Mountain Song Editions - Series by Royal Fireworks Press

West Virginia, 1942.

Fourteen year old Jedadiah struggles to provide for his family since his father's death. To keep the farm going, he must find a way to gather coal for the winter and slaughter the hogs. He also worries that his mother, once a schoolteacher, will send him away to high school, into the world beyond the mountain that he loves. Jedadiah's legacy is in the barn, a stack of Chestnut lumber that has been waiting for a craftsman to make it into furniture to sell. Jedadiah is too small and too young to use the tools. To gather the coal, Jedadiah needs the help of Rhys Maddox, new mine manager at Salt Lick. To butcher the hogs, he needs the Slocum boys. Rhys is interested in the mountain's timber and coal, and providing jobs and needed fuel for the war effort. He labors to bring the Salt Lick mine back into production. Although he is interested in Jedadiah's mother, Jedadiah believes Rhys wants the farm in order to expand the mine. The Slocum's are thieves interested in the chestnut lumber. They try to steal the lumber, and as Jedadiah chases them off the property, the barn and house catch fire and are destroyed. Jedadiah's mother accepts Rhys' offer of a home and a teaching job in Salt Lick and moves the family into the mining camp, where Jedadiah feels caged and useless. He looks for a job to earn money. He believes that the family will be trapped by Rhys' kindness, and he seeks revenge on the Slocums for the fire and for their poisonous moonshine stills.
After a bitter argument with his mother and Rhys, Jedadiah heads for the mountain where he stumbles upon another still, and the Slocums ready to do him in. But. Rhys has come looking for him and intervenes. Jedadiah escapes. Rhys suffers the consequences, entrapment ion an abandoned mine tunnel. As the miners and mountainfolk try to save Rhys, Jedadiah realizes that he is the one responsible for much of his own misery and the predicament that Rhys is in. He must save Rhys. And as he shares in Rhys' ordeal, he discovers that he never has to leave the mountain permanently, but in order to steward its resources properly, he must gain an education.

Mountain Song is the story of a boy's journey toward manhood, the understanding that one must accept full responsibility for the consequences of one’s actions.