The Christmas Stories of Louisa May Alcott

Posted on December 26, 2016 by Barbara Harper

I wanted to round out my year of audiobook listening with something warm and homey. I considered listening again to Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, but then I came across a collection of her Christmas stories and thought that sounded perfect. The stories recorded here are:

“Gwen’s Adventure in the Snow”: A group of children of varying ages go on a sleighing expedition to their country house and end up getting caught in a snowstorm with their horses running off. The children take refuge in the house and have to try to come up with food and a way to get warm.

“Rosa’s Tale”: Children discussing the legend that animals can speak for an hour after midnight on Christmas hear their horse’s life story.

“What Polly Found in Her Stocking”: a poem about a girl’s stocking presents.

“A Hospital Christmas”: a warm and caring nurse makes Christmas brighter for patients in a military hospital during the Civil War era.

“A Country Christmas”: A girl staying with her aunt in the country invites two city friends to spend the holidays with them.

“Mrs. Podgers Teapot”: A woman who feels she is making her dead husband happy by not remarrying falls in love.

“Peace From Heaven”: Another poem.

“The Quiet Little Woman”: A girl in an orphanage is taken in to a home as a servant and longs for family love.

“A Christmas Dream and How It Came True”: A spoiled little girl has a sort-of Christmas Carol experience.

“A Song”: Another Christmas poem

“Kate’s Choice”: A teenage girl in England has lost her parents and is sent to live with each of her American uncles in order to choose which one to love with.

“Bertie’s Box”: A little boy overhears his mother and aunt talking about a needy family that they might try to do something for if they remember after getting their own plans done, and he decides to take matters into his own hands.

“What Love Can Do”: As two young girls lament the meager Christmas they are facing and share their wishes, a neighbor overhears and puts a little Christmas surprise in front of their door. Another neighbor sees this and adds his own, and so on.

Tessa’s Surprises: Tessa is the oldest daughter of a poor Italian family whose mother died. As she tries to come up with a way to provide a little something for her siblings for Christmas, she decides to go with an older boy who plays a harp to various places in the city to sing and see if she can earn a few pennies.

A Christmas Turkey: A father demoralized by work problems neglects his family.The children want to do various tasks to earn money at least for a nice Christmas dinner for the family and meet with various benefactors in the process.

Becky’s Christmas Dream: Becky is a 12 year old orphan from a poorhouse bound to work for a certain family until she is eighteen. She is sad at being left behind to tend the house while the family goes out to celebrate Christmas. As the clock strikes 12, either the animals and household items start talking or Becky starts dreaming, but either way they tell how they learned contentment in their assigned tasks.

A Merry Christmas: A section from Little Women where the girls give their Christmas breakfast to a poor family and put on a play in the evening.

A New Way to Spend Christmas: An assemblage of people visit an orphanage, touched by the plight of the children and heartened by the example of one ministering to them..

Tilly’s Christmas: A poor girl rescues a bird and is rewarded by an unseen benefactor with a special Christmas.

My favorites were Kate’s Choice and What Love Can Do.

I actually have “The Quiet Little Woman” in book form – it’s been on my shelf for years, and I thought I had read it, but as it started, it did not sound at all familiar to me. The book contains that story as well as Tilly’s Christmas and Rosa’s Tale.

All of the stories are in much the same spirit as Little Women: there are morals; encouragements to be brave and good and kind and to work hard and to remember and give to the poor; the simple and homey is revered above the showy and rich. In some places, like Aunt Plumey’s frank opinions in “A Country Christmas, the moral comes on a little strong by today’s standards, but was well received by the hearers in the story. Some of the stories seem more steeped in sentimentally than her books – maybe because the books have other events or maybe because Christmas stories seem to bring that out.

I didn’t look up the dates of all the stories, but the ones I did search out were written after Little Women, some of them published in magazines.

I’ve seen several collections of Alcott’s Christmas stories in print form that contain some combination of these, but I don’t think there is one that matches up exactly with the audiobook. The text of some of them can be found online by searching for the story title.

