Penny Brown Reynolds joked when she turned 50 a few years ago, she was inspired to write a book for 50 women.

The project grew from there into a book of advice, “Real Talk for Real Sisters: Words of Wisdom and Truth of Today’s Women and Teens.”

Reynolds — a St. John the Baptist Parish native known nationally as Judge Penny following her work helming the television show, “Family Court with Judge Penny” — will be signing copies of the book from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Feb. 4 at St. John the Baptist Parish Library in LaPlace.

When I spoke with Judge Penny this week, she shared that her latest literary effort produced more than 400 pages, of which 200 pages are included in “Real Talk for Real Sisters.”

Fans of her work should be excited to know a second volume will publish in another year or two.

Reynolds graduated from East St. John High School and attended college in Georgia before embarking on an impressive legal career that included work as the Executive Counsel for the Georgia governor, serving as chief of staff for the lieutenant governor’s office and work as an assistant attorney general in Georgia.

“Coming out of Louisiana, we have very good wisdom, often articulated in catchy little phrases,” Reynolds said. “I have declared them soul-saving sayings. (This book) was a way of honoring my grandmother, who helped raise me with my mother.”

Reynolds said young women are in greater need of positive role models today to combat the negative images reality television often portrays.

To help, she holds an annual conference that draws more than 6,000 women and girls from all races and religions in an effort to bring people together for positive change.

“I think my message, because I am also an ordained minister, is to help us move past just color and get to a place where there is common standards of decency and respect,” Reynolds said.

It’s a message she hopes translates locally, as much as anywhere.

In addition to signing books in LaPlace next month, Reynolds will also host an empowering discussion on various topics.

She also plans to visit St. John Alternative School, where her cousin Orlando Watkins is acting principal, to speak with students about her “You Matter Tour.”

“I want to talk to the young people in particular, the ones who are maybe the most troubled and let them know there is a better way for them,” she said. “It’s not that I necessarily want them to believe that leaving St. John Parish is the way out. St. John Parish provided the foundation to believe that from LaPlace, all roads led to anyplace in this world that I wanted to go.”

Reynolds said she was born to a single mother who did everything in her power to instill the best of everything St. John the Baptist Parish had to offer.

Her mother relied on education, strong neighborhoods and the community bonding power of food — qualities she feels young people take for granted or aren’t utilizing.

“We were rich with wisdom, but my grandfather was a farmer and my grandmother was a homemaker,” she said. “I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth. What I was given were values that were greater than anything  money can buy. My visit home signifies that it doesn’t matter what side of the tracks you grow up on, it’s what you do with your life and what you do in terms of appreciating it and never forgetting where you come from.”

Stephen Hemelt is publisher and editor of L’OBSERVATEUR. He can be reached at 985-652-9545 or stephen.hemelt@lobservateur.com.