The Featured Book of the Day is John Claude Bemis’ Nine Pound Hammer.

We all know the tall tales of John Henry and Johnny Appleseed, legends that are fun to tell, but of course never happened. Or did they? Twelve year old Ray has the strangest memories about his father…and he has weirdest feeling that his dad was able to talk to animals. Ray needs to find out what happened to his father and decides to go on a long journey to find him.

Ray encounters a group of sideshow performers and travels with them in an old train, but notices that something odd is going on. There is a locked train car, and he’s been hearing singing at night. He soon learns that the legends he read about at a young age are, in fact, true and now the evil that these old mythical characters have fought in the past is returning, and Ray must help put a stop to it before it is too late.