Color Me a Kidlit Writer
  • About Me
  • Mama's Chicken & Dumplings
  • Reviews
  • Other Books & Stuff
  • Magazine Work
  • Work-For-Hire Books
  • School Visits
  • Events
  • Interviews, Blog Parties & More

Picture

Picture

A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection
A Children’s Book Council Librarians’ Favorite
An Omaha Public Library Historical Fiction Pick
A Morton Grove Library Staff Recommendation
A Richland Library Middle-Grade Historical Fiction Staff Recommendation

Purchase your copy wherever books are sold.
​For a signed copy, order through Bluebird & Co. in Crozet, VA.

Picture
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!


"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 



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


Picture
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.  

Below are a few African American businesses listed in the Hill’s 1934 Charlottesville, Virginia, City Directory.

West Main Street 


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 


​108     J.F. Bell, Undertaker, Notary Public,
           Ambulance Service
​
113    Ebenezer Baptist Church

204    William Jackson, Post & Sign Maker
206    Edward Stratton, Jr., Physician
​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 


406    John Jackson, Dentist
415    New Jefferson School
(junior and high)
​123    Acme Shaving Parlor
411    Palace Barber Shop

Mr. Inge's Grocery Store


Picture
(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
File Size: 47 kb
File Type: docx
Download File


Easy Southern Style Chicken & Dumplings Recipe


Picture
(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.

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.

Copying, reposting, and reproducing anything on this website without expressed permission is prohibited and may be in violation of copyright.