Tag Archives: Books

Review: Dreams of Savannah

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In Dreams of Savannah by Roseanna M. White, Cordelia Owens is a pampered Southern belle who loves to dream and write stories. She also loves Phineas Dunn, a lifelong friend newly recruited to the Confederate Navy, and promises to wait for him forever.

When she learns Phineas has been lost at sea, she weaves heroic tales for his mother and sister to help them keep up hope.

When Phineas was shot and fell overboard, he thought he was done for. But somehow he washes up on an island near Cuba. He’s rescued by a person he never imagined existed: an educated free black man from England. He has no way to let his family or his commanding officer know what has happened to him. All he can do is try to get well as fast as possible and get home. But his injuries are severe.

As the weeks drag by, a distant cousin of Cordelia’s comes to Savannah, assigned to the Confederate regiment there. Her parents are impressed by his manners, standing, and wealth. They like Phineas well enough, but his family’s credentials just don’t compare. They put pressure on Cordelia to turn her attention to her cousin. But even if she had not promised Phin she would wait forever, she would not have her cousin. There’s a predatory gleam in his eyes when her parents aren’t around.

When Phineas finally returns, he is still suffering from his injury. Worse, he has fallen in his own estimation. He wanted to be the hero of Cordelia’s stories. He doesn’t feel worthy of her, but he still vies for her hand. Her parents keep pushing her toward her cousin.

Both Cordelia and Phineas are from good families who are known to be kind to their slaves. Phineas’ father was, in fact, planning to free his slaves until doing so became illegal in Georgia.

But different experiences and people begin to change their perspectives. The question now is what to do. Is it enough just to be good to one’s slaves? Could they be mocked, scorned, or even arrested if their views on slavery changed? And how could their views change without changing their actions as well?

At the beginning of this book, Cordelia came across to me as young and somewhat silly (one of her fears for Phineas was that he might be attacked by a giant squid. . . ). I’m not sure how old she was, something hard to go back and find in an audiobook. Also, the Southern belle vibe came across a little too thick, replete with “fiddale-faddle” and “fiddel-dee-dee” (making me wonder for the first time why “fiddle’ was in so many expressions then).

But after I settled into the story, I began to enjoy it more. Cordelia is immature at the beginning. But the circumstances of the story cause her to grow. Even her story-telling matures over time.

It would be hard to write a book of changing viewpoints towards slavery and black people set in the 1861 South without attributing to the characters twenty-first century sensibilities. But Roseanna avoided that and had beliefs change and grow in the context of what was going on at the time.

A couple of my favorite quotes:

She certainly shouldn’t be refused happiness because of your convoluted ideas about your precious blood making her better than her mother . . . Because let me just tell you . . . your blood doesn’t have that power. There’s only one Man’s blood in all of history that can make us better than we are—and your are not Him.

She didn’t need to be a heroine in some fantastic tale of derring-do. That wasn’t what the Lord had given her. No, He’d given her words. Words to live by. Words to create with. Words that maybe, just maybe, could change the world beyond her house as surely as they had changed the one within.

I listened to the audiobook nicely narrated by Sarah Zimmerman.

So far, I have loved every book of Roseanna’s that I have read, including this one.

Blogging for God’s Glory in a Clickbait World

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Blogging for God's Glory

In Blogging for God’s Glory in a Clickbait World, Benjamin Vrbicek and John Beeson propose this definition of blogging for God’s glory: “Blogging for God’s glory means . . . first, to have our motivations aligned with God’s, and second, to pursue excellence in the craft, including theological precision, beautiful prose, visual appeal, and the edification of readers, all drawing from the best industry practices” (p. 14).

First they deal with aligning our motivation with God’s. That’s often the most difficult part to maintain. Usually a Christian blogger begins by wanting to share posts that glorify God and help others. But “our own motives . . . are always layered and mixed” (p. 3). And though Christian writing instructors tell us not to worry about the numbers of those following, liking, and sharing our posts, those who want to move from blogging to publishing a book are told agents and publishers will look at those numbers and won’t consider taking a writer on unless those numbers are high. It’s a continual but necessary struggle to keep our focus on writing for God’s glory and purposes and trusting Him with the results, even when it doesn’t seem like many people are reading.