The narrator gave a valiant effort, even adding a little bit of a whinny to a horse’s voice, but I didn’t quite warm up to her.

But I am glad to have come across these and familiarized myself with some of Alcott’s stories that I hadn’t known before.

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Book Review: From Heaven

Posted on December 22, 2016 by Barbara Harper

I like to read a Christmas devotional during December, so I got From Heaven: A 28-Day Advent Devotional by A. W. Tozer when I saw it on a recent Kindle sale for 99 cents since I have enjoyed what I have read of Tozer in the past.

Compiled by unnamed editors at Moody Publishing from Tozer’s various writings and sermons, it is probably different than a book like this that Tozer would have written himself. There is not really a logical progression from point A to point B or developing and building on truths throughout the book. It’s just a series of isolated bits somewhat on the theme of Christ’s coming to Earth in both His first advent, which we celebrate at Christmas, and His second advent, when He returns. That lack of progression or development plus the entries’ being taken out of context from their original sources are the book’s greatest weaknesses. Introductory remarks convey that profits from the book sales will go to help Moody students, so this may have even been assembled as something of a fund raiser.

But it is Tozer, after all, who is a deep thinker and often has something noteworthy to say, which is the book’s greatest strength.

Some of the chapter titles are What the Advent Established, The Meaning of Christmas, The Logic of the Incarnation, Three Truths Behind Christmas, Light and Life to All He Brings.

Some of the quotes that stood out to me:

Even though you may still be unconverted and going your own way, you have received much out of the ocean of His fullness. You have received the pulsing life that beats in your bosom. You have received the brilliant mind and brain within the protective covering of your skull. You have received a memory that strings the events you cherish and love as a jeweler strings pearls into a necklace and keeps them for you as long as you live and beyond. All that you have is out of His grace. Jesus Christ, the eternal Word, who became flesh and dwelt among us, is the open channel through which God moves to provide.

We must love someone very much to stay awake and long for his coming.

Another reason for the absence of real yearning for Christ’s return is that Christians are so comfortable in this world that they have little desire to leave it.

All of the mercy God is capable of showing, all of the redeeming grace that He could pour from His heart, all of the love and pity that God is capable of feeling–all of these are at least suggested in the message that He came!

All of our hopes and dreams of immortality, our fond visions of a life to come, are summed up in these simple words in the Bible record: He came!

The idea that the Old Testament is a book of law and the New Testament a book of grace is based on a completely false theory. There is certainly as much about grace and mercy and love in the Old Testament as there is in the New. There is more about hell, more about judgment and the fury of God burning with fire upon sinful men in the New Testament than in the Old

The only contrast here is between all that Moses could do and all that Jesus Christ can do. The Law was given by Moses—that was all that Moses could do. Moses was not the channel through which God dispensed His grace. God chose His only begotten Son as the channel for His grace and truth, for John witnesses that grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. All that Moses could do was to command righteousness. In contrast, only Jesus Christ produces righteousness. All that Moses could do was to forbid us to sin. In contrast, Jesus Christ came to save us from sin. Moses could not save, but Jesus Christ is both Lord and Savior.

The big thing is to be sure we are not lulled to sleep by a false hope, that we do not waste our time dreaming about days that are not to be ours. The main thing is to make today serve us by getting ready for any possible tomorrow. Then whether we live or die, whether we toil on in the shadow or rise to meet the returning Christ, all will be well.

[This one really helped me with the concept of “of His fullness have we all received” in John 1:16]: If you could ask the deer that goes quietly down to the edge of the lake for a refreshing drink, “Have you received of the fullness of the lake?” the answer would be: “Yes and no. I am full from the lake but I have not received from the fullness of the lake. I did not drink the lake. I only drank what I could hold of the lake.”

Christmas as it is celebrated today is badly in need of a radical reformation. What was at first a spontaneous expression of an innocent pleasure has been carried to inordinate excess.

