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Book Review: When We Were on Fire by Addie Zierman

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I can say little of what “the 90s Christian subculture” looked like, except inasmuch as I (and my church’s youth group) was a part of the 90s Christian subculture. Yet reading Addie Zierman’s memoir of her own experience in the 90s Christian subculture suggests that my experience was far more normative than I would have guessed.

You see, we were charismatics – and I’ve long been willing to believe that charismatics were more inclined to tolerate fanaticism and develop extreme subcultures. I assumed that perhaps we were unique in that respect.

The 90s Christian subculture, as I experienced it, was one that declared that “youth aren’t just the future of the church – they are the church”. While the statement, in and of itself, is perfectly reasonable, the outworkings of this worldview was making youth the stars of the church. The youth group was a big deal. The youth sat in the front rows and set the tone for the worship experience during Sunday morning services. At least once a year, there was a youth commissioning sort of service, commissioning either recent high school grads (in May) or current high school students (in August) to the mission field of their schools. Once a year, the youth group was given control of the Sunday morning service, where our worship team led the singing and our students tag-teamed a sermon.

We were all about being “on fire”. We were going to be a Joshua generation, a Jacob generation, a whatever-Biblical-character-you-can-come-up-with generation. One thing was for sure. We weren’t going to be the ordinary Christians of all the generations before us. We were going to be world-changers, earth-shakers, mountain-movers.

That we felt this way as youth is not surprising. Does not every generation of teenagers think that they are unique, that somehow their experience of teenage-hood is completely different than every other generation’s? Does not every generation think, in the hubris of newly surging hormones, that they are more powerful, more passionate, more right than every generation before them?

What seems so odd to me now is that we were encouraged in this train of thought. We were told in youth group on Wednesday nights, from the pulpit on Sunday mornings, in the raft of exciting youth rallies we attended that we truly were the generation that would make a difference, that would break through the steady monotony of Christian history and do something spectacular for the Lord.

Reading When We Were on Fire brought me back to my teenagers years. I read with nostalgia and with regret – but mostly, as I read, I wondered why we were encouraged to such self-importance.

Zeirman dreamed, like many of us, of being different, of changing the world. She would be a missionary’s wife, she figured, make a difference in the world alongside a charismatic missionary husband. She had an on-again-off-again relationship with a fellow dreamer, one who was intensely committed to his dream of being a missionary. Of course, in the wake of I Kissed Dating Goodbye, dating was not something that good-Christian-dreaming-of-being-a-missionary kids did. Thus the on-again-off-again. When conviction hit (generally on the fellow’s part), the relationship was off, not that he didn’t still hold plenty of sway over Addie. Zierman’s someone was heavy on the rules that 90s Christian subculture was heavy on – modesty (which was always a woman’s problem and never a man’s), listening to Christian music (secular stuff is evil), whatever – and Addie needed to be as committed and as inflexible as he on those points.

The relationship ended for real before Zierman went off to college. Addie chose a Christian college because she was tired of the continued pressure of being separate from the world, of being at war. She was ready for a break from the front-lines. In college, Zierman began her process of falling away from the faith.

I, too, got weary of the constant internal pressure to be different, on fire, world changing. I became disillusioned when I discovered that I was ordinary after all.

But my story diverges from Zierman’s in several key ways. While Zierman jumped from the emotional legalism of her high school youth group into the less-emotionally-charged-but-still-legalistic Christian college, I became involved with UNL’s campus Navigators and spent a summer in Jacksonville, Florida. In Jacksonville, God used a sermon by Jerry Bridges to radically change my view of justification. I grew to have a much lower view of myself, and a much higher view of God. I missed the emotionalism of my youth, but I began to build a solid intellectual foundation for my faith – a foundation that has enabled me to keep faith even as emotions have come and gone. I moved to Columbus, Nebraska and joined a local church where I developed a strong ecclesiology.

Zierman didn’t fit in at college, got married to an ordinary Christian guy, grew disillusioned with the church. She and her husband struggled with finding a church, found one her husband liked but that she didn’t. She wanted to leave, he kept up relationships with their old church, she didn’t. She found her own community among the disgruntled, the bitter, the agnostics or atheists. She fell in love with alcohol and almost cheated on her husband.

And then she slowly found her way back.

I don’t know how to review this book, don’t know how to separate Zierman’s experiences from my own, don’t know how to be objective when reading through Addie’s experiences. This book evoked such nostalgia, such nausea, such sorrow. I hated it and loved it. I am thankful for the grace of God in bringing me through the 90s Christian subculture with so much less sorrow than Zieman experienced.

Rating: ?
Category: Memoir – faith
Synopsis: Addie Zierman tells the story of living in the 90s Christian youth subculture, of falling away after its promises didn’t pan out, of slowly returning.
Recommendation: I don’t know

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard

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Adventure is not my genre, I told myself as I read the various introductions to June’s Reading to Know Classics bookclub pick. But I’m reading along with the bookclub, so I’ll read Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines.

Having read King Solomon’s Mines, I wonder why I decided that adventure wasn’t my genre. I thoroughly enjoyed this tale of an English gentleman, a former British naval captain, and a white adventurer/elephant hunter traveling through South Africa in search of the former’s brother, who had not been heard of since he left on his quest to find the legendary diamond mines belonging to the ancient King Solomon.

Allan Quatermain, the adventurer and elephant hunter, is the book’s narrator – and he describes the action in down-to-earth style. Allan knows something of the mines, but he also knows that no man who has seen them has lived – so he’s circumspect as he begins this quest, leading the expedition north. He has received promise of a share of any findings, but has little hope of returning to civilization with diamonds in store. Instead, he carries on the expedition for the sake of his son, a medical student in London. As payment for his leading the expedition, Quatermain has arranged that, on the occasion of his death (which is almost certain), a generous stipend is to be paid to Quatermain’s son by the gentleman (or his estate). And thus he goes to what is almost certainly death.

What follows is a story of dangerous hunts, unexpected revelations, and even a battle. As adventure goes, this had a little bit of everything – but no single dimension was so emphasized that I got tired of the creepiness of a witch, the danger of the hunt, or the clash of steel against steel (actually, I don’t remember if the battle involved steel or wood – and I returned the book before I reviewed it – Gah!)

King Solomon’s Mines has officially made me rethink my earlier position that adventure is not my genre. Adventure done like this is definitely up my alley!

Rating: 4 stars
Category: Adventure
Synopsis: Three white men set out into the inner portion of South Africa in search of one of the men’s brothers – who had been searching for King Solomon’s legendary diamond mines.
Recommendation: This was good. Even if you don’t think adventure is your thing, it’d be worth giving it a try.

I read this as a part of Carrie’s Reading to Know Classics Book Club Check out what other bloggers are saying about this book at this month’s conclusion post.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: Bottled Up by Suzanne Barston

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Of course, Suzanne Barston intended to breastfeed. She intended to be a good mom – and, as the subject of internet-based reality show hosted by Pampers.com, she had incentive to do everything right.

When breastfeeding went poorly and she started supplementing, eventually giving up on breastfeeding entirely, she spent months ashamed over her “failure” before deciding to embrace her ultimate decision as “The Fearless Formula Feeder” (the blog where she can now be found.

Bottled Up follows some of Suzanne’s journey, but it goes far beyond a memoir. Barston argues that breastfeeding is not a good option for many women, does not live up to its extravagant health claims, and is overly politicized.

As an avid breastfeeding promoter (a good portion of my job is helping women understand the benefits of breastfeeding and helping them to successfully initiate and maintain breastfeeding), this book was frustrating, challenging, and sometimes painful – but in a good way.

Barston begins by arguing that breastfeeding promotion is all about fear and guilt: fear that you’ll be perceived as a bad mother (which makes you choose to breastfeed in the first place) and guilt that you weren’t able or willing to breastfeed (when you choose not to breastfeed or end up quitting.) I do not doubt that there is plenty of fear and guilt wrapped up in breastfeeding. There is a lot of fear and guilt wrapped up in parenting in general. But I wonder if this is how the women who enter my office perceive me to be operating. Do they feel that I am trying to use fear to induce them to breastfeed when I tell them about the marvelous immunological benefits of breastmilk and the many childhood ailments that breastfed babies have reduced risk for? Does the suggestion of risk reduction mean fear mongering? Many of these women have no reason to fear postpartum hemorrhage, yet I might still tell them that breastfeeding in the immediate postpartum reduces risk of postpartum hemorrhage. Does this produce fear for an adverse event (hemorrhage) rather than wonder at the marvels of our bodies (what I experience when I think about the effects of the hormone milieu of early postpartum breastfeeeding)? Do the women who didn’t breastfeed or didn’t breastfeed for long with their earlier children feel guilt when I encourage them that every breastfeeding experience is different and that just because they had some difficulties with one child does’t mean they’ll have those same difficulties with the next? Or do they understand that information as I intend it – to empower them to make a decision now unbounded by the fear of past experiences?

Next Barston discusses “lactation failures”, giving herself as a prime example. She started supplementing at two days when her infant had lost 10% of his body weight and was experiencing jaundice from AB-O blood incompatibility. The hospital pediatrician had offered Barston an option: “waiting it out” or supplementing with formula – and Barston chose supplementing, hoping to get herself and her baby out of the hospital as quickly as possible. Based on this experience, and a review of the many medical conditions for which the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine does not feel supplementation is warranted, Barston believes that the today’s medical community is inappropriately disinclined to supplement and does so at the expense of infants – and their mothers. She argues that the common medical belief that only 1-5% of women experience primary lactation failure is scientifically baseless and that a much greater proportion of women are physically unable to breastfeed.

As a breastfeeding advocate, I frequently remind women that most women can successfully produce sufficient milk for their babies. I believe the 1-5% number, despite it being, yes, just an estimate. The simple fact is that there is no way for us to know, of those women who give up breastfeeding or supplement on day 2, how many of those women were incapable of producing sufficient milk and how many simply hadn’t had their milk “come in” yet (It’s a rare woman who has mature and voluminous milk on the second day postpartum – a more typical timeline is 3-5 days postpartum.) The number of women who enter my office complaining of engorgement after quitting breastfeeding because they “didn’t make enough” is astounding. I believe that there is true primary lactation failure. It exists. Other women (like my sister-in-law) experience secondary lactation failure, where their milk supply suddenly disappears due to extreme stress or starting a breastfeeding incompatible form of birth control. But the majority of women, including the ones who come into my office saying they quit because they weren’t making enough, are physiologically capable of producing breastmilk (and in sufficient quantities to meet their infant’s needs.)

I encourage women not to supplement – especially not in the first two weeks. I discuss what they can expect in those first two weeks. Baby might be really drowsy in the hospital and then “suddenly” be hungry all the time once you get home. That’s normal and not a sign that you don’t have enough milk. Normal babies have tiny stomachs that can’t stretch – they need to eat 8-12 times a day in those early days. Normal babies lose weight in their first few days of life. This is because they started out with a lot of fluid (even more if you had an IV during delivery), it doesn’t mean you don’t have enough milk. Your milk will start out yellowish and if you tried pumping it, you might only see a few drops in the bottle because the rest is stuck in the tubing. This is colostrum, it’s wonderful and he doesn’t need large amounts at a time (remember how little his tummy is?) What’s more, baby is better at getting milk from your breasts than the pump – don’t try to pump to figure out how much you’re making. Etc, etc, etc. I repeat it at least a dozen times in my “what to expect” speech: “That doesn’t mean you’re not making enough milk.” What does mean you’re not making enough milk? I educate them on that too – and I encourage them to let that be a sign for them to drop by the breastfeeding clinic at the hospital where they delivered. Most of the time, I explain, insufficient milk supply at the beginning is correctable. A lactation consultant (free at the hospital you delivered at in Wichita) can help you troubleshoot what’s going on with yours – they can evaluate latch and see if baby has a tongue tie or is pulling his lower lip in; they can do before and after weights to see how much transfer is actually taking place, they can walk through your breastfeeding routine and help you learn how to increase your supply. If your baby is showing some of the warning signs of not enough milk, don’t supplement, instead get yourself over to a lactation consultant!

In other words, I spout the stuff Barston complains about.

At the end of the second chapter, Barston explains how the seventh lactation consultant she and her son saw finally discovered the cause for the pain she had been experiencing while breastfeeding. Her son was tongue-tied. Barston describes how common this situation is and takes it as another proof that breastfeeding advocates are lying when they say that most women are able to breastfeed.

My chest aches and my eyes fill with tears.

I pray that I am not one of the six lactation consultants who offered ineffective advice without truly discovering the cause of breastfeeding difficulties. I pray I’m not one who tells women to just try harder, just keep going, it’ll get better without addressing their real needs.

Tongue tie is a true breastfeeding complication – but it doesn’t make breastfeeding impossible. A skilled lactation consultant can help the mother of many tongue-tied babies to find a position that allows for sufficient breastmilk transfer and avoids pain for the mother and the child. If the first consultant had discovered the tongue-tie, had helped Barston find a good position that worked for her and her child, would this book exist? Probably not.

Like I said, this book was frustrating, challenging, and sometimes painful.

I’m glad I read it. I feel it has given me much more perspective into how women who have “failed” at breastfeeding perceive our current breastfeeding culture – and how the breastfeeding community has let down some vulnerable mothers. Reading this enhanced my belief that most women know that breastfeeding is good for their babies – they don’t need to be convinced of breastfeeding’s benefits. Instead, they need to be educated regarding how to breastfeed, what to expect, how to know if something’s going well or poorly, and how to get help. And they need to receive careful individualized help when they ask for it. As breastfeeding support people, we need to ask questions, listen to mothers, and determine root causes of breastfeeding difficulties before we start handing out prescriptive advice (breastfeed more, put some lanolin on it, eat oatmeal). And we need to stop making the ideal the enemy of the good. We need to admit that many women are going to supplement even though we know exclusive breastfeeding is the best route – and we need to help them give baby as much breastmilk as they are willing or able to give.

I think this is a valuable book for all of us in breastfeeding support professions.

I do not think it’s a good book for mothers in general. Barston swings so far from the “breast is best” that she calls into question pretty much every bit of breastfeeding research that’s ever been done. Now, it’s true that breastfeeding research (like all research, but especially that sort that deals with human choices) is far from perfect, but the bulk of the evidence supports breastfeeding as the optimal feeding choice for both mothers and infants. The undecided reader of this book (or maybe the one who only knows from her friends who latched their baby on once that breastfeeding hurts) might get the impression that breastmilk substitutes are basically as good as breastmilk. And that just isn’t true. Breastmilk substitutes have been a lifesaver to infants whose mothers have been unable to breastfeed for all sorts of reasons. They are designed by scientists to meet an infant’s needs the best we know how. But breastmilk substitutes are to breastmilk what vegan bacon is to real bacon – an awfully poor substitute. If you can give your child breastmilk, it’s by far the better option.

I realize that this is an emotionally charged issue – and that my unapologetic preference for breastmilk over breastmilk substitutes makes me subject to accusations of insensitivity. Please believe me that I am not judging the women who don’t breastfeed or feel that they can’t breastfeed (and I certainly hope you don’t believe I’m judging the women who actually can’t breastfeed despite their desire to do so!) In fact, I frequently find myself reminding women that every drop of breastmilk their babies did get made a difference – and that they can wear their two weeks of breastfeeding proudly. I cheer for the women whose babies get formula during the day but who breastfeed at night because it’s easier than getting up to make a bottle – Good for them! I sympathize with the women who were told by a doctor or someone else that they needed to start supplementing or else and who found their supply dwindling as a result. And I try to make sure that every pregnant woman who comes into my office has more than just information about the benefits of breastfeeding but the practical help she needs to be successful at breastfeeding – whether that be for the three days she’s in the hospital, for the six weeks she’s at home with baby before returning to work, for six months combined with formula, or for two years with never a bottle to be found.

Rating: 3 stars
Category: Breastfeeding – social aspects
Synopsis: Barston argues against the current breastfeeding culture and argues that breastfeeding is not necessarily the best choice for moms and babies.
Recommendation: Recommended for breastfeeding support people as a call to compassionate care, but not really recommended otherwise.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: Naked Economics by Charles Wheelan

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So, apparently economics is really boring. Or at least, it is if your only exposure is a high school or college Econ 101.

I never had the dubious pleasure of taking Econ 101, so I’ve always considered economics to be fun.

Charles Wheelan’s Naked Economics seeks to undo this apparently common misconception by “undressing” economics from the equations that presumably cause the average economics student to consider economics boring.

Since I’ve never considered economics boring, I don’t know how well this book succeeds at its goal – I do, however, know that I found this to be a simple and fascinating introduction to economics.

Wheelan addresses how markets work, what incentives do, how governments help and hinder things, how to measure economies, what the federal reserve does, and much more.

It’s great. It defines terms, fleshes out principles, and makes economics absolutely simple.

But I like economics. So I really can’t say much.

Except that, if you don’t like economics or have always been intimidated by it, you should probably check this book out.

It might just change your view of the “dismal science”.

Rating: 4 stars
Category: Economics
Synopsis: Wheelan gives a basic no-math introduction to economics.
Recommendation: If you find your eyes glazing over when people start talking economics – or if you enjoy economics – this is a good introduction to the wonderful (actually very interesting) world of economics.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: Cotillion by Georgette Heyer

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I’ve been reading and enjoying Georgette Heyer since my early teenage years, but until this month, I could not have pointed out a particular Heyer book as my favorite. I am now happy to announce that Cotillion has filled that long open spot.

The rich but notoriously tight-fisted Matthew Penicuik has summoned his four grandnephews to his country home, declaring that he intends to settle his will. Almost everyone understands what this means. Penicuik intends to settle his fortune on his ward, Miss Kitty Charing – and intends that one of his grandnephews marry her. In fact, he so intends that one of his grandnephews marry her that he makes her inheriting conditional upon this term. If she does not marry one of the four, Uncle Matthew will leave his fortune to charity, leaving Kitty penniless and his nephews without any portion of his estate.

After Uncle Matthew announces his intentions to the two of his four nephews who answered the summons, he leaves his nephews with Kitty in the drawing room. Dim-witted Lord Dolphinton, at his mother’s behest, announces to Kitty that he is an earl and therefore a desirable match. Kitty clearly sees the designs of Lady Dolphinton behind this proposal and graciously declines Dolph’s offer – much to his delight. At this, the Reverend Hugh Rattray announces his own suit. He, of course, has no desire for the money, but does not wish for Kitty to end up penniless – and since neither Freddy nor Jack have shown up to press their own suits, he shall do the honors. Kitty summarily rejects this offer too and decides to run away, so humiliating is this whole situation.

But in the course of her running away, she happens upon “Cousin Freddy” who is a bit late in coming to hear his uncle’s announcement. He received the message late and hadn’t intended to go anyway since he had no interest in his great-uncle’s fortune (and no thought that the way of obtaining it would be to marry Kitty.) Yet when Cousin Freddy ran into Cousin Jack at a club, Jack had convinced Freddy that he really ought to go. When Kitty runs into Freddy, she at first berates him for coming – she had thought better of him than to angle after her for money – and then begs him to become engaged to her once she realizes that he had no intention of offering for her.

Her would be her chance, she thought. If she were betrothed to Freddy, she could go to London to visit his mother and enjoy a month-long reprieve from her tiresome life in the country. She could at last see the town – and perhaps, well, see… But no, of course, she had no desire to see Jack. That was not at all the plan. Although…betrothed to Freddy, she could perhaps prove to Jack that she wasn’t just waiting for him to offer for her in his own sweet time.

Thus begins a delightful romp of sham engagements and secret engagements and attractions that can never turn into engagements. That said, it’s not a super-sappy romance full of long speeches and loverly looks. Instead, it’s like watching a complicated country dance, in which partners are always switching and the usual comedies of unmatched partners arise.

I highly recommend this particular Heyer title.

Rating: 5 stars
Category: Regency Romance
Synopsis: Country-bred orphaned Kitty embarks upon a month in London under the watchful eye of her faux-fiance
Recommendation: If you like romances or Heyer or comedy – or if you’ve been told you should read Heyer at some point – this is the book for you.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: My Man Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

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Last month’s read for the Reading to Know Classics Bookclub was My Man Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse, selected by Cassandra of Adventist Homemaker.

I’d already read everything my old local library had by Wodehouse (therefore closing him out in my “Read through the Library” challenge), so I wasn’t entirely certain if I’d be reading along here in April.

But when I looked through the list of what I had already read, I didn’t find My Man Jeeves within it – and it so happened that my new local library had an audio version (but not a printed copy.) Considering that the audio was only 4-6 hours long (I don’t remember how long exactly), I figured I might as well play along.

Once I started listening, my first thought was that I had heard this story before. Did I read it in the past and just not log it? I let the CD continue to play and paid it no more mind, listening as the stories became increasingly unfamiliar.

And yes, they are stories with an -ES. I expected this to be somewhat like the other Jeeves and Wooster tales I’ve read, quick-to-read novels with a defined story arc that carries through the entirety. This was not that.

Instead, My Man Jeeves is a collection of short stories about Jeeves and Wooster – and also about Reggie Pepper and his man. The stories were originally written for magazines and then compiled into this volume – and Reggie Pepper was an early incarnation of the man who would be Wooster, the not-so-smart-but-friendly chap who narrates the Jeeves books.

Each story follows a similar plot: Wooster (or Reggie) or one of his friends gets into some sort of scrape, often a love affair or a threat from a wealthy relative to cut off his allowance, which Jeeves (or Reggie’s man) helps extricate him from. Generally, things get worse before they get better, in a comedy of errors that Jeeves almost always anticipates.

But what makes these simple tales shine is Wodehouse’s characteristic wit. He writes in a down to earth style, full of slang (which is sometimes not that comprehensible since it’s from the 1910-1930s and possibly British in origin) but completely delightful. I never fail to laugh at Wodehouse’s descriptions and narratives.

Another delightful aspect of Wodehouse’s style, which appears liberally in My Man Jeeves is his attention to style – that is, to men’s clothing. In almost every one of Wooster’s escapades, Wooster happens upon an article of clothing (or sometimes a way of wearing his facial hair) which he considers all that but of which his dignified valet disapproves. When Jeeves expresses his opinion (always subtley, of course), Wooster bristles and tries to assert his authority – only to find that he’s now getting the cold shoulder. Jeeves still does his job, of course, but Wooster relies on him for much more, such that the cold shoulder is unbearable. Often, once a predicament is resolved through the brilliant ministrations of Jeeves, Wooster rewards him by discarding the offending article.

Listening to my review, I realize you could easily feel that Wodehouse is a tiresomely repetitive writer. And honestly, there is rather a lot of repetition in this particular volume. But, if you’d rather do short stories instead of a full novel, this is a good intro to Wodehouse. (I ended up enjoying the short stories because it meant I didn’t have to remember much of a plot line between ten minute segments of listening!) On the other hand, if you’re up for a little longer read (although still short compared to most novels), you might jump right in with some of the later books about Jeeves and Wooster. Carry on, Jeeves is a more fleshed out version of one of the early stories from My Man Jeeves (the reason it had seemed so familiar when I first started listening) – and that would be a good start for someone who’s wanting to try some Wodehouse.

I’m awfully glad, though, that I read (er, listened) along this month – and am grateful to Cassandra (and her late father-in-law) for suggesting the title. Check out what other readers are saying about Wodehouse at the Reading to Know Classics Bookclub round-up post.

Rating: 3 stars
Category: Comedic short stories
Synopsis: Bertie Wooster (and his literary progenitor Reggie Pepper) gets into a series of scrapes from which his loyal manservant saves him.
Recommendation: If you’re looking for an introduction to Wodehouse that you can easily read in small chunks, check out this collection of short stories. Otherwise, you might as well go for one of Wodehouse’s excellent novels starring the same characters (well, Wooster and his man Jeeves, anyway.)

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Book Review: One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp

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It’s not that I don’t like poetry – I just like clarity more.

And Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts is long on one and short on the other.

Having read a few of Voskamp’s blog posts, I was familiar with her style – sentence fragments, simultaneous run-ons, metaphors that carry through paragraphs and suddenly morph. I knew already that I could only handle her in rather small doses, but that when I did read a dose, I was often encouraged.

If I’d have been expecting a Christian living book, a how-to of some sort or a theology, I’d have been sorely disappointed. Because One Thousand Gifts is neither of these. It is a memoir, written in free verse, of a woman whose life was transformed as she began to practice “eucharisto” (thankfulness).

As such, it is lovely. It is a meandering book, best read slowly over the course of many weeks. I took the full three months the library allowed to read through it. I savored pretty turns of phrase and reflected not on the thoughts conveyed but on the gratitude displayed.

So long as I did that, I loved it.

The problem came in whenever I tried to think about it.

Having read One Thousand Gifts, I have no idea what Voskamp’s theology really is. I know that she quotes some people I respect greatly, theological giants – but she also quotes mystics whose connection to Biblical Christianity is questionable at best. Voskamp hints at some understanding of the cross, of God’s sovereignty – but she spends much more of her time discussing the mystical idea that eucharisto somehow makes things happen.

Yet I’m not sure if it is a mystical idea to her, or if I merely perceive it that way because of the poetical writing style. Does she really believe that eucharisto is some sort of lucky charm, that entices miracles into being (as she seems to suggest when she repeatedly references Jesus giving thanks and then feeding 5000)? I do not know.

And that’s the difficulty with reviewing this book.

It’s not that I don’t like poetry – I just like clarity more.

And Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts is long on one and short on the other.

That said, I think it is worthwhile to note that reading this book has inspired me to take more notice of the gifts God has given me throughout the day to day. For that, I am thankful.

Rating: 3 stars
Category: Spiritual Memoir
Synopsis: Ann Voskamp is transformed as she begins living a life of eucharisto, listing the gifts God has given her.
Recommendation: If you like Voskamp’s style, it’s worthwhile to read and be reminded to be thankful. If you don’t like her style or know that you’ll be frustrated by theological ambiguity, go ahead and skip it.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge

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Elizabeth Goudge’s The Little White Horse is a children’s fantasy book curiously set up in twelve chapters with 3-5 parts each.

In the first chapter, we set the stage and introduce a few of the main characters: newly orphaned thirteen-year-old Maria Merryweather, Maria’s governess (who suffers from indigestion and eats very delicately), Maria’s dog Wiggins (who lives to eat), the enormous Sir Benjamin with whom Maria is now going to live, Sir Benjamin’s enormous not-quite-dog Wrolf, and two individuals whom Maria’s governess is sure are entirely imaginary. Goudge’s descriptions here in chapter one are delightful.

“It was indigestion that had ruined her nose, not overindulgence. She never complained of her indigestion, she just endured it, and it was because she never complained that she was so misunderstood by everyone except Maria. Not that she had ever mentioned her indigestion even to Maria, for she had been brought up by her mother to believe that it is the mark of a True Gentlewoman never to say anything to anybody about herself ever. But Miss Heliotrope’s passion for peppermints was in the course of time traced by the discerning Maria to its proper source.

So distressing was Miss Heliotrope’s nose, set in the surrounding pallor of her thin pale face…

But chapter one also introduces us to Mysteries–Mysteries that compound over the course of the book, one partially resolving to unveil yet another yawning one. What is it about the little white horse that Maria sees when she first arrives, which Sir Benjamin seems to recognize, but which is never seen again? Why has their not been a woman in Sir Benjamin’s house for 20 years, and who keeps the house so clean and prepares Maria’s clothes each morning? Why do the Black Men of the forests of Moonacre wreak such havoc on the inhabitants of the area?

Of course, Maria manages to eventually figure out the mysteries and solve every problem Moonacre has, all the while picking up an entourage of adoring people and animals. And everyone gets married in the end.

This was my first reading of The Little White Horse, and I enjoyed it tremendously. The story was engaging, a light little escape into a fantasy world where I knew everything would turn out all right in the end.

That said, I spent plenty of time suspending disbelief. When every person takes to Maria immediately and starts disclosing deep secrets. When Maria’s stories, invented on the spur of the moment to get her out of difficulty, turn out to be true. When Maria gets married at age 13.

Yes, that’s right. Among the three marriages that occur at the end of the book are 13-year-old Maria’s marriage to her beloved once-presumed-to-be-imaginary-friend who used to visit her in London (for real but while he was dreaming in Moonacre?)

Yeah, plenty of suspension of disbelief. I nodded all the way through Carrie’s review. That said, I still liked it. I just did.

I wouldn’t mind owning a copy. I wouldn’t mind reading it out loud to my children at some point. I would point out that getting married at 13 is not at all the thing.

Rating: 3 stars
Category: Children’s fantasy
Synopsis: A fun, frivolous fantasy in which an orphaned girl sets things aright in Moonacre, her cousin’s ancestral property.
Recommendation: Read, but be prepared to suspend disbelief

I read this as a part of Carrie’s Reading to Know Classics Book Club Check out what other bloggers are saying about this book there.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: Laura Ingalls Wilder by William Anderson

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I’ve read my fair share of Laura Ingalls Wilder biographies for children–most (if not all) of them fitting into the glossy paged photograph-laden category. Each biography has a tendency to veer one of two directions: either it focuses almost entirely on the information Laura shared in her Little House books (thereby adding nothing for the avid reader) or it focuses almost entirely on the ways reality deviated from the Little House books (thereby destroying a young reader’s trust in the essential historicity of Wilder’s novels.)

Laura Ingalls Wilder: A biography by William Anderson is as different from those biographies as a book can be. It is not a glossy picture book with minimal text. It is not simply a retelling of Laura’s Little House books. Neither is it a critical look at how Laura changed her story.