The authors apply the goal of writing for God’s glory into the everyday nuts and bolts of writing. Write with the reader in mind rather than anticipating accolades. Know your why, what difference you want to make. Serve others, not yourself. But that doesn’t mean never talking about yourself: Paul wanted to proclaim “not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord” (2 Corinthians 4:5), yet 2 Corinthians is “Paul’s most autobiographical letter. He shares much of his own story not because he is narcissistic, but because he knows the church is struggling to trust him and he needs to build rapport” (p. 22).

“If we have any hope of offering others wisdom, listening to God must become a primary and ongoing habit.” We can’t share what we haven’t first taken it. That doesn’t mean every blog post needs to exposit Scripture or be a devotional, but it should still be “subject to God’s truth and ought to reflect His light” (p. 31).

Then, “Christian writers must labor not only to write what is true but also write in a manner that adorns the truth” (p. 38). We need to focus on building up, not tearing down. That doesn’t mean we never share what’s wrong, but we do so with discernment and with the purpose of helping.

The authors give helpful advice with the mechanics of blogging: discerning how much time to give to it, in connection with your other obligations; setting a schedule that works for you; dealing with writer’s block; engaging social media; blogging costs, platforms, layouts; using photos without plagiarizing; networking; monetizing; and more.

They include several appendices. One is a compilation of several bloggers’ answers to the question of whether blogging is dead. One is a glossary of blogging terms. One is a collection of sidebar quotes in the paper version that wouldn’t work in the e-book formatting.

A few other quotes that stood out to me:

Where can you offer yourself to your audience for the sake of proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord? How can your life become a bridge for the gospel to travel? What work has God done (or is doing) in you that will encourage others? (p. 22).

Don’t feel compelled to chase whatever is hot. Be true to who God has made you to be (p. 23).

Blogging ought to grow us in holiness. When we blog for God’s glory, the discipline of writing becomes integrated into the web of our spiritual disciplines (p. 29).

It is not the size of our platform that assures us how far our words will reach, but rather it is our trust in a God whose word never returns void (Isa 55: 11) (p. 32).

Writing comes down to making and remaking slight improvements to achieve better clarity and aesthetic; writing is the pursuit of marginal gains, insignificant by themselves but significant in the aggregate (p. 37). (I loved the illustration they used here of an eye doctor trying different lenses, asking each time which is better.)

So why should we worry about getting the tone and the content right when we know fewer people will read an article if we write with discernment? We bother because God is God, and on the day of judgment we will give an account for every careless word we have ever blogged (Matt 12: 36) (p. 42).

I think this book is an excellent resource, especially when we need to adjust our motives away from the manipulative and self-focused approach of the world and remind ourselves of our real purpose: glorifying God. 

Review: In This Moment

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In This Moment is the sequel to When the Day Comes by Gabrielle Meyer. Maggie is the youngest daughter of Libby from the first book. Like Libby, Maggie is a time crosser. But because both Maggie’s parents were time crossers, she has three paths instead of two.

One of her timelines is in Washington D.C. in 1861, where she goes by Margaret and is the daughter of a senator. The Civil War has begin, and after hearing of Confederate spies in the area, she keeps alert. She helps Clara Barton nurse wounded soldiers, but incognito, because such work would be frowned upon in society. Maggie wouldn’t care what people thought, but she has to think of her father’s reputation.

When Maggie goes to sleep in 1861, she wakes up in 1941. Her time crossing parents reside in Williamsburg, VA. Maggie is a nurse who joins the Navy along with her sister, Anna. But when they are asked to join a team on a hospital ship in Pearl Harbor, Maggie wrestles with what she knows will happen.

When Maggie goes to sleep in 1941, she wakes up in 2001 in D. C., where she is in medical school training to become a surgeon.

Though it takes Maggie 30 years to get through 10 normal years, no time is lost between her timelines. When she wakes up in one timeline, it’s the next day after the last time she was there.

Like her mother, Maggie will have to choose which timeline she wants to stay in by her twenty-first birthday. Then her body will die in the other two time periods.

