Bruce Smith
Published: 2017-10-26
Total Pages: 122
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"A Charleston Christmas Storybook" is a charming collection of family tales set in Charleston, South Carolina celebrating the most joyous time of year in in America's most beautiful city. Journalist and writer Bruce Smith covered Charleston for more than three decades for The Associated Press, the world's largest news organization. His news stories, photos and video of Charleston have appeared across South Carolina, throughout the nation and around the world. His family Christmas tales have been called "A Lowcountry Yuletide Tradition" by The Post and Courier and "An offbeat celebration of Charleston at Christmas - enjoyable and imaginative" by The State of Columbia.The Christmas tales capture the magic of the season in this timeless city of pastel buildings, bluestone sidewalks and quaint sheltered gardens. Each story is illustrated with photo artwork showing the setting. One of the world's most popular tourist destinations, Charleston captures the hearts of all who visit just as it has captured the hearts of those lucky enough to call the historic city home."A Charleston Christmas Storybook" includes the tale of the rather stuffy British mice who visit their Charleston cousins and are treated to a trip to the steeple in "The Bells of Saint Michael's" "Magnolia" is a carriage horse who will only pull her carriage without a driver and with a carriage load of children. "Lights in the Palms" tells how residents of the nearby Isle of Palms debate whether the trees lining Palm Boulevard should be decorated for the season with sophisticated and stylish small white lights or large, somewhat gaudy colored lights loved by children everywhere. They must decide what is best for the "character and integrity of this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this Isle of Palms."In "Teresa and Prioleau," another story about small rodents, Teresa and her family of mice travel from the wonderful cathedral on the north side of the street to visit their snobby, self-absorbed cousins thrice removed who live South of Broad. Here they have an encounter with Pouncer the Cat. "The Burghers of Boughburg" also have to deal with a cat after Fur Feet comes to visit their Christmas village in what is the greatest crisis to hit Boughburg since the "Blizzard of Brown Needles" when the tree started shedding long before Christmas and "The Great Flood" when the preschool denizens of the house spilled water on the village while filling the tree stand. Rabscalpin, still another cat, hits on an ill-thought-out scheme to free all the residents of the South Carolina Aquarium in "The Great Escape." In "The Colonial Lake Light Caper" two young boys learn that pinching the red bulb from a wooden Rudolph in a house fronting on Colonial Lake really isn't keeping in the spirit of the season.These and other tales capture the magic of a Charleston Christmas and the volume is perfect as a gift or as a holiday keepsake. The tales are suitable for all ages with stories youngsters will cherish and wry humor that older readers will enjoy as they share the tales. As The Beaufort Gazette put it: "Smith is building on his reputation as a Southern storyteller."