Becky Lewellen Povich

In From Pigtails to Chin Hairs: A Memoir & More, Becky Lewellen Povich takes us from her young Midwest childhood in the 1950s to present day near St. Louis, Missouri. Each chapter is a scene from everyday life and/or unexpected events written in the way only Povich can, with humor and poignancy woven into them. She relates tales of Christmases, summertime fun, selling homemade potholders, and putting on parades. Also, the kids next door, classmates, her fear of the dentist and her parents' scheme to help, plus long car rides visiting her grandparents in small town Iowa.

She willingly shares the bittersweet times, too, which include her parents' divorce, major disappointments, preteen and teenage angst, a whack on her head from a falling crowbar, and her ill-fated first marriage, spent mostly in Germany. She also comically writes about her happy second marriage, cell phones, dishwashers, and how she was born with a klutz gene.