Her mother knew all her life which timeline she wanted, though she had to wrestle with the fact that her preference might not be what God wanted. However, Maggie has no clear preference. She loves all of her timelines and her families. She has important work to do in each one. She’s frustrated that God seems silent on the matter.

Maggie has determined not to become romantically involved in any timeline before her twenty-first birthday because she doesn’t want the complication for her decision-making. But an attractive man becomes part of each of her lives.

Since Maggie is involved in medicine in all three lives, it’s hard not to let her twenty-first century medical knowledge impact her work in 1861 and 1941. If she knowingly tries to change history in any timeline, she’ll forfeit her life in that timeline early. She also struggles with the knowledge of what will happen in 1861 and 1941 and the desire to warn people. But no one in any of her timelines knows that disaster is looming in September 2001.

i loved this book just as much as the first one. I wondered how Gabrielle could write another book about time crossers without repeating some of the same scenarios in the first book. But though Maggie and her parents wrestled with some of the same things, their circumstances and challenges were very different.

I liked the fact that the 1861 and 2001 timelines both occurred in Washington, D. C., but with vast differences.

Happily, the audiobook this time included the author’s notes about what circumstances and people were real and which were made up. I always enjoy that information after finishing a historical fiction book.

There were just a couple of small things I disagreed with here—one character saying he had to learn to love himself before others could love him, and another who determines to “follow her heart.”

But overall, I loved this book. I kept looking for ways to sneak in a few minutes listening more than my usual times. There is at least one more book coming in this series, and I am looking forward to it.

Sarah, Plain and Tall

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I saw the film version of Sarah, Plain and Tall with Glenn Close several years ago and loved it. I hadn’t known then that it was based on a children’s book by Patricia MacLachlan. I just recently read the Kindle version.

The story opens with Anna, her younger brother Caleb, and their widowed father living on the prairie in the late 19th century. Written from Anna’s point of view, she notes that her parents used to sing all the time, but her Papa never does any more.

Papa tells the children he has placed an advertisement for a wife and received a reply from Sarah, a woman in Maine. She lives with her brother, but he is getting married. She’s concerned she will miss the sea, but she’s willing to come out by train to the prairie and meet the family.

Sarah exchanges letters with papa, Anna, and Caleb until she arrives. Sarah is different and does unusual things. They all like each other, but the children are afraid Sarah misses the sea too much to stay.

This was a lovely story written in a simple yet beautiful style.

A few of my favorite quotes:

Outside, the prairie reached out and touched the places where the sky came down.

My brother William is a fisherman, and he tells me that when he is in the middle of a fog-bound sea the water is a color for which there is no name.

There is no sea here. But the land rolls a little like the sea.

I shook my head, turning the white stone over and over in my hand. I wished everything was as perfect as the stone. I wished that Papa and Caleb and I were perfect for Sarah. I wished we had a sea of our own.

This book won a Newberry Medal, and the Kindle version I read included the author’s speech upon receiving it. She said the story was based on a real Sarah from Maine who had traveled to the prairie to become the wife and mother of a friend of the author’s mother. This speech contained a couple more favorite quotes:

Every writer should have a loving reader who has the courage to write both “I love this” and “Ugh” on the same page.

When Julius Lester praises children’s literature as the “literature that gives full attention to the ordinary,” he echoes my parents’ belief that it is the daily grace and dignity with which we survive that children most need and wish to know about in books.

My parents believed in the truths of literature, and it was my mother who urged me to “read a book and find out who you are,” for there are those of us who read or write to slip happily into the characters of those we’d like to be. It is, I believe, our way of getting to know the good and bad of us, rehearsing to be more humane, “revising our lives in our books,” as John Gardner wrote, “so that we won’t have to make the same mistakes again.”

I knew there was one sequel to the book, Skylark. But I hadn’t known there were three more. The Kindle version contains the first chapter of each of the books. Someday I hope to read the rest.

I wanted to rewatch the videos of both Sarah, Plain and Tall and Skylark, but they don’t appear to be available to stream from anywhere. I might see if the library has the DVDs.

Have you read or watched Sarah, Plain and Tall? What did you think?

