A Redbird Christmas

Okay...I know it's 'way beyond the holiday season, but really, you need to get this book now! Tuck it away until next Christmas, if you must. It's not exclusively a holiday book, though; it spans a whole year in the life of a small community, Lost River, in very rural Alabama. You can read it anytime of year. Miss Fannie Flagg is one of my very favorite authors. I love Southern genre books in general; Miss Flagg does 'southern' to perfection! I can just hear my Mom and her sisters speaking Fannie's dialogue as they sit in Mabel's kitchen eating grits, sipping sweet tea and gossiping about the rest of the 'generation' as they called the family. "A Redbird Christmas" is a feel-good story about community, love, and a rascally redbird named Jack who touches the lives of everyone who sees him. Little Patsy loves Jack, Roy, the grocer, loves Jack, even Mildred who thought she hated Jack, really loves him deep down inside. Miss Flagg hasn't written a totally syrupy-sweet story, however. Oswald T. Campbell has a drinking problem; Roy and Julian LaPonde have vowed to shoot each other on sight, and Tammy Suggs is the very worst kind of 'white trash.' Here's my confession: I drag out my copy of "A Redbird Christmas" every December. I pick a snowy Sunday afternoon and let the story transport me to warm and wonderful southern Alabama; I can almost smell the magnolias and the musky river, taste Frances' scuppernong jelly, and hear Jack chattering away with Patsy in the back room.

Other books by Fannie Flagg: Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe,Standing in the Rainbow,Welcome to the World, Baby Girl,Can't Wait to Get to Heaven (Random House Large Print),Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man (Random House Large Print (Cloth/Paper)). They're all good!