Southern Serendipity

Many people might assume that growing up in a town with less than three hundred residents would be quite dull and uneventful. But for author Tina Rye Sloan, growing up in tiny Detroit, Alabama, was anything but boring.

In her delightful memoir "Southern Serendipity," Sloan shares some rather entertaining and almost unbelievable accounts of life in the Deep South. From discovering numerous mischievous uses for dish soap to miraculously surviving a slide off the tin roof of a barn-propelled by a slick coating of baby oil-Sloan provides a look at the rich upbringing she was fortunate to have, despite her family's poverty. "Southern Serendipity" also offers a glimpse into Southern small-town life during the late 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s. Sloan inadvertently yet artfully describes many facets of Southern culture, from colloquialisms to gardening to education.

The collection of heartwarming stories in "Southern Serendipity" is based around several families whose lives in this small Southern town were woven together like strong, colorful threads in a tapestry.