Review: When the Day Comes

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When the Day Comes by Gabrielle Meyer has an intriguing and unique premise for a novel.

Libby Conant is a time crosser. She lives in 1774 Williamsburg with her widowed mother and two sisters. She and her mother took over the printing of the Virginia Gazette after her father died, but they are barely making ends meet. Creditors threaten prison. Then the Conants are awarded the public printing contract from the House of Burgesses. They print Thomas Jefferson’s pamphlets as well as public notices. The Revolutionary War is about to break out, and tensions run high between rebels and loyalists.

Libby has loved Henry Montgomery since they were both children. She thinks he has feelings for her as well, but they move in different social circles. Plus he has secrets of his own. Whose side is he really on?

When Libby goes to sleep in Williamsburg, she wakes up as Anna Elisabeth Wells, only daughter to a prominent, wealthy family in 1914 New York. Her father’s fortune was self-made, which is not enough for her mother’s ambition for rank which values “old money.” Her mother has paraded Libby around for two seasons in New York, and now they are going to London to see what the titled male population is like there.

Libby does not want to marry, at least not before her twenty-first birthday. She enjoys working with the suffragette movement, which her mother disdains. Mother Wells is one of the most manipulative women ever and overrides Libby’s wishes and protests in her pursuit of the right suitor.

War is looming on this timeline as well, though no one knows it yet. Libby only knows because her mother in 1774 was a time crosser as well who lived in the twenty-first century.

When Libby goes to sleep in New York, she wakes up in Williamsburg again, with no loss of time in either place. Thus has it been since she was born and thus it will be until she turns twenty-one. Then she will have to choose which path she wants to live in permanently. Her body will die in the path she does not choose, but she will retain her memories of that time. If she tries to knowingly alter history in either path, she’ll forfeit her life in that path.

Libby is sure which path she will choose. She likes the conveniences of the Gilded Age in 1914, but she’s not interested in status and wealth. She’s needed in 1774 to help her family and the cause of freedom. And even if her love for Henry can never come to fruition, she wants to be where he is.

But unexpected circumstances may force her into a different choice.

This book came out last year, and I kept seeing it favorably mentioned among bloggers I follow. I still wasn’t quite sure I’d be interested, but I decided to give the audiobook a try. And . . . wow. This book was fascinating. The characters are well-drawn. It was fun seeing a few historical figures in the story. The plot kept a good pace, even with the intricacies of two timelines. I loved the eventual emphasis on the need to trust God rather than strive after our own way. I didn’t see the ending coming at all, but it was supremely satisfying.

As usual, the audiobook did not contain the author’s notes. I was curious about how she got and developed the idea for this book and found an interview with her about it here.

I enjoyed this book so much, I immediately started the sequel, In this Moment. Highly recommended.

Every Ocean Has a Shore

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Every Ocean Has a Shore, a novel by Jamie Langston Turner, opens with a few people in a small diner in Chicago. Suddenly a young man with a gun comes in, locks the door, and starts barking orders.

Tragedy is averted, but everyone is shaken. The three adults in the main dining room don’t know it yet, but they are bonded together even after they go their separate ways.

The only customers in the diner at the time were an older woman, Alice, and a young boy. Alice had been estranged from her daughter for years before her daughter died. Alice just found out that her daughter left behind a young son, Ian, who had been cared or by his father. But now the father is dying, and someone finds Alice’s contact information. Alice flew from South Carolina to Chicago to pick up five-year-old Ian, who doesn’t speak. They’ve just stopped at the diner for lunch when the incident occurred.

Gary is the owner of the diner. He was always a quiet man, but became quieter still after his wife died. He’s intelligent, but it takes him a while to think through things. His loneliness and the crime in the city cause him to consider moving, but he doesn’t know where or what he would do with himself. He has a sister in Vermont who needs help fixing up her home. Maybe he’ll start there.

Fawna is the waitress, a college dropout with a birthmark on her cheek in the shape of Borneo and a penchant for saying weird things. She rents a room from a crotchety old woman named Mrs. Welborn and helps her out. Her parents died, leaving her with money to live on. She’s drifted around for the past eight or nine years, but thinks she might like to settle down somewhere. The problem is, she doesn’t know where to go or what she wants to do.

