"Mann delivers all the right ingredients--an original setting, fresh characters, one truly spunky girl--and serves them up with honesty and love. Mama's Chicken and Dumplings is delicious!"
Kathryn Erskine, National Book Award Winner
Purchase your copy wherever books are sold.
For a signed copy, order through Bluebird & Co. in Crozet, VA.
For a signed copy, order through Bluebird & Co. in Crozet, VA.
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Mama’s Chicken & Dumplings, a Junior Library Guild Gold selection and 2025 CBC Librarian's Favorites Award winner, is my debut novel for kids ages 8-12 that was traditionally published in 2024 by Margaret Ferguson Books, an imprint of Holiday House. Set in 1935 Vinegar Hill, a thriving African American community of Charlottesville, Virginia, it’s a story in which take-charge, 10-year-old Alexandra Lewis wants nothing more than an unbroken life. So she sets out on a West Main Street quest with a Man-for-Mama plan in one hand and a jar of chicken and dumplings in the other. She’s determined to find the perfect fix-it man for Mama--one who kind-smiles, who knows how to sing, and who loves her mama’s cooking. But when Mama starts having eyes for Mr. Coles, the uncle of her NOT-friend Gwen, Allie does her best to keep her plan on track. If only she can get Mama to cooperate!
Learn more about the setting 1935 Vinegar Hill on my BLOG.
Teachers: Holiday House Books for Young Readers has produced an educator guide for Mama's Chicken & Dumplings that is as perfect as Allie-made dumplings! Created by Pat R. Scales, a retired school librarian from Greenville, South Carolina, it's full of probing questions that will get your students, grades 3-6, thinking deeply. The guide is FREE to download, and may be reproduced at no charge! Find it HERE.
Vinegar Hill, Charlottesville, Virginia
Photo courtesy of the Estate of George C. Seward. Found in the George C. Seward Photograph Collection, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia, lib.virginia.edu, accessed July 27, 2023.
Charlottesville was home to many free African American men and women who owned and operated successful businesses—long before the Civil War ended and before the 1806 Virginia act that required emancipated people to leave the state, generally within a year. After Freedom came to all African Americans and during Reconstruction, business ownership by African Americans bloomed and many owners gained wealth. By the 1920s, despite racist laws and covenants that enforced segregation throughout the United States, enterprising men and women pulled together and forged micro-communities like Vinegar Hill. Just a few city blocks within the heart of the city of Charlottesville, Vinegar Hill was a thriving African American business and residential district that provided families with goods and services denied elsewhere.
Doctors, dentists, lawyers, general contractors, undertakers, insurance agents, and more could be found helping those living in Vinegar Hill. Jefferson School offered the youth a place to be educated. Local churches and halls offered spaces for them to worship together, perform musical concerts, and rally for change. Nearby Washington Park offered them nine acres of recreational space.
Read more about the people and places of Vinegar Hill on my blog, HERE. And get a glimpse of what life was like in a thriving communities like Vinegar Hill, which existed throughout the United States during this time period of segregation, by watching rare footage HERE.
Doctors, dentists, lawyers, general contractors, undertakers, insurance agents, and more could be found helping those living in Vinegar Hill. Jefferson School offered the youth a place to be educated. Local churches and halls offered spaces for them to worship together, perform musical concerts, and rally for change. Nearby Washington Park offered them nine acres of recreational space.
Read more about the people and places of Vinegar Hill on my blog, HERE. And get a glimpse of what life was like in a thriving communities like Vinegar Hill, which existed throughout the United States during this time period of segregation, by watching rare footage HERE.
Below are a few African American businesses listed in the Hill’s 1934 Charlottesville, Virginia, City Directory.
West Main Street
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230½ Edgecomb Barbershop
233 Gilt Edge Barbershop 263½ Sarah Goins, Seamstress 265 Geo. M. Carr & Co, Secondhand Clothing 267 Southern Aid Society of Virginia, Douglass Edwards 269 Community Café 271 Apex Barber Shop 271½ Bernard A. Coles, Dentist Edgar Long, Jr., Physician Richmond Beneficial Insurance Company William Booker & Butler Suber, RBIC Agents 273 Charles Coles, Jr. Men’s Furnishings Charles Coles & Sons, Building Contractors Radio Barber Shop 273½ William Goins, Merchant Tailor 275 Philip Edward, Secondhand Clothing Barnes & Rogers, Barbers 275½ Masonic Hall 277 Economy Café 278 Paramount Inn & Restaurant, James Rivers |
279 Manhattan Athletic Club
283 Progressive Billiard Parlor & Lunch Room 285 Roland Poindexter, Cleaners & Presser 287 Jones Café Idle Hour Pool Room 299 Modern Shoe Repair 301 Esther Winston, Secondhand Clothing 303½ Franklin Athletic Club 305 Hampton Shop, Clothes Cleaners 305½ Ridgeway Shoe Shine Parlor 307 Lou Coles, Seamstress 313 West’s Barber Shop 319 Ella Johnson, Domestic 321 Washington Pollard, Barber 323 Hampton Jackson, Shoe Shiner 333 George P. Inge, Grocer 629 Daniel & Lily Nicholas, Janitorial & House Cleaning 632 First Baptist Church 809 Eclipse Cleaners 914 Manly Wade & John Curry, General Contractors 1305 Melvin McGinness, Cleaner & Presser |
6th Street NW |
4th Street NW |
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116 Abbott & Holt Funeral Directors
123 George Johnson, Physician 125 Bankers Fire Insurance Company 128 Zion Hall 128 Janie Porter Barrett Day Nursery 207 Old Jefferson School (elementary) |
Commerce Street NW |
East Main Street |
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123 Acme Shaving Parlor
411 Palace Barber Shop |
Mr. Inge's Grocery Store
(c) Dionna L. Mann
This handsome building, located at 333 West Main Street in Charlottesville, once part of the Vinegar Hill neighborhood, was purchased by George Pinkney Inge in 1890 for $3,000 to be his family's home and a community grocery store. Opened in 1891, Inge's Grocery became known for its fine meats, penny candy, ginger snaps, and generous owners. Booker T. Washington, a Hampton Institute classmate of Inge, was one of the establishment's most renowned guests. Inge's Grocery remained open as a family-operated establishment until 1979! My main character, Allie, loves to run down to Mr. Inge's store to buy Mary Janes, her favorite candy, if ever there are pennies in her pocket.