In our mad materialism we have turned beauty into ashes, prostituted every normal emotion, and made merchandise of the holiest gift the world ever knew. Christ came to bring peace and we celebrate His coming by making peace impossible for six weeks of each year. Not peace but tension, fatigue, and irritation rule the Christmas season. He came to free us of debt and many respond by going deep into debt each year to buy enervating luxuries for people who do not appreciate them. He came to help the poor and we heap gifts upon those who do not need them. The simple token given out of love has been displaced by expensive presents given because we have been caught in a squeeze and don’t know how to back out of it.

So, we live between two mighty events—that of His incarnation, death, and resurrection, and that of His ultimate appearing and the glorification of those He died to save. This is the interim time for the saints—but it is not a vacuum. He has given us much to do and He asks for our faithfulness. In the meantime, we are zealous of good works, living soberly, righteously, godly in this present world, looking unto Him and His promise. In the midst of our lives, and between the two great mountain peaks of God’s acts in the world, we look back and remember, and we look forward and hope! As members of His own loving fellowship, we break the bread and drink the wine. We sing His praise and we pray in His Name, remembering and expecting!

Tozer is not one to leave you with warm fuzzy feelings, but he does make you think. And though the chapters seem a little disjointed, there is much good food for thought and conviction here.

Genre: Christian non-fiction
Objectionable elements: None.
My rating: 8 out of 10

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Book Review: Finding Father Christmas and Engaging Father Christmas

Posted on December 20, 2016 by Barbara Harper

After reading Pam’s engaging post on the difference between the Hallmark and written versions of Robin Jones Gunn’s Finding Father Christmas, the novella sounded so charming I had to look it up. I found it bound with its sequel, Engaging Father Christmas. I’ve enjoyed some of Robin’s Sisterchicks novels and I think maybe one or two others, so I was glad to read her again.

In Finding Father Christmas, Miranda Carson is a single working woman who grew up as the only child of a single actress. She knew nothing of her father: in fact, in her youngest years her mother told her fairy tales of how she came to her, so she didn’t think she even had a father. Miranda had an unconventional childhood hanging out around theaters while her mom practiced and performed, and they lived in cheap hotels. One day Miranda discovered an old blue velvet purse of her mother’s and opened it to find her birth certificate, a photo of a boy sitting on the lap of Santa Claus, and a playbill for The Tempest. From that time on, realizing that she had been deceived by her mother, she lost any love for fairy tales and vowed never to go to the theater again.

Miranda’s mother died when Miranda was 11, and she was taken in by a friend. When that friend died, Miranda falsified her age and struck out on her own, choosing an accounting career because numbers were more reliable than words.

But the longing to know her father caused her to take vacation time in England, where the photo in her mother’s purse had been taken. She only had the name of the photo studio and a street to go on, but arriving in the village of Carlton Heath, she entered a shop called the Tea Cosy and met its proprietors, Andrew and Katherine MacGregor, and started from there. Once she found the information she was looking for, she then had to decide the best way to deal with it.

I can’t say much more without revealing too much of the plot, but I enjoyed it quite a lot. The setting, the characters, Miranda’s journey all were every bit as charming as Pam made them sound. I very much appreciated that Robin was not afraid to deal specifically with Miranda’s spiritual journey as well: Miranda had little to no spiritual context and didn’t even realize her need of or longing for God as her Father until she encountered Him. In a day when so many Christian authors handle spiritual matters lightly (if at all) lest they come across as “preachy,” Robin proves that you can deal with them realistically and naturally within the context of the story. I loved the many literary references as well.

In Engaging Father Christmas, Miranda comes back in England for a visit about a year later. A romance blossomed with a man she met right at the end of the first story, and she’s hoping this visit will result in an engagement ring and the making of Carlton Heath her longed-for home. But her idyllic Christmas plans are threatened by serious obstacles.

