Barbara Cole Reviews:

"Birdbaths and Papercranes"
by Sharon Randall

The woman who dropped her left red sandal on my keyboard would have liked reading Sharon Randall. When the woman dropped it the second time, I thought she would like to write like her. Remind me not to use my keyboard while sitting on the low bench of a set of bleachers.

Randall is another woman whose life could be among those that many women could envy. While her life has seemed wholesome she has had her own struggles, including that of dealing with her precocious blind brother. She has lost a husband to cancer and found success unexpectedly. We think as we read her writing that we, too, could write like that. We think it is easy to just tell of our lives, that surely they are as fascinating as hers. In fact, they are but we don't tell about them and if we do, we don't tell about in a way that makes them scintillating and titillating.

It is not what we have happen to us in life but what we do with it that makes the difference. It is also, not just what happens to us when we live life but it is how we write about it. Randall can write about it in a way that makes us want to know more.

Some things are for a reason, some for a season and some for a life is what my new South African friend said about her new relationship with a man. Hmmm. I had not heard that phrase. Sharon Randall's writing is for all three. The reason to read it is to laugh, relax and understand how another family lives life and to see how another human being interprets life. It is for a season but for reasons. And it is for a lifetime, both Randalls's and our own.