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Books with
Noble County Roots
Tonya Holmes Shook writes: "I
have another book released last June with stories relating to Perry, the
land grant kids and about early day settlers of Perry, God's Breakfast Nook: An
Anthology of American Nonfiction Short Stories. I spent my summer vacations with
grandparents in Perry. See Press Release below:"
New Book Reminds Readers of
How Things “Used to Be”
During the 1940s, a young Tonya Holmes Shook and her sister
took the train from New Mexico to Oklahoma to spend “the summers on wonderful
farms” owned by their grandparents.
“I remember distinctly about a danger lurking in hidden
places on grandmother and granddad’s farm. This danger was two-legged! He also
crowed. That was the meanest rooster I ever saw!”
“The 1940s are full of memories of squirrel hunting with
granddad—a time when a Black Diamond watermelon was halved on the kitchen
table with plenty of spoons sticking out of it and begging you to take a bite
whenever the spirit moved you.”
“After we finished eating the melon, the hogs ate what we
left. It was a time when breakfast consisted of sugar-cured ham or slab bacon
and eggs, fresh honey and hot biscuits washed down with coffee.
We loved to imitate our Grandpa by “saucering” coffee
like he did. Although it wasn’t an affluent place by any means, the farm gave
us rich memories.”
This is just one of more than two-dozen stories from God’s
Breakfast Nook: An Anthology of Americana Nonfiction Short Stories—Shook’s
new book that explores the spiritual side of family life. Shook is also author The
Drifters, a fiction book about the
Melungeon shantyboat people. Both books are published by Marquette Books of
Spokane, Wash.
The short stories in God’s
Breakfast Nook, Shook says, “can be
thought of as building bricks of oral history. I have tried to take one little
brick at a time to build a bit of Americana from my corner of the pasture.”
Other reviewers agree.
“God’s Breakfast Nook is wonderfully written and causes
(one) to reflect upon a time when families were much more cohesive than they are
today … when life was simpler and people loved each other more,” says Randy
Southerland, minister of New Hope Baptist Church West in Duncan, Okla.
“I am so impressed with the ‘meat’ your book offers …
it’s so wonderful to read something with real substance when so much of what
is foisted on the public … is just Pablum,” says Linda Harris, a registered
nurse from Whitesboro, Texas.
“Your book has intertwined God’s message for people who
have the ability to look back over their own lives and see the results,” says
Andy Lowe, a mine maintenance director, inspector and special investigator from
Phoenix, Arizona.
Tonya Holmes Shook was born in Oklahoma and lived in New
Mexico and Texas before returning to Oklahoma in l985. She is the author of Displaced
Cherokee: Come Home, Come Home, a book
documentary that took First Place in the l986 Open Class Category at the
Oklahoma State Fair. The book was endorsed by the Oklahoma Department of
Libraries.
Shook’s other book, The
Drifters: A Christian Historical Novel About The Melungeon Shantyboat People, is
currently being reviewed by a screenwriter in Hollywood. In addition to writing
books, Tonya is an accomplished artist and poet. Many of her works have
Christian themes.
Tonya is available for media interviews and book signings.
She can be reached at shookum@pldi.net
or 580-439-6912. Article from Marquette Books press release. books@marquettebooks.org
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