From the title story -- a tall tale of a floppy-eared pie thief who encounters grace in the unlikeliest of places -- to poetic reflections on Spanish moss, growing old, and the ageless and uplifting stories of the Bible, Mayna Cosby Parks dispenses humor and heart in her debut collection, Granny Rabbit's Gooseberry Pie: Stories and Poems. This book speaks to everyone -- not only children, but adults of all ages.

"My poetic wings are little more than pinfeathers," the author confesses in her introduction. "But when God gives you the desire to write, you must write above your ignorance, and in Him let your soul and spirit, without encumbrance, soar upward toward the light." She also offers a piece of advice for would-be poets: "It is best to begin writing before the age of eighty-five."

Parks invites the reader to come along for a delightful ride, as though traveling to a beloved aunt's farm, bouncing along a red-clay washboard road in a '36 Ford, "shimmying, angling like a trotting dog, coils of pink dust boiling out behind."

Hop on in!