Allen Jones to Talk About His Books ‘Yellowstone for Kids’ and ‘Montana for Kids’

Bozeman-based author Allen Morris Jones comes to talk on May 30 in the Cordingley Room from 7 to 8 pm about his Spur Award-winning book Montana for Kids and his successful follow-up Yellowstone for Kids. Jones also is the author of a highly regarded look at the ethics of hunting, a collection of poetry (recently named a Montana Book Award honor book), and more than 100 published personal essays, profiles, short stories, and other incidental pieces. Children, families, and adults are welcome to attend this talk! Montana for Kids features 24 illustrations created by the author and features stories about the first peoples and how horses came to the region, stories about bison and vigilantes and how Lewis and Clark explored the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers, along with mountain men and gold miners striking it rich, and even some stories about copper kings and railroad barons.His second children's book Yellowstone for Kids also has 24 illustrations created by Jones to help tell the story. In this book, there also are stories about first peoples trading Yellowstone obsidian to Indian tribes in the East, and explorers putting the very first boat onto Yellowstone Lake, and the Army building a Fort in Mammoth Hot Springs, among others. Jones also has written several novels that have received critical acclaim. His debut novel Last Year's River was reviewed in the Los Angeles Times, which said of it, "A novel of Wyoming, with its wide-open cattle ranches, fierce prairie winds, and sweeping Maynard Dixon vistas. Yet, against this panoramic backdrop, what emerges is a rendering of smaller internal landscapes that are, in their way, no less grand."His follow-up, A Bloom of Bones, received equal amounts of praise, with the Literary Journal stating, "Jones’s novel seems to have emerged from an older, more elemental world, a mythic, almost biblical place where it’s taken for granted that the sins of the fathers will be visited on the sons.”For more on Jones' books, check out his website at allenmorrisjones.com. For more information, contact Jake Sorich at jsorich@greatfallslibrary.org or 406-453-0349 ex. 220.