Author Allen Johnson Jr debuts Blackwater Novels

Allen Johnson Jr., grandson to Crawford Johnson founder of Coca-Cola Bottling Company United, debuts his Blackwater Novels with the January 1 release of My Brother’s Story.

Allen, who writes for young people, served on the board of Coca-Cola United for 41 years. Johnson, who’s grandfather was a pioneer bottler, says the Blackwater Novels reflect the way he  grew up outside of Birmingham Alabama, in the 1940s.

“Boyhood was a verb, in my day,” he says. “After chasing, wrestling and exploring in the woods, we would come in and guzzle three or four six-and-a-half ounce Co’Colas, as we call them in the South. When I was a boy, we had no problem with obesity. We didn’t have time for it. We we’re always on the move and needed every calorie we could get!” – Allen Johnson Jr.

“Co’Colas are featured in all of the Blackwarter Novels,” Johnson says.

The Blackwater Novels are set in the 1930s along the Blackwater River and Blackwater Swamp, near the fictional town of Turpentine, Georgia, and in the countryside near Birmingham, Alabama. Explore the magic and mystery of nature . . . hear the critters in the swamp, sleep in a treehouse, find a hidden grave, and sleep on an island by the embers of a campfire. Get in trouble with the twins when they shoot green tomatoes in a giant slingshot, and dynamite a toilet with a cherry bomb. Join Linc, Sheriff Clyde and Dr. Mason when they confront the poisonous nest of snakes called the Ku Klux Klan, and Henry Granger’s evil presence in the dead house.