I can suggest a couple of ideas of why it's a hot Christmas item.
- The Greatest Generation is more likely to find familiar ideas in these stories.
- People who grew up in rural areas with lots of animals enjoy remembering the good old times.
- Lots of people love stories set in Texas.
- Many of our elders have vision problems and the Large Print format is valuable.
- While e-readers are growing in popularity, folks in their 70s and 80s are less likely to buy one. So many years of reading have made the feel of a paper book the only way to go.
There you have it. A few reasons why TALES OF A TEXAS BOY is a great gift YOU can give your parents, aunts, uncles, or even yourself. Buy LARGE PRINT at Amazon and take advantage of the free shipping, or buy from Texas Boy Publications ( to get an autographed copy. Costs more, but worth it. A standard type copy is also available for a nice savings.
Here's an excerpt to give you an idea of what the stories are like. I will sneakily give you only half the story so you will need to buy the book to find out the rest (it can be had for only 99 cents in all the popular ebook formats at Smashwords).
Excerpt:
No Angel
Idle hands are the devil's workshop. So goes an old saying. A boy with nothing much to do can sometimes find the worst possible things to occupy himself.FROM WHAT YOU'VE heard about me, you might come to the conclusion I was a well-behaved child. Well, I don't mean to give you a false picture of what I'm really like. I know it's hard to believe, but sometimes I did stuff that was not admired by my Ma and Pa. I wasn't exactly the devil, but I weren't no angel neither.
Ma and Pa liked to go to town, that bein' Hereford, on Saturday nights. They'd visit friends and sometimes eat at the diner. They left me home to take care of Sister, which is what we call my sister Dorothy. Generally, we behaved ourselves 'cause we knew the consequences if we didn't. One of them Saturdays, I was outside not doin' much of anything. You know, just watchin' the clouds and throwin' rocks and so on.
I noticed a flock of blackbirds lit on Ma's clothesline, so I went in and got the shotgun. I loaded it with smallshot and snuck around the side of the house so's not to scare the birds. I figured I could get the whole flock of birds if I shot straight down the clothesline from one end to the other.
I had to be real quiet, so's I thought I'd sneak up on 'em like I was a Comanche. I got down on my belly and rested the shotgun across my arms. The grass was high enough so I'd not be seen. I dug in my elbows and pulled myself real slow around the corner of the house. When I got to the lilac bush, I got up behind it and checked if the birds had a notion I was there. They just sat on the line and didn't even look my way, so I hunched over and ran lickety-split to the oak tree. From there, I was right at the end of the line and no more'n ten feet away.
I leaned around the tree trunk and eyed the line. Yep, I could see right down it. My hands aren't big enough to span both triggers, so I pulled them one at a time. I figured I'd shoot the first barrel and then real quick-like, fire off the second. That way, I'd get to hit the flock twice.
I eased the shotgun up to my shoulder and pulled back slow on the left-hand trigger. The first shot blasted off and knocked me back a few feet where I landed on my rear end real hard. I still held the shotgun in my hands, but I wasn't in any position to fire off the second barrel. When I sat up and looked to see how many birds I got, I was in for a shock. All that noise and not one feather to show for it. But Ma's clothesline . . . now that's a different story. The durn thing looked like a dead snake layin' there.
I knew right away Ma would not be pleased with this.
Read the rest in TALES OF A TEXAS BOY...
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