Calvin and the Great Tensas River Bottom

An orphaned eleven-year-old Calvin looks to the Great Tensas River Bottom as a means to escape the pressures of the real world.

Located in Northeast Louisiana, the Tensas River Bottom is now an eighty-thousand-acre national refuge.

A book of fiction that also records some actual events that have taken place in this magical part of North Louisiana.

This is a heartwarming story of Calvin, an eleven-year-old orphan boy and his dog—the larger-than-life 140-pound Catahoula Cur/Great Dane mix. They have made the Tensas River Bottom their home.

The boy and his five-year-old sister are sent to the Pooles’ foster home near Tallulah, Louisiana, in the year 1944. Their father enlisted in the army and was sent overseas, leaving his pregnant wife and young Calvin behind near the end of World War II. Then only a short time after arriving in Dutch New Genie, he was listed as missing in action. Their mother died from medical complications after giving birth to his baby sister. On his mother’s deathbed, she made him promise never to let him and his sister be separated.

Over the next few years, many couples wanted to adopt the cute little girl but not the eleven-year-old Calvin, who was now too old.

The only chance for his little sister to ever have a family in his eleven-year-old mind was for him to break his promise and run away to the great swamp to live. The big dog is harnessed to a goat cart with a canvas top, which becomes his miniature covered wagon. When the weather is cold and rainy, he sleeps in the wagon. Together, they learned to survive off the land, as his ancestors once did, in the Great Tensas River Bottom.