One of my favorite passages occurs between crises as she views a beautiful nighttime scene:

Was everything around us more or less a fixed snapshot that alluded to a greater beauty? A deeper mystery? A hint of what was to come? How many unknown layers were there to life–to the eternal life that was hidden in Christ? What glorious surprises awaited us in the real land of which this earth was only a snapshot? Let heaven and nature sing…

These novellas were the perfect Christmas reads: clean, warm, lovely, and heart-stirring. There is a third in the series just out recently, Kissing Father Christmas. I’ll have to look out for that one next year.

Genre: Christian Christmas fiction
Objectionable elements: None.
My rating: 10 out of 10

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Two short Christmasy reviews

Posted on December 14, 2016 by Barbara Harper

A Sandy’s Seashell Shop Christmas by Lisa Wingate is a short novella involving some of the characters from The Prayer Box by the same author. The owner of Sandy’s Seashell Shop, a gift store on the NC Outer Banks, plays a prominent role in both. In this book, Tiff Riley had met her husband in Afghanistan when they were both in the military. She came home to have their son, Micah, but her husband died around Christmastime. In the four years since, she hasn’t had the heart to celebrate Christmas, and Micah is too young to know the difference. She takes a vacation during the Christmas season from her nursing job in Arkansas to the Outer Banks, which was special to her husband in his childhood. No one knows them there or will be aware that Christmas is just another day to them. Tiff knows that for Micah’s sake she needs to make peace with Christmas, but just can’t yet.

While at the beach they come across a flyer for a Christmas celebration at Sandy’s Seashell Shop. Through a series of events, Tiff decides to take Micah to it, and for the first time she feels her heart beginning to thaw. But the last thing she expected was her own Christmas miracle.

This was a very short but very sweet and heart-warming story.

Genre: Inspirational fiction
Objectionable elements: None.
My rating: 9 out of 10

I got The Christmas Violin by Buffy Andrews last year, not having heard of it before and knowing nothing of the author, just because the premise sounded intriguing. The story is told from three different points of view:

Peter visits his wife’s grave almost every day. At one visit, the sound of someone playing a violin draws him.

Willow was a concert violinist and a single mom. Her young son died while she was away at a concert, and she feels it’s her fault for being away.Her manager tries to talk her back into touring, but she only plays locally. She visits her son’s grave almost every day and pours her heart out through her violin playing.

A homeless old woman lives in a shed on the cemetery property and is also drawn to the violin playing. In her daily rummaging, she finds the perfect gift for the young violinist.

This being a Christmas novel, of course Peter and Willow unexpectedly run into each other outside the cemetery, strike up a relationship, and find healing with each other. The surprising part of the story for me was the old woman. The parts of the story through her eyes, both the meanness and kindness of strangers, spoke the most to me.

I wanted to love this story, and parts of it were good, but as a whole the writing fell a little flat to me, and the bad language was off-putting..

Genre: Secular fiction
Objectionable elements: A plethora of damns, one occurrence of the “f” word, a night of adultery described as beautiful.
My rating: 5 out of 10

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Book Review: The Messenger

Posted on December 8, 2016 by Barbara Harper

The Messenger by Siri Mitchell is set in Philadelphia in the late 1770s. The British occupied the area and made themselves at home, taking over citizens’ houses or pulling down their fences or shutters for fire wood. Some welcomed them, some hated them, some just tried to deal with the situation until it was over.

Hannah Sunderland’s Quaker family steadfastly refused to take sides, but that didn’t protect them when an officer wanted their home as well. While not welcoming British rule, they felt it was wrong to fight against it, and when rebels were captured and put in prison, they felt that helping them would interfere with God’s discipline of their rebellion.

Hannah was fine with that – until her own twin brother joined the rebels due to injustices he saw the British commit. When he landed in prison, she tried to find a way to visit him and bring him food secretly.

Jeremiah Jones, a tavern keeper, lost his arm when fighting for the British in the French and Indian war due to the surgeon’s taking a British officer before him, resulting in his injured arm becoming beyond repair and having to be amputated. Embittered, he turned against the British and that officer in particular, but secretly. British soldiers frequented his establishment, allowing him to hear bits of information he could pass on the the rebels. But when one of his spies bowed out, he had to find someone to take his place. As he noticed Hannah walking by the jail, he decided to offer to help her get a pass inside through his contacts if she would take a message for him to a colonial officer there.