The point of view switches between these three as they go on with their lives but keep in touch. We learn some of their background and issues. Fawna discovers C. S. Lewis and begins to wonder if, as Lewis suggests, someone has been orchestrating all the events of their lives.

Fans of Jamie Langston Turner will welcome this, her first new book in nine years. A few characters from her earlier books make an appearance, particularly Eldeen, the larger-than-life older woman from Jamie’s first book, Suncatchers. But this is a stand-alone novel that can be enjoyed even if you haven’t read the previous books.

Jamie’s books are character-driven, not plot-driven. This isn’t an edge-of-your-seat kind of story. In fact, the story seems pretty slow in places. But as we learn more about each character and see how everything is woven together, we find great depth. I’ve seen many people who don’t normally like Christian fiction say that they like Jamie’s books.

Review: Gay Girl, Good God

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I think I first came across Jackie Hill Perry on Twitter. I wasn’t familiar with her work, but somehow I saw things that she had tweeted. I liked what she said, so I followed her. Unfortunately, she’s not on Twitter any more.

I don’t know at what point I learned that Jackie had written a book, Gay Girl, Good God: The Story of Who I Was and Who God Has Always Been. I saw some good reviews and put it on my To Be Read list.

Jackie grew up with a single mother and a father who breezed in and out of her life. Her father once told her that he loved her, but it wouldn’t bother him if she never wanted to see him again. His absence and lack of love plus Jackie’s being sexually abused by a boy at a young age were major factors in Jackie’s gender confusion, which then led to her becoming a lesbian.

Jackie had attended church and knew that Christians believed homosexuality was wrong. She fully believed she was going to hell. But she didn’t care.

Yet she felt God’s pursuit of her. She felt Him calling her, “haunting” her.

The only thing that made sense was that someone had obviously been talking to God about me and it was the reason why God wouldn’t leave me alone. Obviously, whatever was being asked of Him, regarding me, was making my little sinful world spin. It was dizzying to live on now-a-days. Trying to stand up straight (or should I say, queer), made everything I loved, mainly myself and my girlfriend, blurry. Nothing was clear except God’s loud voice saying, “Come.” (p. 50, Kindle version).

Eventually, Jackie did come. Yet life was not then miraculously easy. She wasn’t just saved from homosexuality. She was saved from sin, any and all sin. And like every other new believer, she learned that discipleship consists of taking up one’s cross daily and following Jesus, just as He said it would.

In the last section of her book, Jackie deals with Biblical truths like our identity in Christ and some common misconceptions, especially of what she calls the “heterosexual gospel.” In witnessing to homosexuals, well-meaning Christians sometimes promise or emphasize things which the Bible does not.

A few quotes that stood out to me:

Why hadn’t they ever mentioned the place happiness had within righteousness, or how the taking up of the cross would be a practice of obtaining delight? Delight in all that God is? Even their Savior had this kind of joy in mind as He endured His cross. So why hadn’t they set their focus on the same? In their defense, they were not to blame for my unbelief. I just wonder if they would’ve told me about the beauty of God just as much, if not more, than they told me about the horridness of hell, if I would’ve burned my idols at a faster pace (p. 64).

Because a good God made the woman, then being a woman was a good thing (p. 87).

Our sexuality is not our soul, marriage is not heaven, and singleness is not hell (p. 139).

To tell you about what God has done for my soul is to invite you into my worship (p. 140).

Do you know why we have a hard time believing that a gay girl can become a completely different creature? Because, we have a hard time believing God. The Pharisees saw the man born blind, heard his testimony, heard about his past and how it was completely different from the present one, and refused to believe the miracle because of Who the miracle pointed to. They were skeptical of the miracle because they didn’t have a real faith in the God who’d done it. The miracle was less about the blind man and more about a good God. It showed Him off. His power. His ability to do what He wants. How He wants, when He wants, and to whomever He chooses (p. 107).

