Tales from a Free-Range Childhood

Donald Davis, a former Methodist minister from North Carolina, is an audience favorite at the National Storytelling Festival. Davis is the author of twelve previous books and numerous audio recordings of stories, most of which reflect his Appalachian childhood of the 1950s and 60s. He lives with his wife, Trish, on Ocracoke Island, NC.

“As a child, I was very involved in scientific inquiry. Each day was filled with educational experiments in my early effort to put the world in controllable order. My realization was that parents simply refused to tell you things that you need to know (example: “Do you think that my broken dump truck will flush down the toilet?”), which led to a constant life of scientific experimentation. This is where the little brother problem came into the mix.“I would be right in the middle of an educational scientific experiment when suddenly my mama would arrive.“There you are!” was her normal announcement. “I was looking for you.” Then something like this would follow: “I need to go out in the yard and hang out the clothes. You come in the house and watch the baby.”
“I was unbelievably amazed as I stared back at her. You, I thought, are an adult woman, and you cannot see that I am busy! I do not have time to watch your baby. You wanted the little thing. I guess you can watch it! Of course, these words were thought and never actually spoken.”

This new edition of Donald Davis’s eleventh published book, the North Carolina-native storyteller recounts adventures and misadventures from his childhood in the North Carolina mountains. An audience favorite at scores of American storytelling festivals each year, Davis burnishes his repertoire of Keilloresque monologues with a richness you’ll be hard-pressed to find elsewhere. This edition, both print and e-book, has been re-edited to remove proofreading errors that plagued an earlier edition.

1 Watch the Baby          
2 Too Much Hair          
3 Golf Tees       
4 Go Look It Up!            
5 Little Critters  
6 Boys Are Smarter?      
7 The Little Rat  
8 Responsible   
9 Watch Where You Step           
10 Pimento Cheese       
11 Something up Her Sleeve      
12 The Octopus 112 
13 Nothing Works But Her Mouth          
14 Broken Bones           
15 Two Red Coats