Thus began an uneasy liaison. Jeremiah had little respect for Quakers and what he felt was their self-righteousness. Hannah exasperated him with her refusal to lie or be deceptive. She, in turn, did not think much of him or his profession. But they needed each other.

This novel seemed to me a little slow to get going, with Hannah and Jeremiah constantly bickering over every little thing. But the farther along it went, the more interesting and engaging it became. I enjoyed the author’s notes at the end detailing what was real and what was fictional in the novel and marveling at how she wove them together.

I had not know much about Quakers before this except that they were pacifists, said “thee” and “thou,” and dressed simply (and made good oatmeal. 🙂 )

I enjoyed learning more about them but was surprised by what I learned, especially that in their weekly meetings, they waited silently for God to speak to and through individuals rather than studying what He already said to them through His Word. (The author notes at the end that though originally they expected their “inner light” not to contradict Scripture, over years they they gave more weight and credence to it than the Bible, leading some of them astray). They also believe that “there is that of God in everyone,” a phrase often repeated throughout the book. It seems to go beyond the concept of being made in God’s image: Hannah muses at one point, “The Creator of our souls had left a part of Him inside us, and the more we responded to and came to resemble Him, the more our inner lights increased.” Though we are all made in God’s image, He does not reside in each of us (1 John 5:12). So they’re farther from Biblical Christianity than I thought, but it was interesting to learn their customs.

I especially empathized with Hannah and her struggles between the desire to help others and right wrongs vs. what she had always been taught:

Everywhere I looked, everything I learned only added to the sense that there were grave injustices being heaped upon our land. And that Friends, too easily persuaded to silence, allowed them to continue. What if we were not only called to maintain peace but also to defend it? What if we’d all been wrong? What if men were called to fight for what they believed in?

The chapters alternate between Hannah’s and Jeremiah’s points of view. I listened to the audiobook version but also reread parts in the Kindle version (the latter includes the author’s notes and discussion questions.) The male narrator performing Jeremiah’s part did a superb job with both inflection and mood. It took me a long while to warm up to Hannah, as she came across as stuffy and self-righteous at first, and I am not sure how much of that was the writing and how much the narrator, or both. Probably she was meant to come across that way. But I did eventually.

In the last third of the book when the situation they’re passing messages about comes to a head, it was hard to put the book down. I thought it ended a little abruptly. I don’t necessarily have to have everything tied up in a neat bow at the end, but I would have liked to have seen a little more about how things worked out for everyone.

Overall it was a good, informative, and later on a very exciting book.

Genre: Historical fiction
Potential objectionable elements: Nothing explicit, but a scene with the officer who took over the Sunderland’s house “entertaining” a woman in his room went on much longer than necessary. I think the idea was to show he was a scoundrel, but I got that quite early on.
My rating: 8 out of 10

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Book Review: The Voice of Experience

Posted on December 7, 2016 by Barbara Harper

Samuel and Jane K. Brody are a husband and wife medical team: he is a doctor and she is a psychiatric nurse. In The Voice of Experience: Stories About Health Care and the Elderly they bring their medical experience as well as their personal experience with aging parents to bear in discussing various issues related to health care of the elderly.

The book is divided into five sections, beginning with “Assessing the Situation” when an elderly person first starts manifesting that they might need additional care, through safety issues, quality of life concerns, aspects of decision making, and end of life issues.

There is not a clear cut way to handle many of the issues discussed: so much depends on the general state of health of the person, personal preferences, family dynamics, etc. But these chapters do give examples, good and bad, and a doctor’s advice and wisdom.

For my own purposes, with my mother-in-law’s decline over the last dozen or so years, much of this was not new to me, but I did benefit from it, and some of the end of life discussions clarified some things for me. I think this book would be helpful to anyone at any stage in the process.

