Side By Side With New Friends There was not much excitement for the side-by-side kids that summer until Mr. McCurdy's Best of All Talent Shows came to town. News about auditions and prize money brought out the best when Harriet sang and not-the-best when Jimmy John and Buster's version of Mama Don't Allow was not allowed. After audition falls and failures, the Talent Show was a smashing hit. No sooner had the town folk settled down, than Bessalina, the littlest Scoggins, stirred everybody into a panic when she sneaked her day-care classmates out on a risky adventure. Older kids got caught up with angry mockingbirds, Tin Lizzies, and fish with teeth. In the end, all the kids gathered around Aunt Clara for a hair-raising Gullah ghost story. Look inside. About the Author, Danette Littleton I am a storyteller, music-maker, and teacher of all sorts and sundries of children from isolated rural areas, urban inner cities, and residential suburbia. As a professor of music and music education, I taught and trained music teachers and encouraged in each one a love of children and music. As scholar and author, I wrote journal articles, book chapters, and a professional book When Music Goes to School: Perspectives on Learning and Teaching (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015). I have a beautiful, talented daughter, Eliza, and three outstanding and wonderful grandchildren, Gabriela, Nikolas, and Oliver. My Mama and I live together and care for each other with love and laughter.