"Welcome to Mossy Creek the town you can count on ain't goin' nowhere, and don't want to" with these words you get the flavor of life in the small southern town of Mossy Creek. The people are fiesty, funny, sad, and loving. Each chapter is a different character's story. You learn the history of the dispute between Mossy Creek and the nearby town of Bigelow. Each chapter becomes a story unto itself while characters overlap occasionally in the tales. From Miss Ida, the guardian/mayor of Moss Creek who will go to jail rather than put up a new welcome sign outside of Mossy Creek (afterall it was written by a Bigelowan!) to Casey, an Olympic hopeful whose dreams are dashed while returning from her elopement, due to a car accident which leaves her paralyzed from the waist down, you will laugh and cry with the inhabitants of this marvelous town. Come on for the ride and enjoy a few moments in Mossy Creek. It is a fast read and powerful in its emotions.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book - lots of fun, quirky characters. Looking forward to the next in the series.

I read this book because I love Deborah Smith's work. I figured at least her stories in the book would be fantastic. I laughed so hard with the first story my husband finally asked me to share the joke. And it just got better after that. I can not wait for the next book to come out! The characters were all fun and lovable. It made me wish my small town was a wee bit smaller, Southern and full of Mossy Creekites!

I read "Parvana's Journey" over Thanksgiving break. This book, the sequel to Ellis' "The Breadwinner", continues the story of Parvana, a young Afghan girl who disguises herself as a boy in order to help her family survive. In this one, Parvana's been separated from her mom and siblings, and her father has just died. She travels across Afghanistan, picking up refugees as she goes along (including an infant boy, a boy missing a leg, and a girl who believes she is magically protected against mine fields). This installment was even more heartwrenching than the last and it is truly the perfect novel to read at Thanksgiving time - it makes you remember what you should be thankful for.

This book is an emotional loopty-loop. It really brought to life the poverty and hunger that "we" feel is so far away...death,,,killing,,,mourning,,,sorrow and graves were plentyful in this book. It shows the world the social issues from a resident's perspective. Although there were many sad times in the book, it was well written and deserves to be a bestseller. (hopefully this book will push ppl to join peace corps. to Afganistan)

I really loved this book. It takes place in Paris, in an Abbey, where all the monks and choirboys live. There's the teacher's pet, Henri, who is a goody-two shoes. He's 12, like me, and one day he meets Micah, a criminal of the same age who has the voice of an angel. They become friends, and they do things that Henri would never have dreamed of doing if he weren't with Micah: spying on the monks, mixing a horrible tasting powder in the communion wine, etc. They become the Company of Fools, to make people laugh and have joy with the Plague all around them. It's really a very good book. Recommended ages: 12 and up

This is a very detailed book on the Southern Coast of North Carolina. It has everything from restaurants, shopping,lodging and more. If you are planning a trip to the Southern Coast of North Carolina it is a must have. Great book at a great price!

For new homeowners or experienced gardeners, this book is filled with simple, ingenious techniques for landscaping with a minimum of sweat, time, and natural resouces. In addition to covering flowers, vegetables, shrubs, trees, and other plant types, the book has a most useful section on lawns and groundcovers. It also includes information on pruning and other techniques. The layout is user-friendly, and the illustrations are plentiful and easy to follow. Nearly everyone who comes to my house asks to borrow this book!

Sweet Tea and Jesus Shoes is a charming collection of stories that range from sweetly sentimental tear-jerkers to laugh out loud funny slice-of-life tales. And, best of all, there isn't a dud in the entire bunch. All of the stories were obviously written with love and each is an author's memory of living in the South. The book is broken up into three sections titled: Precious Memories, Family Portraits (wow, do these ladies have some nutty relatives and neighbors!) and Beloved Critters. Being an animal lover the "Beloved Critters" section contained some of my favorite stories in the collection. The hands down winner for me was Donna Ball's UP JUMPS THE DEVIL. It's about a big, slobbering, affectionate dog that sends an entire town into an uproar and gives one grasping old bitty her comeuppance. This story had me in stitches and will be reread whenever I'm in dire need of a good laugh. The book is a little pricey, at $14.95 for only 171 pages of storytelling, but I feel its stories are worth splurging on (or saving for).

Open the cover of this book and prepare to enter the real South. Through this collection of short stories the authors have given us snapshots of how life is viewed by real Southerners--that is mostly with a sense of humor and always with heart. I loved this book from first page to last. Filled with love and family, quirky characters and just plain folks it's a great way to spend a relaxing afternoon. One more thing, no matter what part of the country you're from you will recognize people you have known and loved, because some things are universal.