It appears to be self-published and would have benefited from an editor to catch a few grammatical errors and awkward phrases, but they are very few.

Genre: Non-fiction
Potential objectionable elements: None
My rating: 8 out of 10

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What’s On Your Nightstand: November 2016

Posted on November 29, 2016 by Barbara Harper

What's On Your Nightstand The folks at 5 Minutes For Books host What’s On Your Nightstand? the last Tuesday of each month in which we can share about the books we have been reading and/or plan to read.

For WOYN purposes, I always like when the last Tuesday of the month ends up actually near the end of it. November has been an extremely fast-moving month, but I got to dip into some reading here and there.

Since last time I have completed:

I’m Still Here: A New Philosophy of Alzheimer’s Care by John Zeisel, reviewed here. I especially liked the tone in this book.

Radical Womanhood: Feminine Faith in a Feminist World by Carolyn McCulley, reviewed here. Excellent and eye-opening.

Secrets of a Charmed Life by Susan Meissner, reviewed here. Two timelines intersect: A modern reporter interviews a reclusive artist and hears a story about two girls making their way into London on the day the Blitz began. A real page-turner!

Long Way Gone by Charles Martin, reviewed here. Excellent modern-day prodigal son story.

The Silver Suitcase by Terrie Todd, reviewed here. A woman in the midst of myriad problems is given her grandmother’s silver suitcase, containing her diaries. She finds her sweet, faith-filled grandmother had actually hated God at one point, and discovers what changed her. A bit of wonky angelology, but the story was good.

The Princess Spy by Melanie Dickerson, reviewed here. A 15th century Germany retelling of the Frog Prince.

I’m currently reading:

The Messenger by Siri Mitchell

The Voice of Experience: Stories About Health Care and the Elderly by Samuel and Jane K. Brody

From Heaven: A 28-Day Advent Devotional by A. W. Tozer

A Sandy’s Seashell Shop Christmas by Lisa Wingate

And a reread, The Women of Christmas by Liz Curtis Higgs

Up Next:

Finding Father Christmas/Engaging Father Christmas by Robin Jones Gunn

A Patchwork Christmas Collection by Judith Miller, Nancy Moser, and Stephanie Grace Whitson

The Christmas Violin by Buffy Andrews

If I get done with those, I still have plenty of books stacked up on my shelves ans well as in my Kindle app. Happy reading!

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Book Review: The Princess Spy

Posted on November 26, 2016 by Barbara Harper

In most versions of The Frog Prince, the princess is proud, spoiled, and condescending. The frog recovers a lost ball for her, and in return asks to be taken to her house, eat from her plate, and sleep on her bed. In the version I listened to last year, she got disgusted and threw him against a wall, after which he transformed into a prince. In other versions she tolerates him until he transforms, and then, of course, they fall in love and live happily ever after.

In this retelling, The Princess Spy by Melanie Dickerson, set in 15th century Germany, 18-year-old Margaretha is the oldest daughter of a duke. She isn’t spoiled, but she tends to talk a lot, especially when she’s nervous. A number of suitors have come and left her home, but none seemed right to her. Currently Lord Claybrook has been visiting, and she thinks he wears weird hats and talks about things she’s not interested in, but she’s trying to get to know him better and give him the benefit of the doubt.

Meanwhile a severely injured young man has been found and taken to the healer. He only speaks English, and Margaret can understand and converse in it well enough, so she serves as translator for him. When he carries on about needing to speak to the duke, but can’t say why or reveal who he is, she thinks his ravings are coming from his injury. When he finally convinces her to do a bit of eavesdropping for him, she finds that he’s right about the danger her family and town are in. But her father and brother are away, and together she and the stranger escape to find and warn them.

Since these are realistic stories, I wondered how the author was going to portray the frog prince himself without any magic changing of form. That ended up being humorous, but I won’t spill the secret here.

