Carolyn Reeder was een Amerikaanse auteur die gevierd werd om haar kenmerkende literaire stijl en haar diepe inzichten in de geschiedenis. Haar nalatenschap is voornamelijk gebouwd op historische romans voor kinderen, die het verleden op een boeiende en educatieve manier tot leven brengen. Naast kinderliteratuur verkende ze ook non-fictie thema's voor volwassenen, waarbij ze zich samen met haar man concentreerde op de natuurlijke schoonheid en geschiedenis van Shenandoah National Park. Haar werken worden gewaardeerd om hun vermogen om onderwijs en entertainment te combineren, en bieden lezers nieuwe perspectieven.
At the end of the Civil War, twelve-year-old Will, having lost all his immediate family, reluctantly leaves his city home to live in the Virginia countryside with his aunt and the uncle he considers a "traitor" because he refused to take part in the war
Twelve-year-old Tom Higgins is learning the craft of making whiskey. Even though Prohibition forbids the production and sale of alcoholic beverages, Tom is determined to be a good apprentice. He is, after all, a moonshiner's son. His father has raised moonshining to an art, and Tom wants nothing more than to please this rough, distant man.Then a preacher comes to the wilds of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains to rid Bad Camp Hollow of the "evils of liquor." This is when Tom and his father begin their campaign to match wits with the preacher and try to outsmart the law officers he calls in. Tom's father is eloquent in defense of a way of life long and respectfully lived by the Higgins family. But the preacher and his pretty daughter make a powerful case against it. And when drink causes a tragedy in the community, Tom Higgins is torn....