Author Will Sign Books April 11

Three-time Georgia Author of the Year for his young adult novels, Ted Dunagan is experiencing his most exciting year yet.

A play based on his first book, A Yellow Watermelon, premiered in Coffeeville, Ala. in March. This month, his fourth book in the successful “Ted and Poudlum” series, The Salvation of Miss Lucretia, is due out.

Mr. Dunagan will be signing his newest book, as well as any of his older ones on Friday, April 11, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at The Monticello News office, 237 West Washington Street, Monticello.

In the deep, dark woods of remote southwest Alabama in the late 1940s, Ted and his best friend Poudlum embark on a camping trip and encounter the exotic and initially terrifying Miss Lucretia, the “last of the voodoo queens,” who traps the boys in her cabin.

The friends soon realize that Miss Lucretia, rejected by her family and cast out tolive in isolation, is someone they should help instead of fear. The swiftly moving and delightfully readable narrative reveals how the boys rescue themselves and Miss Lucretia, defeating rattlesnakes and the old woman’s evil nephew.

Against the backdrop of segregation, the friends—one white and one black—discover gold in the ground and in their new friend’s heart, and just maybe in ours as well.

Mr. Dunagan has received the Georgia Author of the Year award in the Young Adult category for his books A Yellow Watermelon, Secret of the Satilfa, and Trouble on the Tombigbee. Trouble on the Tombigbee won the 2013 Yerby Award for Fiction. His books have been universally praised for the moral courage of the protagonists during a time of racial segregation.

He is also a reporter and regular columnist for The Monticello News.