Local author Nancy Barry to sign book

Elizabethtown author Nancy Barry pens a book of stories too good not to be told.

Jill Pickett

“Lightning Bugs and Sunday School” by Nancy Barry

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“It only took 72 years,” she said.

Barry wanted to write a book since she was 3 years old.

She was too poor to have toys and too little to go out and became bored. She went to school with her mother to enroll her brother in first grade and discovered the wonder of books. Barry became a lifelong lover of books, counting “The Yearling” and “Heaven is for Real” as some of her favorites.

Her book, “Lightning Bugs and Sunday School,” is filled with stories she gathered over about four years. After she finished, the book was too big so she had to remove 92 stories to accommodate the size.
“The good ones are left,” she said.

Some of the stories are from Barry’s memories and some were collected from others.

Most of the entries take a page or less to tell.

She encourages everyone to write short paragraphs of the accounts of wonderful things that happen to them or that they hear happened to other people. All those paragraphs might be used someday to compile a book, she said.

Her favorite stories are inspirational. She likes stories of angels or people explaining how God took care of them in tough situations.

She even included space between stories in the book so readers could fill in similar memories or happenings in their own lives, to become a part of the story.

Three days before her 75th birthday, Aug. 11, Barry will sign her book at Barnes & Noble in Elizabethtown. The signing starts at 11 a.m.

Copies of the book can be purchased online at the Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million websites. It can be purchased at Barnes & Noble in Elizabethtown by request.

The book also can be found at the Hardin County History Museum and the Lincoln Museum in Hodgenville.

Becca Owsley can be reached at (270) 505-1741 or bowsley@thenewsenterprise.com.