Best Selling Books by Bobbie Malone

Voices & Votes: How Democracy Works in Wisconsin invites upper elementary school students to explore the intersection of American civics and Wisconsin history. This sixth and final book in the New Badger History series introduces students to the basic structures of American democracy, state government, and Wisconsin''s road to statehood. Students will learn that citizens'' voices and votes help government evolve to meet ever-changing societal needs. The last chapter emphasizes how young people can actively engage in their communities to bring about positive change.

"Water, water, everywhere . . ." Working with Water, the latest in the popular New Badger History series, teaches young readers about the many ways water has shaped Wisconsin’s history, from glaciers to stewardship. It touches on geography and hydrography; transportation networks of Indians and fur traders; the Erie Canal; shipwrecks, lighthouses, shipping, and shipbuilding; fishing, ricing, "pearling" (clamming), and cranberry cultivation; lumbering, milling, and papermaking; recreation, resorts, tourism, and environmentalism. The companion Teacher’s Guide and Student Materials engages students in hands-on exploration. It highlights historical processes and encourages multiple learning styles.

For five decades, as a singer, musician, songwriter, and producer, Tim O’Brien has ceaselessly explored the vast American musical landscape. While Appalachia and Ireland eventually became facets of the defining myth surrounding him and his music, he has digested a broad array of roots styles, reshaping them to his own purposes. Award-winning biographer Bobbie Malone and premier country music historian Bill C. Malone have teamed again, this time to chronicle O’Brien’s career and trace the ascent of Hot Rize and its broadening and enrichment of musical traditions. At the beginning of that career, O’Brien moved from his native West Virginia to the Rocky Mountain West. In just a few years, he became the lead singer, mandolin and fiddle player, and principal songwriter of beloved 1980s bluegrass band Hot Rize. Seeking to move beyond bluegrass, he next went to Nashville. O’Brien’s success in navigating the shoals of America’s vast reservoir of folk musical expressions took him into the realm of what is now called Americana. The core of Tim O’Brien’s virtuosity is his abiding and energetic pursuit of the next musical adventure. As a traveler, he has ranged widely in choosing the next instrument, song, style, fellow musicians, or venue. Written with O’Brien’s full cooperation and the input of family, friends, colleagues, and critics, Traveler provides the first complete, behind-the-scenes picture of a thoroughly American self-made musical genius—the boy who grew up listening to country artists at the WWVA Wheeling Jamboree and ended up charting a new course through American music.

“The story of Felice and Boudleaux Bryant is the story of towering artistic achievement wrapped in a love story so deep and so complete that the two are their own country song. Bobbie and Bill Malone are precisely the right match to tell this tale of love and genius.”—Ken Burns, Director, Country Music You might not know the names of Boudleaux and Felice Bryant, but you know their music. Arriving in Nashville in 1950, the songwriting duo became the first full-time independent songwriters in that musical city. In the course of their long careers, they created classic hits that pushed the boundaries of country music into the realms of pop and rock. Songs like “Bye Bye Love,” “All I Have to Do Is Dream,” “Love Hurts,” and “Rocky Top” inspired young musicians everywhere. Here, for the first time, is a complete biography of Nashville’s power songwriting couple. In Nashville’s Songwriting Sweethearts, authors Bobbie Malone and Bill C. Malone recount how Boudleaux and Felice, married in 1945, began their partnership as itinerant musicians living in a trailer home and writing their first songs together. In Nashville the couple had to deal with racism, classism, and in Felice’s case, sexism. Yet through hard work and business acumen—and a dose of good luck—they overcame these obstacles and rose to national prominence. By the late 1990s, the Bryants had written as many as 6,000 songs and had sold more than 350 million copies worldwide. They were inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972, and in 1991 they became members of the Country Music Hall of Fame—a rare occurrence for songwriters who were not also performers. In 1982 their composition “Rocky Top” was adopted as one of the official state songs of Tennessee. The Bryants were lucky enough to arrive in the right place at the right time. Their emergence in the early fifties coincided with the rise of Nashville as Music City, USA. And their prolific collaboration with the Everly Brothers, beginning in 1957, sparked a fusion between country and pop music that endures to this day.

