Barbara Hance has compiled some of her favorite stories pulled from 20 years of working with the elderly as a life care consultant.

Each short story will touch the heartstrings and funnybones of any reader who has a loved one coping with that dreaded disease called "growing old."

Don't Buy Green Bananas... covers a broad range of age-related issues from depression and mental illness to dating and sex. Each topic is handled with the type of empathy and understanding that makes it an enjoyable book for caregivers and families of the elderly. At the end of each chapter is a kind of "how to" list that expands on the chapter's topic and gives informative advice on tried and true methods of coping through these issues.

"When I started this book, I hoped to change the way society viewed aging in some way," admits Hance. "These stories are the actual experiences of our clients and some of my favorite memories."

The characters that Barbara introduces the reader to are rich and full of dignity and life, even as they approach the end of it. Meet Claire who chose to be buried in a gold lame evening gown from Paris; and Midge whose loving husband Sam finds her standing dressed in the shower washing her clothes.

Don't Buy Green Bananas... may sound like a strange name for a warmhearted book written for the elderly community and their caretakers, but it aptly explains what the author describes as "traveling down that one-way street called aging."