This book is worth the price. I was only part way done with it, when I had to e-mail my friends and tell them all about it. I was chuckling and sighing through the stories, and enjoying it every bit, good enough to read aloud. And when I do, I swear I start to have a bit of a twang in my words, even though I'm not from the South. The authors' voices are sure and strong, the stories are funny and heartwarming, and I really can't say enough good things about them.

This is a book sure to get you out of a funk. In particular, "Up Jumps the Devil," by Donna Ball had me falling off my chair because I was laughing so hard! I must have been pretty loud, too, because my husband ran up wondering what all the commotion was about. Of course, I gave him the book, and had the prime opportunity to see him fall off his chair, too. Good job, ladies! I'm buying this book for my relatives in North Carolina, Florida, and Texas, and sending it to them.

The BreadWinner is a fantastic book.It is full of adventure.It's about a little girl, named Parvana, who lives in Afghanistan during a time when girls weren't allowed to go outside without a man to work and get money. But one day her father went away to prison wich meant they had no other boy to go out and get the food and milk they needed. Soon they needed food so badly they shaved Parvana's hair off so she could look like a boy and could get the food.This was a new experience for Parvana. Every day she would go out and earn money by selling things or reading and writting letters for the people. Then she would buy the food for the family. If you want find out more about this book I think you should read it.

The BreadWinner is a fantastic book.It is full of adventure.It's about a little girl,named Parvana,who lives in Afghanistan during a time when girls wern't alowed to go outside without a man to work and get money.But one day her father went away to prison wich meant they had no other boy to go out and get the food and milk they needed. One day they needed food so bad they shaved Parvana's hair off so she could look like a boy and could get the food.This was a new experience for Parvana.Every day she would go out and raise money by selling things and reading and writting letters for the people to get money then she would get the food for the family.If you want find out more about this book I think you should read it.

Life for women under the Taliban regime in Afghanistan is not the stuff of which happy children's books are made. There is no happy ending here, regardless of the obstacles which are overcome, because the real-life ending has not yet come.
This book, while fiction, is the result of interviews with women who escaped from Kabul and who were living in camps in Pakistan, including one mother who disguised her daughter as a boy. The setting is true to time and place as it captures life for one family in one short period of time. (Ellis is donating the book sales to an organization dedicated to educating girls in refugee camps.)

It is a simple story, and engaging, as the reader follows the daily life of a fictional family as they struggle to survive the imprisonment of the father. His absence from the home means that they no longer have food, or communication outside the home because the female members of the family cannot go out unescorted by a male. Parvana, who is pre-adolescent, surrenders her long hair to help her family, and disguised as a boy earns a little money by selling things from their home or reading for the largely illiterate population. Thus she is able to shop for food. Her bravery is the focal point of the story and the reader is reminded of the courage and strength of children everywhere who survive against incredible odds.

Ellis has done well to write this as a story for children/young adults. While she doe not gloss over the hard parts of life in Kabul under the Taliban with executions, dismemberment, and imprisonment without a trial or a public charge neither does she dwell on them at length. Being without food or a father is hard enough for one story; living in fear adds more trauma. Everyday hardships such as the closing of school, the absence of music, and the difficulties of communication add to the realities of the story. But Ellis allows Parvana to see a Taliban soldier as human when she reads a letter for the illiterate man and watches his eyes fill with tears. To see the enemy as human is a triumph of the human spirit and gives this book its hope.

Being from a small town in Georgia myself, I completely bonded with the characters in both Mossy Creek books. These authors have done a wonderful job continuing these delightful stories and I look forward to reading more.

I have waited for the new mossy creek book very much, but I was a bit dissappointed. It was great meeting the old wonderfully exentric characters of the first book, but the reunion was laced with pain and hurt. The book concentraed around the question who burned Mossy Creek's old high school 20 years ago? The question unearthed secrets from the town's past. Some of the stories were really great like the love story between shy Josie M. and bigfoot, but while the first book was all along touching and fanny and a just a little bit sad, the second one had too much hurt people in it. But still I want to hear about the residence of mossy creek so I will buy the next book, I just hope it will be uplifting as the first.

With the twenty-year reunion at Mossy Creek, Georgia coming soon, Creekites wonder who burned down the town's high school back then that has forced locals to attend nearby rival Bigelow High School? Apparently the arsonist is taunting the Creekites by having sent to the town the ten cent fortune telling machine used during that homecoming day when the fire changed so many lives.

Though not even born yet, wallflower Josie McClure knows the impact of the fire because her mother was the homecoming queen who never celebrated her victory and forced her to compete for the Bigelow High School Homecoming Day Queen, which she humiliatingly lost. Rainey Ann Cecil thinks back to that fatal day in 1981 when she was twelve and with Robert Walker and Hank Blackshear believed they caused the fire. Amos Royden is now the sheriff and would like to solve the case that his now deceased father always felt blemished his law enforcement record. Other are impacted by either the fire or the upcoming reunion. Will the reunion complete the destruction of the Creekites or refurbish the civil pride of being a Creekite?

