March 17, 2017 @ 10:30 am JR Collins will be speaking at the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) chapter meeting this Saturday @ the Mountain Presbyterian Church 3831 GA-515, Blairsville, Georgia www.mtnpres.org. He will be discussing the history of Choestoe as it relates to his novel The Boy Who Danced with Rabbits with a question and answer section to follow.
Based on historical events about a young boy who grows up with the Cherokee Indians, The Boy Who Danced with Rabbits is told in a voice that will stay with you forever by the main character after he has aged ninety years.
Jedediah Collins was born on a cold and snowy night, late in the winter of 1817, at the base of Ben’s Knob Mountain, in a valley called Choestoe (a Cherokee name you say the way the Indians do, Cho-E-Sto-E). This area is now the northeastern part of Georgia, the southern end of the Appalachian Mountains.
A time when the Cherokee Indians still lived and thrived in their beloved mountain home, years before their forced removal by the U.S government under the direction of President Andrew Jackson, many European settlers found a life in these mountains. Living among the local natives, each people learned and adapted aspects of societal culture from the other.
Thompie and Celia Collins, parents of young Jeb, are direct descendants of Irish immigrants who settled in Choestoe during the escalation of the American Revolution. Friendship and dependence has developed between the settlers and their Cherokee neighbors, and such is the case for the Collins family.
Written in the dialect, style and vernacular of the mountain folk, Jeb paints a picture of his utmost humble beginnings, life during those times, and especially of his family’s friendship with Dancing Bear’s Cherokee family.
A very spiritual book, both Christian and Native American, The Boy Who Danced with Rabbits seeps into your soul, igniting a desire to know these people and to mimic their ways through the deep love and devotion, loyalty, and pride they show one another.
Collins was raised in the valley he so passionately writes about. An ancestor of the first pilgrims to the area, he proudly claims heritage and roots through the people of the Appalachian Mountains that settled in the Choestoe Valley sometime in the latter part of the 1700’s. Born in 1962, he grew up hunting and running the ridges of Choestoe.
As of 2013, Collins has been Director of Advertising for The North Georgia News, after having worked as the editor for sports stories, special events and is in the process of publishing Professional Golf Tips: A Pocket Lesson Book for Golfers – Tips from the Range – Ten Things All Golfers Must Know. He is a graduate of Young Harris College. Collins is currently working on the sequel, Living in the Land Where Rabbits Dance.