Author Tells a Different Kind of Christmas Story

In Gulf Port, Ms, an area ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, Ms. Gangi promoted a book by a different author, “The Storm,” by Barbara McGrath. “Because the children of Katrina saw their houses drown and know now what Christmas is all about.” The illustrations were done by children of all ages who survived the hurricane.

In Buffalo, New York, she asked people to remember the evergreens and the Blizzard of 1977 and promoted “The Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein. In Pensacola, Florida, she reminded people that Hurricane Ivan left blue roofs and changed people’s live and asked them to buy “Love You Forever, by Robert Munsch and Sheila McGraw.”

“Unconditional love,” she says, “is putting your intentions first. My intention is love and I have no problem promoting books from other authors that help adults and children find that part of themselves so many of us have lost.”

Gangi will be in Fairhope, Mobile, and Montgomery, Alabama, and then back to Buffalo, Rochester, and Fredonia, New York telling stories that carry that message. She’ll be signing copies of her own books and then traveling to North Carolina, Georgia, and Kentucky. “People say I’m crazy and I should be promoting my own writing. If my books sell, that’s great,” she says. “But it is also important that people start reading other books that truly send a message, and that they read them to their children so they can learn the true meaning of unconditional love and of Christmas.”