Small-town Alabama boys Jimmy and Johnny recently helped police crack the case Hardy Boy-style on some neighborhood drug problems, saved the day and got a thank-you letter from the president.
That’s fiction but to say that David deGruy’s book “As the Sparks Fly Upward,” of whom Jimmy and Johnny are the main characters, garnered presidential attention would be completely true.
Just after Hurricane Ivan struck the Mobile Bay area full force, deGruy, a member of Dauphin Way Baptist Church, Mobile, read a heart-wrenching article in the local newspaper about a child fearful that her school’s storybooks had been wiped out by the storm.
Nearly all of the schools in Baldwin and Mobile counties were dealt at least some damage by Ivan.
A phone call later, deGruy’s publisher, Hannibal Books in Garland, Texas, offered to donate 100 of deGruy’s books to the cause- 50 each to the Baldwin and Mobile county school systems. Since then, the books have circulated in the school’s classrooms and libraries, offering three short stories with practical life lessons easily read by children- and ending each chapter with a written prayer.
“Some friends have suggested that maybe this was God’s way of getting prayer back in schools – that perhaps the hurricane paved the way for that to happen,” deGruy said.
Soon after the books were distributed, deGruy received a stack of letters and thank-you notes showing appreciation for the books and their life lessons.
He even received a letter from first lady Laura Bush commending his bringing “smiles to many children, teachers and librarians.”
The book’s three stories are a trilogy about two brothers and family values, deGruy said. “I’m hoping it will help them (the school children) to put their experiences into perspective and see the greater good.”
(TAB)
Share with others: