Catching Fireflies: The Sweet Magnolias, Book 9

Catching Fireflies: The Sweet Magnolias Book 9 is by Sherryl Woods. Book nine is probably the best of the books in the series. The action never stops once it starts. This book deals directly with bullying.Misty Dawson was skipping English again and Ms Reed was very concerned. Misty was an excellent student who really wanted to go to a great college so needed all her AP classes. She needed to get to the bottom of this before Misty ended up suspended. What could be causing her to skip class? Really concerned, Ms Reed talked to Cal Maddox, the coach, and another teacher friend. Both felt the principal needed to be involved. Ms. Reed didn’t because the principal would suspend Misty before looking further into why she was skipping. She was a stickler for the rules.In searching for a reason for the skipping, Laura Reed ended up talking to J.C. Fullerton, the town pediatrician for advice. He had talked to Misty when she wanted an excuse to not attend school. He told her to talk to another adult or he would get her parents involved. So, Misty had talked to Ms. Reed and now she was consulting J.C. As the problem accelerates, they keep meeting over dinner or in the park and the town gossips begin their talk about a romance between the two.When Laura catches Annabelle Litchfield bullying Misty at the Fall Festival, the bullying she had been doing begins to come to light and it is bad. The town begins to get involved and sides are taken. As more people get involved, things take a turn for the worst with Annabelle and Misty. Where would this end?

I have been rereading the first books in the Sweet Magnolia series before catching up with the new ones I had missed. This is the second of the books I haven't read before. It has hit me the hardest, too. I am sure we all have dealt with bullying at one time or another. As a child myself and a parent and a teacher, I have seen how cruel kids can be. Fortunately, I have never seen anything this bad, but is easy to see how this can get out of hand. It is everyone's responsibility to fight this, and yet it is so hard to do. However, it is always easier to stop when kids start being mean, than to let it escalate. This book looks at how 2 adults look into a problem that a child they know is having. Laura and J.C. both are sure that this girl has some terrible problem, but it takes a lot of investigation to find the cause. They are both leery about getting involved in a relationship, but they can't seem to help getting interested, while they are both trying to help this girl.The pace is engrossing, the tone is serious but hopeful and the storyline is character oriented with some slightly steamy scenes. The characters are vibrant and endearing. Read these books in order and all at one time to get the most out of these stories. Enjoy!

Am amazing story teller! Totally love it!

This was a very interesting book that addresses the problems with bullying especially in high school. It is a subject that has gotten a lot of attention lately. While the subject has always existed it seems to have significantly worse with the extreme popularity of social networking sites. While these sites have been in existence for a while; ie myspace. Our obsession with these sites is reasonable new though with the invention of facebook and twitter. It now seems to be a place where bullying is running rampant.These are some of the issues that are discussed in this book and while it seems for the most part to be handled very realisticly there was one area that to me did not make sense. When the adults in the story figured out it was bullying no one seemed to understand that the place to look for evidence was on the Internet. It seemed that while no was surprised bullying was going on it did not occur to them to look on the social networking sites. I also thought that it seemed strange that once they did figure it out that no one thought to suggest to the victims that they might wantto avoid those sites at least until the legalities were sorted out and everyone involved in the torture was punished.In this day and age with all the media coverage on this issue it seems like we need to be even more aware of what our children our seeing and posting on such sites. There is no longer any excuse for being unaware.This is an excellent book that held my attention from beginning to end and I would strongly recommend it to anyone with an adolescent.

This series has mixed good romances with a number of teen problems that often are hidden from the very people who need to know about them in order to help their children. Catching Fireflies takes on school bullying in a big way.Misty is a top student. Recently she has been cutting certain classes, and her AP English teacher Laura Reed is worried about her. Laura tries to get information from Misty, but Misty refuses to admit she has a problem - she hopes if she doesn't say anything, the problem will go away. Finally, Misty goes to J.C., her pediatrician and asks him to write a letter excusing her from going to school for medical reasons - but she refuses to tell him why.Laura and J.C. are both very concerned - and both suspect bullying because of their personal experience as teens. As they find themselves working together to find out what's happening with Misty, they also find themselves attracted to each other.The bullying escalates, largely in the form of progressively more offensive Facebook postings complete with doctored pornographic photos supposedly of Misty. The harm caused by the bullying - and the bullies parents attitude that it is typical teen-age interaction - is shown vividly. The threat that one of their children is at risk of doing serious harm to herself feels very real. This is a strong message. I hope all who read this book will take heed.

Sherryl Woods draws you into the characters and backgrounds of her stories covering scenarios that you wouldn't expect. The people become real to you you can feel their joys and sorrows.

Tackled a harrowing storyline very well & the added romance & town support system was portrayed very well great read well done

I enjoyed all the books in this series. Now starting to read other books by this author.

I Love the way her books intertwine relating to the stories of groups of people in a village or town!Its like reading a very thick novel.

I really enjoyed the book but it needed some more proof reading as in a couple of places Raylene spoke about her step-daughters when in fact they were her step-sisters.