Instead, it’s an honest to goodness biography written at a reading level (and in a style) similar to Laura’s “Little House” books. Anderson explicitly mentions some things that are different from the books (for instance, that Laura was actually much younger than described in Little House on the Prairie when her family settled in Indian territory); but he mostly writes Laura’s story as it occurred, letting the Wilder fan take notes of where stories were slightly altered or moved to a different context in the Little House books.

I loved it.

I think this book would have been very accessible to me in the throughs of my first Little House obsession (age 6-8), and would have added to my understanding of pioneer life (and Laura’s life in particular) without dissuading me from love for the Little House series.

It is a book of substance not of fluff, written simply but not condescendingly. I recommend it highly.

Having said all that, I think it is important that I clarify. This book is written for an elementary to middle school audience, so it doesn’t go into great detail about certain things. Those who are interested in a more in-depth discussion of Pa’s squatting on an Indian reservation or of other harsh components of pioneer life will be disappointed. Don’t expect an adult biography. But, for what it is, a children’s biography of a beloved author, this is a very good book.

I read this title as a part of Barbara H’s Laura Ingalls Wilder Reading Challenge. You can check out what other people have been reading at her wrap up post.

Rating: 4 stars
Category: Children’s biography
Synopsis: A biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder from birth to death; written for an elementary to middle grade audience.
Recommendation: Definitely recommended for the target audience (although older folks can enjoy it too).

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: Wonder by R.J. Palacio

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August Pullman has only ever been homeschooled, with only a few friends outside of his family. So when his parents decide it’s a good idea to send him to a local private middle school for fifth grade (go figure), he’s understandably nervous.

Except August isn’t just nervous because he’s a sheltered homeschooler. He’s worried because…well, his face…

August was born with a rare genetic anomaly (never given the name Treacher-Collins in the book, but that’s what it is) that resulted in a slew of “craniofacial abnormalities”. That’s the nice way to say it.

Most kids just call him “freak”.

My church’s book club selected this book for their February discussion, so Daniel and I listened to an audio version on our way up to and back down from Lincoln this last weekend.

Let me tell you first that the women in the bookclub were almost unanimous in loving this book. I felt a bit like a sore thumb, as the newest member of the group (it was my first discussion with them) and as one who just wasn’t crazy about Wonder.

It was a nice story. It was cute. It was the first book I’ve read in which the main character had craniofacial abnormalities. But it wasn’t great.

The story was told from the perspective of a half dozen kids, alternating narrators every few chapters (with a bit of overlap on key scenes). I liked seeing from multiple limited viewpoints. But the kids all sounded alike (that is, there wasn’t anything in the writing to make them different–the voice actors were VERY different.) A couple of high schoolers who gave their perspectives added elements I didn’t like, that I thought were too mature for a novel about a fifth grader.

Furthermore, I felt like both the story and the characters were there to serve a moral. The author was trying to make a point first and the story was just there to make that point.

I feel bad, writing such a negative sounding review. So many others loved this book–and I concede that it’s not a bad book.

But my perspective is likely clouded by my experience reading Tony Abbott’s Firegirl (link to my review). Like Wonder, Firegirl is a middle grade novel about a child with a “deformed” face. Both are told from a child’s perspective. Both have a moral of sorts. But Firegirl outperforms Wonder in every way (assuming my memory of Firegirl is accurate.)

Firegirl is very suitable for a middle grade audience, with little besides necessary discomfort with the topic to give any pause. Firegirl has dynamic, well-formed characters. And Firegirl doesn’t make obsessive mention of popular culture, making it suitable for more than just the next two years (I got so frustrated with the “product placement” in Wonder. Just off the top of my head, we’ve got mention of an iMac, an X-box 360, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Star Wars, some brand name jacket/hoodie, and a cartoon I didn’t recognize. And that’s with me not being a detail person–especially not when listening versus actually reading.)

So, yeah. Um.

Read Firegirl.

Rating: 3 stars
Category: Middle Grade Fiction
Synopsis: Fifth Grade August Pullman, whose face is disfigured by a rare congenital condition, goes to school with other kids for the first time.
Recommendation: Clearly not my favorite book. It wasn’t awful, but Tony Abbott’s Firegirl did a much better job with a similar story.