In many ways, this is a fairly typical fairly tale romance, except that Margaretha is pluckier than many heroines in this genre, even to the point of bashing guards in the head with a candlestick in her escape, and the addition of an orphan boy rescued along the way. I’ve enjoyed many of Melanie’s books in the past, and this was a nice, clean read, but it just seemed – almost a little cliche for me. I saw on Amazon that it was listed as a teen/young adult novel, which I hadn’t realized before, and that may be one reason the writing just seemed a little “younger” to me than usual. I didn’t get that vibe from the others, though.

I hadn’t realized at first that some of the characters had appeared in previous stories. It had been a while since I had read them, but as I looked at descriptions of them at the end of the book, they came back to me.

One aspect I especially liked was Margaretha’s learning the difference between panic praying and actively trusting while praying.

All in all, not an unpleasant read, but not one that blew me away, either.

Genre: Christian fiction
Potential objectionable elements: None
My rating: 7 out of 10

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Book Review: Radical Womanhood: Feminine Faith in a Feminist World

Posted on November 23, 2016 by Barbara Harper

I got Radical Womanhood: Feminine Faith in a Feminist World by Carolyn McCulley some years ago when I caught it on sale – both because it was on sale and because I have enjoyed some of Carolyn’s writing in the past. It’s been on my TBR shelf ever since, and every now and then when I’ve noticed it, I’ve wondered why I keep getting books on this topic when I’ve already studied it out in Scripture and read several books on it and pretty much have nailed down my views. I guess because it’s one of my main interests. But I was compelled to pick it up recently (maybe due to guilt for its having been there so long) – and I was extremely glad I did.

Carolyn comes at the topic from a different angle than I have read in the past, and that makes for a refreshing viewpoint. She grew up as an unbeliever and a full-blown feminist. Her world changed completely when she became a Christian at 29, and attending church was a major culture shock. Over time and through her own study of the Bible and the preaching and teaching of it by her church, she came to different conclusions about womanhood than she had been raised with. She wrote this book partly because she wished her 30 year old self had had something like it to help her navigate through the conflicting viewpoints, but also because she discovered in her speaking engagements that a lot of women didn’t know what the Bible said plus didn’t know how our feminist-influenced culture got where it is today.

The eight chapters are divided by topic, with a history of feminism related to that topic, a Biblical perspective, and a testimony from different women about living out that particular aspect of Biblical femininity.

She points out that feminism did address some serious needs and inequalities, but then went too far. “There’s a difference between restoring God-given rights to women and setting women above both men and God. The history of the feminist movement shows that one led to another–and much earlier than the 1960s” (p. 32).

Abigail Adams wrote to her husband in 1776 concerning the fact that women were not equal in legal status to men and urging him to “remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power in the hands of husbands…Men of sense in all ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your sex; regard us then as being placed by Providence under your protection, and in imitation of the Supreme Being make use of that power only for our happiness” (p. 32). She “was not suggesting that women should throw off every aspect of feminine existence, trashing the roles of wives and mothers. She simply wanted laws that recognized women as fully legal, adult entities in this new nation” (p. 33). She predicted that failure would “foment a rebellion” in which women would “not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation” (p. 32). Unfortunately, though they had a “close and loving marriage,” he “did not take her seriously on this point” (p. 33).

Her prediction proved true, though. By 1848 the Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention met and compiled a “Declaration of Sentiments” including a list of their grievances.

These grievances led to needed reforms in education, marriage, suffrage, and employment for women. But mixed in with those needed social reforms was a challenge to Christianity–its church governance, biblical teaching, and community service…eventually [leading] to the destruction of biblically defined concepts of God, sin, gender differences, marriage, and more (p. 36).

Carolyn deftly details the history of feminism from there, comparing it to what the Scripture actually teaches, and providing some background information on some of its activists. I was surprised to learn–though I shouldn’t have been–that some of feminism’s most strident voices had distinctly anti-Christian views at the core of their philosophies.

I have many more places marked than I can quote here, but here are just a few quotes that stood out to me:

All my previous feminist philosophies resulted in merely kicking at the darkness, expecting it would bleed daylight. But Scripture says it is by God’s light that we see light (Psalm 36:9) (p. 26).