This biography of a pioneering Zionist and leader of American Reform Judaism adds significantly to our understanding of American and southern Jewish history. Max Heller was a man of both passionate conviction and inner contradiction. He sought to be at the center of current affairs, not as a spokesperson of centrist opinion, but as an agitator or mediator, constantly struggling to find an acceptable path as he confronted the major issues of the day--racism and Jewish emancipation in eastern Europe, nationalism and nativism, immigration and assimilation. Heller''s life experience provides a distinct vantage point from which to view the complexity of race relations in New Orleans and the South and the confluence of cultures that molded his development as a leader. A Bohemian immigrant and one of the first U.S.-trained rabbis, Max Heller served for 40 years as spiritual leader of a Reform Jewish congregation in New Orleans--at that time the largest city in the South. Far more than a congregational rabbi, Heller assumed an activist role in local affairs, Reform Judaism, and the Zionist movement, maintaining positions often unpopular with his neighbors, congregants, and colleagues. His deep concern for social justice led him to question two basic assumptions that characterized his larger social milieu--segregation and Jewish assimilation. Heller, a consummate Progressive with clear vision and ideas substantially ahead of their time, led his congregation, his community, Reform Jewish colleagues, and Zionist sympathizers in a difficult era.

For generations of children, including a young Oprah Winfrey, opening a Lois Lenski book has meant opening a world. This was just what the author wanted: to help children “see beyond the rim of their own world.” In Lois Lenski: Storycatcher, historian and educator Bobbie Malone takes us into Lenski’s own world to tell the story of how a girl from a small Ohio town became a beloved literary icon. Author and illustrator of the Newbery Award–winning Strawberry Girl and numerous other tales of children from America’s diverse regions and cultures, Lenski spent five decades creating stories for young readers. Lois Lenski: Storycatcher follows her development as a writer and as an artist, and it traces the evolution of her passionate belief in the power of empathy conveyed in children’s books. Understanding that youngsters responded instinctively to narratives rich in reality, Lenski turned her extensive study of hardworking families into books that accurately and movingly depicted the lives of the children of sharecroppers, coal miners, and migrant field workers. From Bayou Suzette to Blue Ridge Billy, Corn-Farm Boy to Houseboat Girl, and Boom Town Boy to Texas Tomboy, Lenski’s books mirrored the cultural energy and concerns of the time. This first full-length biography tells how Lenski traveled throughout the country, gathering the stories that brought to life in words and pictures whole worlds that had for so long been invisible in children’s literature. In the process, her work became a source of delight, inspiration, and insight for generations of readers.

" . . . Bobbie and Bill Malone secure the Riders’ rightful place in country music history, recounting the story of their remarkable journey, which simultaneously entertained millions of people and revived the venerable American tradition of the singing cowboy.” —Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan, creators of PBS''s Country Music For almost five decades, the band known as Riders In The Sky (“America’s Favorite Cowboys”) has entertained and delighted audiences in Nashville and throughout the United States with their mixture of quirky sendups of the silver-screen Western and their “faultless, evocative instrumentation, perfect harmony, fantasy, and humor.” Remarkably, the original Riders—Ranger Doug Green (“The Idol of American Youth”), “Too Slim” (or alternately, “Side Meat”), Fred LaBour, and Woody Paul Chrisman (“The King of Cowboy Fiddlers”)—have continued to perform together since their first gig on a cold, rainy night in November 1978. Occasionally described as “the most educated band in country music” because of Woody Paul’s PhD in plasma physics from MIT, Doug’s MA in literature from Vanderbilt, and Too Slim’s degree in environmental studies from the University of Michigan, the group has been a popular fixture at the Grand Ole Opry since 1982. Master accordionist Joey Miskulin, a “road scholar” since age 13, joined the band during its second decade and was with them when they won Grammy awards for their work with Disney-Pixar for the albums that accompanied Toy Story 2 and Monsters, Inc. Their appeal to multigenerational audiences continues unabated. Riders In The Sky: Romancing the West with Music and Humor will entertain and inform both the group’s legions of dedicated fans and aficionados of country and western music.

Designed for kids and adults to use together, The Flavor of Wisconsin for Kids draws upon the same source material that makes The Flavor of Wisconsin by Harva Hachten and Terese Allen a fascinating and authoritative document of the history and traditions of food in our state, and presents it in a colorful, kid-friendly format that''s both instructional and fun. Mindful of the importance of teaching kids about where the foods they eat come from, each chapter examines a different food source--forests; waters; vegetable, meat, and dairy farms; gardens; and communities.

How has the landscape of Wisconsin affected its history? How have people living here changed that landscape over time? What are the implications for the future? The second edition of Learning from the Land addresses these and other questions, asking elementary and middle school readers to think about land use issues throughout Wisconsin''s history. This revised edition includes expanded chapters on logging and the lumber industry, land use and planning, and agriculture in the 20th century from farmers'' markets to organic farming. New profiles of Gaylord Nelson, pioneer of Earth Day, and Will Allen, founder of Growing Power in Milwaukee, round out this history of land use in Wisconsin.

Introduces young readers to Wisconsin''s prehistoric and historic past, including the glacial times of the Paleo-Indians, Woodland era cultures, and French, British, and American settlers.