Historical fiction, as you know, requires a ton of research to get the details right, and because Vinegar Hill, my story's setting, was razed in the 1960s in the name of urban renewal and development, the research was all the more important. Below is a link to my bibliography, in case you'd like to uncover the same rich history I found so inspiring and fascinating.
| Mama's Chicken and Dumplings bibliography_03-31-24.docx |
Easy Southern Style Chicken & Dumplings Recipe
(c) Dionna L. Mann
Young ones, get permission and assistance from an adult before making your chicken and dumplings.
Time to prepare 30-45 minutes
Serves 6-8 people
1 rotisserie chicken
2 32-ounce containers of chicken broth
4 cans of cream of celery soup
salt and pepper to taste
1 can of crescent rolls
4 tbs flour
½ c cold milk
Pull meat off the bones of the rotisserie chicken, discarding the skin.
Cut or pull the chicken into smaller pieces and place into a large pot.
Add cream of celery soup and salt and pepper. Using the back of a wooden spoon, combine until well blended.
Slowly pour all the broth into the chicken mixture and stir until combined. Set aside.
Dust a clean surface and a rolling pin with flour.
To make the dumplings, unroll the crescent rolls onto the floured surface, roll out until about ¼-inch thick, then cut into small rectangles (about 1" by 2"). Transfer the dumplings onto a cookie sheet.
Bring chicken mixture to a boil.
Using both hands, drop dumplings one at a time into the boiling mixture. Stir, then reduce to a slow boil.
Cook about 7 minutes or until dumplings are done, bouncing on top.
Turn the burner on low.
Make a thickener by placing the flour in a bowl and slowly adding the milk, using the back of a spoon to combine so there are no lumps.
Add the thickener to the chicken and dumplings, stir, and allow to thicken over low heat, about 10 minutes.
Serve with a garden salad and rolls.
TIP: To clean up floured surfaces, use cold water on your dishcloth.
Serves 6-8 people
1 rotisserie chicken
2 32-ounce containers of chicken broth
4 cans of cream of celery soup
salt and pepper to taste
1 can of crescent rolls
4 tbs flour
½ c cold milk
Pull meat off the bones of the rotisserie chicken, discarding the skin.
Cut or pull the chicken into smaller pieces and place into a large pot.
Add cream of celery soup and salt and pepper. Using the back of a wooden spoon, combine until well blended.
Slowly pour all the broth into the chicken mixture and stir until combined. Set aside.
Dust a clean surface and a rolling pin with flour.
To make the dumplings, unroll the crescent rolls onto the floured surface, roll out until about ¼-inch thick, then cut into small rectangles (about 1" by 2"). Transfer the dumplings onto a cookie sheet.
Bring chicken mixture to a boil.
Using both hands, drop dumplings one at a time into the boiling mixture. Stir, then reduce to a slow boil.
Cook about 7 minutes or until dumplings are done, bouncing on top.
Turn the burner on low.
Make a thickener by placing the flour in a bowl and slowly adding the milk, using the back of a spoon to combine so there are no lumps.
Add the thickener to the chicken and dumplings, stir, and allow to thicken over low heat, about 10 minutes.
Serve with a garden salad and rolls.
TIP: To clean up floured surfaces, use cold water on your dishcloth.
For an old-timey way to make this Southern staple (like my grandmama "Gah" used to), check out the cookbook The Taste of Country Cooking (Alfred A. Knopf, 1976; reissued 2006) by renowned chef Edna Lewis, who was born in 1916 to a father who'd once been enslaved. Chef Lewis grew up in Freetown, Virginia, in Orange County, a hop, skip, and a jump from Charlottesville, where Mama's Chicken & Dumplings takes place.
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