Ludie's Life

Cynthia Rylant returns to her home state of West Virginia with this powerful and evocative collection of poems. In a heartbreaking narrative that flows like a novel, we follow Ludie from childhood to falling in love and getting married, through the birth of her own children, and on into old age. This is the story of one woman’s experiences in a hardscrabble coal-mining town, a story that brims with universal themes about life, love, and family—and all of the joy, laughter, heartache, and loss that accompany them.

 Would she tell you that six children
were too many,
that some disappointed,
that others surprised,
but that, all in all,
six
were too many
and one
would have been just fine.
Would she tell you that she married
that boy at fifteen
not only because he was tall and kind
but also because
she needed a way out.
              —from LUDIE’S LIFE

A moving poetry collection from Cynthia Rylant

VOYA

The succinct title of this book begins the story of one woman's life as the wife of a coal miner. Ludie marries Rupe primarily to escape the difficult life she faced as a child in Alabama. After Ludie and Rupe marry, they move to West Virginia where they remain the rest of their lives. They raise six children and even help to raise some of the grandchildren. Ludie dies at ninety-five, many years after Rupe. Although on the surface her life seems unremarkable, Ludie is a special woman who makes the most of the hardscrabble life she is handed. The story is told in verse, and much of the writing is exquisitely touching. Near the end of her life, Ludie asks her children if they have seen their father-she is certain that he is going to stop by. "Ludie waited while everyone came and went, came and went, came and went, then finally, one morning just before dawn, Rupe stopped by." By this point in the book, the reader is completely taken in and cannot help but be moved by Rylant's words. The audience will be limited, as with Rylant's previous book Boris (Harcourt, 2005/VOYA April 2005), but those teens who select this work are in for an exceptional read.

CYNTHIA RYLANT is the acclaimed author of many beloved books for young people, including the Mr. Putter & Tabby series, the novel Missing May, which received the Newbery Medal, and the Little Whistle series. She lives in Portland, Oregon.