characters become real people while you read this book, and I expect kids would run around pretending to be these characters. These novels need to be marketed to film, but first they have to be brought to the attention of librarians for read-aloud sessions. These are books that will make children want to read the words themselves."
Live Long and Prosper,
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
Creator of the Sime~Gen Universe
where a mutation makes the evolutionary
division into male and female
Reading level: Ages 9-12
Paperback: 228 pages
(October 24, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1932993983
ISBN-13: 978-1932993981