In this highly accessible history of ships and shipping on the Great Lakes, upper elementary readers are taken on a rip-roaring journey through the waterways of the upper Midwest. Great Ships on the Great Lakes explores the history of the region’s rivers, lakes, and inland seas—and the people and ships who navigated them. Read along as the first peoples paddle tributaries in birch bark canoes. Follow as European voyageurs pilot rivers and lakes to get beaver pelts back to the eastern market. Watch as settlers build towns and eventually cities on the shores of the Great Lakes. Listen to the stories of sailors, lighthouse keepers, and shipping agents whose livelihoods depended on the dangerous waters of Lake Michigan, Superior, Huron, Erie, and Ontario. Give an ear to their stories of unexpected tragedy and miraculous rescue, and heed their tales of risk and reward on the low seas. Great Ships also tells the story of sea battles and gunships, of the first vessels to travel beyond the Niagara, and of the treacherous storms and cold weather that caused thousands of ships to sink in the Great Lakes. Watch as underwater archaeologists solve the mysteries of Great Lakes shipwrecks today. And learn how the shift from sail to steam forever changed the history of shipping, as schooners made way for steamships and bulk freighters, and sailing became a recreation, not a hazardous way of life. Designed for the upper elementary classroom with emphasis on Michigan and Wisconsin, Great Ships on the Great Lakes includes a timeline of events, on-page vocabulary, and a list of resources and places to visit. Over 20 maps highlight the region’s maritime history. The accompanying Teacher’s Guide includes 18 classroom activities, arranged by chapter, including lessons on exploring shipwrecks and learning how glaciers moved across the landscape.

Thinking Like a Historian will help you bring history to your classroom and reenergize your teaching of this crucial discipline in new ways. A group of experienced Wisconsin historians and educators, representing elementary through university levels, developed and piloted this framework. The Thinking Like a Historian charts which are the centerpiece of Thinking Like a Historian were created by condensing into simplified and easily remembered language the combined expertise of the historical profession as expressed in the published standards of the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, the National Council for History Education, the National History Standards and state standards for Wisconsin and California. Thinking Like a Historian is the fruit of our thinking and practice grounded in the highest standards of the discipline--designed to stimulate your own thinking, planning, and teaching. Adapt or draw inspriration from the examples for engaging and effective lessons and classroom activities. Return again and again to the common language of Thinking Like a Historian as a foundation that can connect and develop students'' curiosity about and understand of history throughout their school years. As history educators we wholeheartedly embrace the responsibility and opportunity to guide the next generation to think more deeply about the past--to think like historians.

Introduces the twelve Indian nations that live in Wisconsin, presenting tribal stories that incorporate various ways Native people remember the past, and emphasizing the value of oral tradition.

Introduces effigy mound sites, man-made hills shaped like animals usually used to bury the dead, that are found in five southern Wisconsin counties, and provides exercises in comparing, contrasting, and analyzing different mound groups.

The gnarled branches of a beautiful old plum tree reach toward the sky. A mushroom hunter searches for morels among rolling hills. A small boat is tossed among the tumultuous waves of an angry sea. Striding Lines, an homage to Wisconsin artist and quilter Rumi O''Brien, presents these striking images of her work and many more, accompanied by descriptions that share the stories of each piece in the artist''s own words. Each quilt represents a moment, often autobiographical, crafted with whimsy, revealing an inspired talent. Bobbie Malone reaches beyond the quilts to tell O''Brien''s own story, from her initial foray into the quilting world to her developed dedication to the craft. Contributions from leaders in the art, textile and quilting community, including Melanie Herzog and Marin Hanson, contextualize O''Brien''s work in the greater community of quiltmakers and artists. This book celebrates the life and ingenuity of a Japanese-born American immigrant whose oeuvre is equally Japanese and Wisconsinite--and entirely distinctive.

Issue your students an invitation to visit the past by introducing them to those who inhabited familiar spaces and places in your community. Celebrating Everyday Life in Wisconsin History is a 60-page resource and planning guide designed to help upper elementary and middle school teachers and their students research, plan, and build classroom exhibits (actual or virtual) that explore state history by focusing on and celebrating the history that occurs closest to home. Celebrating Everyday Life in Wisconsin History includes five themes as areas of daily living to create a focal point for student exploration and design: seasons, changes in work, changes in foodways, childhood, and the built environment. These thematic areas relate directly to resources available at the local level, including students'' family members and adult acquaintances, local historical societies, libraries, and historic preservation organizations. The idea is to choose one theme as the conceptual center that will give students the opportunity to do an in-depth historic investigation. Each theme contains three specific topics to give teachers suggestions for fruitful research possibilities. Celebrating Everyday Life in Wisconsin History uses oral history as one of the major thrusts of conducting local research, and includes sample interview questions for students that stimulate them to compare and contrast the past and present.