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Imagine a young boy who's already six feet, four inches tall at age thirteen, and you'll know how Laurence Lonagan got the name "Lanky." It's the year 1913, long before radios, television, and computers were heard of. And even telephones and automobiles are rare in the small mountain town of Claggett Cove where Lanky lives with his mother. Lanky's adventures always seem to happen when he tries to help somebody in trouble or when he gets a well-intentioned idea to make some situation better. And then ... wham! Things go horribly wrong. By using his clever, quirky, and often humorous way of looking at things, Lanky saves the day and all ends well. Lanky is all-boy, full of fun and eager for discovery.
Throughout the Lanky Tales, the citizens of Claggett Cove emerge and appear in story after story ... folks like Angus McTavish, who runs the General Store; Preacher McPheters, whom Lanky rescues more than once from some impending disaster; Dibb Dozier, the Cove's hermit whose life Lanky saves during a blizzard; and others, like Miss Eunice Quackenbush, the choir leader who can't sing well; Li Chiang, the Chinese railroad worker who is robbed and left for dead; and Billy Red Wing, the Cherokee Indian who must live with his family in hiding. And there are the animals: Lady, the fawn, who stops an impending train wreck; Benjamin, the cat who saves a life; and Ruby, the faithful dog who changes the lives of a lot of people by her example of loyalty and gentle kindness.
Lanky Tales are funny, thoughtful, and timeless and are designed for boys and girls who are in the "tween years" (8-12), but are fun, wholesome reading for all the family.
About the author
C. Robert Jones holds degrees from the Universities of South Carolina and Georgia and from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He also studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and at the University of Dijon on a Fulbright grant.
He launched his professional career as a theater director by directing twenty-six shows back to back in four seasons at the Little Theatre of Savannah in Georgia. That was followed by thirty-one years as a college professor, chairing theatre programs at Gardner-Webb University and Mars Hill University.
As a playwright, he has written about fifty plays covering a wide spectrum of styles and genres, among them The Clown and The Spelling Bee, both of which are widely performed before young audiences.
Lanky-a 6'4", 13-year-old boy in a 1913 mountain town-was born in the author's musical "A Belonging Place," in which a country story-teller makes up stories about the character to amuse three local children during long winter nights. Both the fabulist and "his" Lanky stories reappeared in the play's sequel, "Wednesday's Children," and Jones brought Lanky to life as an onstage character in his one-act play, "The Blabbermouth" (www.dramaticpublishing.com). Ever since, both adults and children have appreciated the tales' country flavor, moral uprightness, and the character of a boy who constantly screws up while trying-and eventually succeeding-to make things better.
