Joseph has lost his staff. The moss on the manger roof is splotchy. The donkey has no ears and the cow only one of her horns. Since the nativity scene came from Sears and was inexpensive in the first place, why don’t we just replace it?

Sean Dietrich had under consideration as a title for this book The Grinch Actually Succeeded This Year or Deck the Halls with Disinfectant.

My relationship with Mr. Scrooge began when I was six and my father played him in the production by Hardy Station Baptist Church. I don’t recall a lot about it, but I put importance on what I remember.

The stories of two women switch back and forth during two different times across a black walnut table in The Christmas Table by Donna VanLiere. Joan Creighton, in May 1972, watches her husband John take the wood from his pickup truck.

At a recent writer’s workshop, a suggested writing prompt was the word “scars” with the notion that behind the scar might be a story. Indeed, my very first scar not only had a story but became an item of usefulness – though getting it was pretty scary for a four-year-old.

You can’t make this stuff up! As I read the nonfiction book Goat Castle by Karen Cox, I pictured trying to sell a novel with its plotline and decided it would be much too strange.

I am very grateful not to have the responsibility for deciding who goes first for the coronavirus vaccine, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have opinions.

I recently received Noah and the Eight Trucks of Hanukkah by Nancy Rips from Pelican Publishing for a possible review. Coincidentally, in the next (Nov/Dec) issue of Horn Book Magazine, Marjorie Ingall wrote an article, “What Makes a Good Hanukkah Book?”

I am pretty sure this is not what Mama meant when she said everybody should pull their own little red wagon. You may even question the term “red” at this point, but in its origins, that was its color.

In the world of readers, one thing tends to lead to another and if that weren’t enough, one reader leads to another. My sister Ruth led me to her friend Joan Creighton who became a reader of this blog.

As long as a writer sits alone with her words, there is no threat. However, there is something about producing those words and stringing them together that seems to call for sharing them, which brings up the next layer of wanting the very best words on the very best string.

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng opens near the end of the story with Isabelle (Izzy) Richardson burning down her family’s home.

Roots in North Mississippi for me, in New Hampshire for my daughter-in-law, leave us looking at sad trees in South Mississippi. As green leaves turn brown and drop, we long for autumn.

Girls of Brackenhill, an intriguing newly published mystery by Kate Moretti, begins when Hannah Maloney is summonsed to her Aunt Fae’s death in a suspicious car accident.

First, I will give the gist of the scientific explanation of the scene from my first walk of the day as the sun joins me in greeting the morning.

On the front flap and the back cover of his new book, Don Tate says, “That’s what stories do. Protest injustice. Soothe. Teach. Inspire. Connect. Stories save lives.” Then he writes William Still and Hi

My first vote was in the multigenerational Butler Country Store, converted for the day to a voting precinct. I was proud to become a part of the process.

Added to my love of biography and history, I had a personal reason for wanting to read the book that I review today. I remember as a child that people often said that Mama looked like Eleanor Roosevelt

You haven’t asked about my favorite icon or tab to push on my computer, but I am going to tell you anyway. I love to push “send.”

Looking back a year, celebrating a birthday during this pandemic took on a whole new look. Last year, sisters, children, grandchildren, and a niece gathered and went out to eat in a local restaurant specializing in Southern cuisine and had a splendid time, little knowing what the next year would bring.