Maypop: Tales from a Lowcountry Village
$20.00
By: May Morrison Brailsford
Illustrated by Mary Ingalls Coté
ISBN: 978-09845580-8-7
8.5×11, 72 pages, paper
“By the time I was five,” remembers May Morrison Brailsford in this memoir of growing up on the South Carolina coast, “I could sail a boat and swim and catch more crabs than anybody—bogging or with a line.”
Like everyone else in McClellanville, May climbed the Cape Romain lighthouse during community-wide Cape parties and swam at the bathing house by the wharf (despite the boy in the water who tried to sneak a peek). She grew into a spunky, self-reliant woman who in the 1930s headed a crew that planted live oaks, crepe myrtle, dogwoods, and wisteria along the main roads of her village. She taught herself to paint at the age of 62 and achieved renown for her bold renderings of live oaks, magnolia blossoms, and coastal scenes.
Lovingly illustrated by her granddaughter, Mary Ingalls Coté, May Brailsford’s delightful memoir tells the story of growing up in a village where everyone knew everyone else and a little girl’s spirit could soar. If Laura Ingalls Wilder had lived on the coast of South Carolina, this is the book she would have written.
Audience: Maypop is illustrated to appeal to children, but the story speaks to all ages including the many people throughout the region who have visited the unique village of McClellanville.
