Our annual Jesse Stuart Weekend is this Friday and Saturday. Some activities are at Greenbo Lake State Resort Park; others are at the Jesse Stuart Foundation in Ashland. All of the activities are free and open to the public on a first-come, first-serve basis.

The weekend begins Friday night at 7:30 at Greenbo Park’s Jesse Stuart Lodge with a program by Leigh Anne Florence and her two dachshunds, Woody and Chloe. The program will be followed by a reception from 8:30-9:30.

Saturday’s activities begin at 8:45a.m. with a bus tour of W-Hollow guided by Board Member David R. Palmore, and Stuart’s niece, Melissa Liles. The tour group will return to the park for lunch. Then at 1:15, they will gather again for a trip to the Jesse Stuart Foundation, a 30,000 square foot building in downtown Ashland that is filled with books, crafts, and visual arts that relate to Kentucky and Southern Appalachia. The Jesse Stuart Foundation will be open to the general public on Saturday from 1-4 p.m.

The Jesse Stuart Weekend is a relaxed homecoming for Stuart fans, who will also enjoy films, mountain music, and book evaluations.

The Jesse Stuart Weekend concludes Saturday evening at 7:30 with a one-man drama by David Hurt who will present the music and humor of Kentucky’s own "Grandpa Jones."

You can pick up a more detailed agenda at the Jesse Stuart Foundation, 1645 Winchester Avenue in downtown Ashland or at the Jesse Stuart Lodge at Greenbo Lake State Resort Park.

I just finished reading "Icy Sparks" by Gwyn Hyman Rubio. It is one of the best, most powerful, most moving books I have ever read and I’m recommending it to all my friends.

It’s a funny, sad, transcendent story of a young girl named Icy Sparks who grows up in Eastern Kentucky in the 1950s. It’s a hard life for the ten-year-old orphan who lives with her grandparents. Icy’s life becomes more difficult when she suddenly develops troubling tics and uncontrollable cursing—behavior which leads to ridicule and punishment. Poor little Icy is ostracized at school and eventually sent to a state facility.

Icy’s troubling affliction - Tourette Syndrome - goes undiagnosed until she is an adult. So her adolescence is marred by her illness and its humiliating signs which are sources of endless misery.

Narrated by an adult Icy who is looking back on her painful journey through childhood, Icy Sparks is a plucky, imperfect, unforgettable heroine who will touch and enrich every reader.

First published in 1998, "Icy Sparks" is wondrous reading - a combination of emotional fire and ice that will take your breath away. It was an Oprah’s Book Club selection, and it will be the first book that my Regional Readers group will read in 2006.

"Icy Sparks" and other great Kentucky and Appalachian books are available at the Jesse Stuart Foundation Bookstore, 1645 Winchester Avenue in downtown Ashland.

For more information, call (606)326-1667 or visit our website: JSFBOOKS.COM.