Written as a series of vignettes tied together through the reunion, the story line is humorous and sad focusing on how a pivotal event can change lives forever. Though an ensemble, the characters come across as genuine leaving readers to understand their pain, loneliness, and their need to belong. Fans will enjoy tremendously REUNION AT MOSSY CREEK and want to read the previous slice of small town southern living, MOSSY CREEK. Both novels colorfully and cleverly illustrate small town southern living.

Harriet Klausner

Khyber is living in poverty in a poor part of Toronto with her family. Her father abandoned them when Khyber's two autistic brothers were born. I can tell you, having an autistic child is not easy. Autistic children cannot look at you in the eye or even talk. Plus, it costs money for treatment. And you can imagine, with the shortage of money that Khyber's mother has, it would be hard to pay for treatments for two autistic children. But Khyber loves her brothers dearly and would never let anything bad happen to them. But one thing Khyber looks forward to in life is her friend X, who lives in the park. X is a very mysterious old lady who is intensely afraid of the secret police and will not tell Khyber her real name. When X suddenly dissapears, Khyber is devastated. She just had to find X. Her journey would probably be one of the scariest things that would ever happen to her. read on...

For an academic or student writing their dissertation this book serves a purpose. It is well researched and documented.
However, aside from the experiences of displaced women of Afghanistan, Pakistan and the middle east in general, who were and still are treated as non-human, there is little exploration or analysis of the reasons for this inhumane treatment. The book is good historical documentation of the treatment of women in the middle east, but little or no insight is offered by the author. For most readers, it is not worth the high price demanded.

Ellis, Deborah Women of the Afghan War, London: Praeger Publishers, 2000.
Pp. xxvii, 236. 14 photos. Index.

Deborah Ellis' Women of the Afghan War should be praised for its value in bringing the trials and tribulations of Afghan women to the forefront of this region's politics in a straightforward fashion that relies on the testimonies of the women themselves to tell the story of their hardships. The strength in Ellis' method is that this patchwork of first-person accounts "gives a face" to the conflict by introducing the women by name and using the actual translation of their words to show the harsh reality of these women's lives. Although Ellis' style is remarkable for the lack of detachment from the issues that an author's narration usually risks, it does present some downfalls in screening the accuracy of these women's stories and the discrepancies that arise in the translation of these accounts. Since the structure of the book is the most striking aspect of the book, it is easy to assume that the focus of Ellis' work is primarily just the women in this society - however, a more in-depth analysis reveals a greater commentary on the self-defeating nature of Afghan society itself, the inadequacies of relief foundations and organizations, and the potential for real-life solutions that can be achieved with frighteningly minimal effort.
Part interview, part historical overview and analysis, Women of the Afghan War effectively conveys the uniformly bleak nature of all Afghan women's lives within this society by grouping women from different socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds under a common theme of misery. Through the person-to-person accounts compiled by Deborah Ellis and her Afghan translator Benazir Hotaki, a tale of missing husbands, dead children, and stolen livelihoods surfaces that could prompt even the most stoic of individuals to break down and cry. Indeed, this provocation of emotions is most probably the intent of Ellis' choice in the format for her work. As a mental health counselor in her native Canada, there is no doubt that Ellis is well acquainted with the power of human emotion. Much of her work documents her skills within the field of psychology as she weaves her way through the refugee camps of Russia and Pakistan and speaks with Afghan women who are traumatized by the prolonged Russian occupation of Afghanistan and the ensuing wars that resulted from the Russian invasion, multiple inter-ethnic conflicts, and most recently, the takeover of the Taliban.
Rousing the emotions of the audience in response to the plight of these women while including the women's criticisms of humanitarian organizations as being spread too thinly to provide substantial aid reveals the author's other purpose besides rallying sympathy for the women of Afghanistan - she also wishes to show the inability of relief organizations to address the problem effectively due to lack of funds and cultural hindrances. Basically, since this book was written pre-September 11th, it is a call for greater awareness of the burden facing Afghan women and the need for a greater-scale solution that goes beyond just a scattered assemblage of relief organizations that provide intermittent assistance at best to those most in need.

This book is incredibly informative and interesting. The high price is because proceeds go to help Afghan women and children..well worth it! The author also wrote 2 fictional books about a young girl living under the taliban("The Breadwinner" and "Pavana's Journey"). I read them to my 4th and 5th grade children and found them so captivating that I wanted to learn more. This "adult" book was a great read and a wonderful way for me to learn about the Afghan women's plight. It is a series of 1st hand accounts of Afghan women over the last 20 years. Very interesting and well written. Highly recommend.