Rating: 
Summary: Flagg weaves her magical spell again!
Review: I have read all of Flagg's books and this one is just as sweet and humorous as her others. If you love Southern Fiction, then you will love this book. It is unbeatable! It is a page-turner ~~ you can't help but turn the page in order to keep up with the residents of Elmwood Springs. Dorothy broadcasts her radio show from her living room along with her mother-in-law ~~ bringing local news and gossip to the town and surrounding areas. She brings such warmth and humor into the book that you wish she was your own mother! Or neighbor! Then there is Minnie Oatman, head of a gospel-singing family, her daughter Betty Raye who desires nothing more than to put her roots down somewhere and not travel, there is Bobby, Dorothy's rascally son who is so curious and full of imagination that lives a thousand lives, there is Jimmy, their boarder who is a WWII vet who lost his leg in battle, there is Tot Whooten, Dorothy's neighbor who seems to have a string of bad luck starting with her husband. Then there is Anna Lee, Dorothy's beautiful daughter who is always squabbling with Bobby. There is Hamm Sparks, a man full of ambition, Doc Smith, Dorothy's husband and the town pharamicist. These are just a few of the characters in the book ~~ but you'll warm up to the story telling that spans four decades. You'll laugh with them, cry with them, moan over them and sometimes fight their fights as well. They are people just as real as your neighbors, friends and family are. Flagg writes about the everyday people through the changes of time. It is a very heart-warming book ~~ one that you keep thinking of long after the last page has been turned. I highly recommend this book ~~ not just for its humor but for the indepths Flagg writes about her characters. You know those characters because they are you. This book will haunt you sweetly and make you long for your childhood days again ~~ as well as for the times you've wished you were with your friends and family again. It is a wonderfully detailed book ~~ a guaranteed read. 7-21-03
Rating: 
Summary: A PIECE OF THE PAST
Review: This book is so wonderfully written. I have read "Welcome to the World Baby Girl" and "Fried Green Tomatoes" and although this book was different, it was just as good. Even though the majority of the book takes place before I was born, it made me feel as if I had been there and wanted to go back. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a piece of the past in todays fast and sometimes scarey times.
Rating:
Summary: Glorious!
Review: A hot summer weekend, the front porch swing, and this wonderful book!! Life doesn't get much better, unless you're in Elmwood Springs. I slowed down towards the end of this book, because I did not want it to end. I wanted to step through the pages of this book, and live in Elmwood Springs with all the wonderful people already there. This terrific story is a cross between "Our Town", The "Mitford Series" and "Steel Magnolias". (With more than a pinch of "Fried Green Tomatoes" added for flavor. ) Don't hesitate. You will love this book, love the people in it, and think about them long after you're finished. Please, please, let there be a sequel!
Rating:
Summary: Standiog in the Rainbow
Review: Standing in the Rainbow details the antics and adventures of the inhabitants in the small town of Elmwood Springs, Missouri from 1946 - 2000. The majority of the book focuses on the idyllic years of the forties and fifties and does a solid and entertaining job of establishing the history and connectedness of the people in a town where everyone knew everyone else. Dorothy Smith is the wife of the town's pharmacist (Doc Smith) who has her own daily radio show from her home as "Neighbor Dorothy". Her broadcasts ease the isolation of scattered farm wives, and also give a unique perspective of small town life in the forties and fifties.
Each chapter focuses on some small picture of life that not only serves to further the story line but interconnects the characters as well. What I liked especially about how these chapters were written was that they are so entertaining in of themselves while also building on each other to form the larger story, that of an entire town and the myriad of changes that it goes through in the time span covered in this book.
This was such an enjoyable book that went by all too quickly, but that's okay because there is more of Elmwood Springs in Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!.
Joan Anderson
Rating:
Summary: We're all standing in a rainbow . . .
Review: What an uplifting book. I didn't want the story to end. I want to know more about what happens to the very real characters who live in this book. The author is telling the reader to take notice! We create our world and our rainbow. The most special and magical moments are happening to us right now in the most everyday ways possible. Accept today for the joy it brings and choose to "stand in the rainbow" rather than the rain! I hope to read more about Bobby's life as a teacher, Linda and Buttons, Betty Raye's grandchildren, and all the others.
Rating:
Summary: Another Visit to Elmwood Springs
Review: In this book, Fannie Flagg follows the residents of Elmwood Springs, MO from the 1940's to the present. It tells of their lives as they face the changes and challenges encountered in the 1950's through the 1990's. The reader learns through Neighbor Dorothy's Radio Show how the characters deal with marriages, divorces, births, deaths and retirement. In addition to characters introduced in WELCOME TO THE WORLD, BABY GIRL, the readers meets Bobby Smith, Neighbor Dorothy's mischievous son; Hamm Sparks, an ambitious tractor salesman who enters politics; the gospel-singing Oatman Clan; and others. As in her other books, the author draws on her Alabama roots for "local color" such as names of places - Cascade Plunge, Hillman Hospital, Boutwell Auditorium - and characters - Lily Mae Caldwell, the Hatchers. These are all familiar names to those readers from Birmingham, Alabama. There are some inconsistencies between dates in WELCOME TO THE WORLD, BABY GIRL and STANDING IN THE RAINBOW. However, the stories are so colorful and the characters so warm and human, you are weilling to overlook these errors in time. The bits of wisdom learned from the characters - "I know there are sad things out in the world, but I don't want to dwell on them"; "When a thing is beautiful, what does it matter why?" (Neighbor Dorothy);
"People's lives are sure ruled by a lot of what-if's" (Mrs. Tot Whooten)- make the book enjoyable and fun.
Rating:
Summary: An Unexpected Gem
Review: At about the 200th page in this book I was about to lose all hope that it might pick up some momentum. Surprisingly, it did...and how! As one reviewer mentioned, this is not a book for those who love cynical, dark works of fiction, but it's definately a book for those who look for wholesomeness and good in people and who somehow, in their own way, long for a small town or community to which they can belong and be accepted.
Flagg is an excellent storyteller, using amazing insight to the cycles of life and humanity. This book may not be as strong as her first (and best) book, Coming Attractions, but it still shows that Flagg is a writer that never stops exploring the lighter sides of the human condition.
Rating:
Summary: Good summer read
Review: I recommend this for a vacation book. "Rainbow" is a bunch of short stories connected by characters. And I do mean characters! What a great town Ms. Flagg has developed. I enjoyed Dorothy's radio show thoroughly and like the fact that the book covers nearly 50 years of this town's people. Nice, calm, funny, heartwarming book. Thank you for a wonderful vacation, Ms. Flagg.
Rating:
Summary: Small Town Splendor
Review: This is the first book of Fannie Flagg's that I have read and I found it to be a charmingly written love letter to small town life. The characters and situations deriving from events that occur over decades is charmingly written with characters that are wonderfully fleshed out.
Towards the end of the story, when Miss Flagg begins to relate what happened to each of the characters, you find yourself wishing her to stop, as you don't want to say goodbye to these fun people.
Miss Flagg takes the time to incorporate history into her characters as she relates their stories and thereby weaves magic into the folks from Elmwood Springs.
Rating:
Summary: Mother Smith plays a fanfare on the organ!
Review: Excellent read. I did not find it boring at all. I loved the characters Neighbor Dorothy and Minnie Oatman. Although the book is set in Missouri, it is quite Southern in its quirky and subtle humor.
| 
