Rating: 
Summary: The stories will take hold of your heart like kudzu.
Review: Mary Larkin book reviewMaine e-mail: AugieTango@aol.com
A Book You May Have Missed, But Should Not Have
Mama Makes Up Her Mind and Other Dangers of Southern Living, by Bailey White. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1993.
Bailey White has been heard and relished by millions of National Public Radio listeners. Her short stories and essays have appeared in various journals and magazines. Mama Makes Up Her Mind is Ms. White¹s first book in which she gathers over fifty of these works. Her stories and keen observations are all set in Georgia, and cover more ground than kudzu.
We have all had childhoods and we can all tell a few tales about ourselves. But can you honestly say that ornithologists once placed orphaned turkey eggs on your hot and feverish measle-covered body to hatch them overnight? Only Bailey White can claim to have been used as a child turkey-incubator.
You really have got to read her stories and meet her mother -- a woman who eats road kill (only when it is fresh), and thwarts the randiest of telephone perverts with her own concept of the conversation, taking the wind right out of his sails. A woman who is filled with as much knowledge as curiosity about the world. A mother you will wish were yours.
I was fascinated while reading how Ms. Bailey¹s Aunt Belle tamed an alligator slowly but surely. No doubt, the alligator was just as fascinated as I was with this sprawling southern family. Or read about another aunt whose descent into senility is reflected in her very own mirrors, with which she holds loud and disparaging conversations, chock full of name-calling and laying blame squarely where it belongs.
It is Southern, and charming, filled with gentility and just the right dash of degeneration. Buy this book and treasure it, then send a copy to your favorite aunt, or your cousin who left home but secretly would like to return to the family fold. Like kudzu, the stories and Miss Bailey will take hold of your heart with tender tendrils and not let go. A must read for Southerners and Yankees, alike.
Rating:
Summary: Funny, Bittersweet Stories!
Review: Reading Bailey White is as refreshing as sitting in the porch swing on a hot summer day with a sweating glass of cool iced tea with a sprig of lemon mint enjoying the occasional breeze. No one can capture the essence of the South like Ms. White. Her stories are funny, thoughtful and bittersweet. I've laughed and cried reading these stories of Bailey and her irrepressible Mama. One of my favorite stories is when Mama makes up her mind that she wants some smoked mullet and they have to go down to Rosey's, "a tough juke joint on the edge of the marsh in an old-fashioned part of Florida where tourists don't even go because they have more sense." Each story will grab your heart and give it a little squeeze. This is an excellent book that I read over and over!
Rating:
Summary: Mind Mama
Review: Southern living is really dangerous. Random thoughts could get you in a ton of trouble. Mama Makes Up Her Mind by Bailey White is a hilarious memoir about her wacky family. One of the best qualities about the book is the way Bailey White paints the pictures of Mama. You can just see her sitting in her reclining chair, listening to the radio, and reading UFO newsletter or picking up some road kill for dinner. Another great quality is that the characters are easy to relate to. By the end of the book you want to talk to Mama or you wish that Bailey was your 2nd grade teacher. The characters are fun and exciting. The last quality that was really wonderful was that throughout the book you learned many lessons about life. From how great instant-care is to how to deal with 36 first graders on a field trip. Bailey White's life is as entertaining and Mama and the way She describes it is amazing. Mama Makes Up Her Mind was and entertaining group of stories that will make you laugh out loud. Buckle-up, because your about to read a thoroughly eccentric book.
Rating:
Summary: Laugh out loud funny.
Review: This book is a wonderful snapshot of a southern woman at her best. Mama is a character that you won't soon forget. A collection of short stories featuring Mama's antics. You will laugh out loud.
Rating:
Summary: Great writer
Review: This book is full of wonderful short stories or essays about Ms. White's life and those around here. It is a book I thumb through again and again. Being a southerner, I laughed out loud as I recognized some of the characters as being like people I know. Bailey's Mama was apparently quite a character. One of my favorite chapters is "A husband or something like it". I chuckle just thinking about it.
Rating:
Summary: Asthmatics, have your inhaler close by.
Review: This book is FULL of wonderfully funny stories. I only wish
my mother was as entertaining as Bailey's White. Despite all the laughing she has us do, Bailey is constantly saluting her
mother's spirit, down-to-earth wisdom, and tenderness. Other
characters are also covered, painting a picture of a town
full of strange characters. Hmmm, sounds just like home.
Rating:
Summary: Terrific stories about people you feel like you know!
Review: This book is one of those you just laugh with and feel a kinship to the characters immediately...especially if you are from the South! You either know someone just like the characters or someone that has many of the personality traits of these people in your own life. The author is so skilled at drawing word pictures your imagination jumps at the chance to complete them and you can just see the people and places she describes. This is a great book to touch at the core of the everyday lives of most people as the author deals with all types of home situations.
Rating: 
Summary: entertaining, but not exactly a classic
Review: This book is one which i would recomend to someone looking for a short, easy read with a few chuckles. Her writing style, though it is unique is quite repetitve after aout the 5th story.
Rating:
Summary: This is my 7th time teading it!
Review: This book is outrageously funny and intresting! Almost each story has a diffrent and suprizing story. I am still between the ages of 13-15.
Rating: 
Summary: Quirky and funny
Review: This is an amusing collection of short stories concerning a family in the deep South.The Mama of the family is an out and out eccentric but totally charming with it.Her house is a repository for generations of junk (and none too clean),but life with her is never dull.I found this to be a very likeable "little" read when you don't feel like delving into anything too heavy or involved.
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