The irony of Stanton’s claims is that when the Bible is actually properly taught, history shows that women’s status improves (p. 38).

Spiritual battles are won or lost in the day-to-day thoughts we harbor. Ideas matter! (p. 59).

Every one of us is prone to agree with Satan’s character assassination of God. We often chafe at the good boundaries God has given us. We are easily tempted to think the worst of God. And we doubt that what God has provided is anywhere near as good as what He has restricted. In some ways, we may have more in common with self-proclaimed feminists than we may realize (p. 60).

Back to my beginning thoughts about why I should read a book like this when I’ve already studied it out, Carolyn had this to say:

If you are a longtime Christian, I pray you will be refreshed in your commitment to these godly principles. Biblical womanhood is not a one-size-fits-all mold. It’s not about certain dress styles, Jane Austen movies, tea parties, quiet voices, and exploding floral patterns…or whatever stereotype you are picturing right now. To live according to biblical principals today requires women to be bold enough to stand against philosophies and strongholds that seek to undermine God’s Word and His authority (p. 29).

This was quite an eye-opening book for me. Though every chapter was interesting and filled with information, most interesting to me was the one on the home and it’s history from home-based businesses producing goods to consuming goods, and the fact that my beloved major, home economics, was originally an outgrowth of Social Darwinism!

I wouldn’t agree with just every little thing taught by every Christian leader Carolyn quotes, but I don’t recall coming across anything I would consider a glaring error in the book.

I feel like I have only shared the tip of the iceberg and haven’t done this book justice. Let’s just say I highly recommend it.

Genre: Christian non-fiction
My rating: 10 out of 10.

(Sharing with Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books and Carol‘s Books You Loved )

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Christmas Spirit Reading Challenge

Posted on November 20, 2016 by Barbara Harper

I saw this Christmas Spirit Reading Challenge over at My Reader’s Block and thought it looked like fun. I do usually like to read a couple of Christmas-themed books during the month of December.

The basic idea is just to read Christmas-related books between Nov. 21 – Jan. 6, and Michelle has listed the following levels:

Levels:
—Candy Cane: read 1 book
—Mistletoe: read 2-4 books
—Christmas Tree: read 5 or 6 books (this is the fanatic level…LOL!)

Additional levels:
—Fa La La La Films: watch a bunch or a few Christmas movies…it’s up to you!
—Visions of Sugar Plums: read books with your children this season and share what you read

*the additional levels are optional, you still must complete one of the main reading levels above

I’m going to commit to the Mistletoe Level – after that we’ll see. The two books I want to read for sure are:

Finding Father Christmas/Engaging Father Christmas by Robin Jones Gunn. I got this after seeing Pam’s comparison of the book and movie. Sounds like the movie veered too far from the book, but the book sounded really good! This copy has two novellas in one (I wonder if that counts as two books? 🙂 )

From Heaven: A 28-Day Advent Devotional by A. W. Tozer. Just got that this afternoon when I saw it on a Kindle sale for 99 cents and I have enjoyed what I have read of Tozer in the past.

Other Christmas books I have on hand and may get to if I have a chance:

A Patchwork Christmas Collection by Judith Miller, Nancy Moser, and Stephanie Grace Whitson, seen at Monica‘s. I’ve read and enjoyed the first two authors before, so I expect to enjoy this collection.

The Christmas Violin by Buffy Andrews. I got this on a Kindle sale last year based on the story description without knowing anything about the author, so I hope I am not unpleasantly surprised.

A Sandy’s Seashell Shop Christmas by Lisa Wingate, related to the shop in The Prayer Box, reviewed earlier.

The Women of Christmas by Liz Curtis Higgs is one I have read before but would like to read again.

As far as Christmas movies go, I usually just watch when and if the family does. We do usually see White Christmas at some point and maybe some of the Christmas specials (my new favorite; The Toy Story That Time Forgot).

I’d love to get to all these! But December is a busy month, so we’ll see how it goes.

Are you doing any Christmas reading?

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