I especially loved this, in telling about the man who had been born blind whom Jesus healed by combing His spit with dirt, rubbing the mixture on the man’s eyes, then telling hm to go wash in the pool of Siloam: “Using his palms to brush the stubborn sections away from his eyelids, light startled him. As more mud fell, more sight came. Until at once, he could see” (p. 106).

I looked at Goodreads yesterday to see what some of the reviews said. Not surprisingly, I saw review after review with one star scathingly critical of Jackie’s story. I thought, how sad it is that her book is rated so low just because people disagree with her. But then I scrolled up and saw that only three percent of the reviews were one star. 83% were four and five stars. Yet of the ten reviews Goodreads showed on the first page, seven were one-star.

I would love to say to those who discount Jackie’s story (one review accused her and her husband of pretending to be heterosexual)—if, according to the world, life is all supposed to be about choice these days, why would anyone argue with Jackie’s choices? If everyone’s supposed to have their own truth (which I disagree with, and Jackie would, too), why would you discount the truth of her experience? Why is it that if someone has lived a heterosexual lifestyle but then thinks they might be gay, that determination is supposed to be the real, lifelong one and there’s no turning back? Why can one supposedly only turn one way, and not the other?

One can, of course. But Satan wants to blind and deceive people.

I enjoyed Jackie’s story of God’s grace. I have not heard or read her poetry, but she has a poet’s heart and her expressiveness shines through here. Her knowledge of Biblical truth is solid.

I’d recommend her books to anyone, gay or straight, Christian or not. I think it would be particularly eye-opening to Christians who can sometimes come across as glib in their witness or opinions.

I listened to the audiobook, read by Jackie. At the moment, it’s free to those with an Audible subscription. Then I bought the Kindle version so I could keep this book on hand.

Humble Roots

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If people think about humility at all these days, they usually envision self-deprecation, playing down one’s attributes, talents, or accomplishments, or, at the very least, not bragging.

In Humble Roots: How Humility Grounds and Nourishes Your Soul, Hannah Anderson explores humility from a Biblical angle. Instead of viewing humility as a club or prod when we’re feeling too proud, humility frees us and leads us to rest.

I defined humility as a correct sense of self, as understanding where you come from and where you belong in this world (p. 64, Kindle version).

Theologically speaking, humility is a proper understanding of who God is and who we are as a result (p. 102).

I would describe it as a creaturely dependence. We’re “made in His image, but we are made nonetheless (p. 11)—made originally from dirt, to which our bodies return. As Paul reminds Timothy, “we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world” (1 Timothy 6:7). Everything we are and everything we have comes from God.

The problem is our obsession with ourselves. With our need to fix things, our need to make ourselves better, our need to be approved by God and others, our need to “count for something.”

But this is also why Jesus calls us to come to Him. By coming to Jesus, we remember who we are and who we are not. By coming to Him, we come face to face with God and with ourselves. “It is only in our encounter with a personal God,” writes philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand, “that we become fully aware of our condition as creatures, and fling from us the last particle of self-glory” (p. 55).

If I can’t handle little things, what can I handle? Failure at small things reminds us of how helpless we are in this great, wide world. When little things spiral out of control, they remind us that even they were never within our control in the first place (p. 26).

Humility, instead of being a negative concept, frees us:

to be the people God created us to be (p. 11).

from the cycle of stress, performance, and competition (p. 12).

from our burdens . . . by calling us to rely less on ourselves and more on Him (p. 32).

to redirect our energies toward God and those whom He has given us to love (p. 3).

from the condemnation of others, . . . from self-condemnation and unnecessary guilt (p. 108).

to hear God’s call and leads you to a place of both rest and flourishing (p. 110).

from the oppression of our emotions, when we finally learn that “God is greater than our heart (p. 114).

from the responsibility of feeling like you have to “do it all.” You are free to do only what you have been made to do (p. 163)

. . . and so much more.

Hannah follows Jesus’ admonition to consider birds and flowers by grounding each chapter in something from the garden or nature. For instance, the chapter “Vine-Ripened” begins with all the work that goes into growing garden tomatoes, then being fooled every year into thinking the ones gassed for redness in stores will be the same. That leads into a discussion of wisdom being rooted not in acquiring facts, but in submitting to the source of wisdom–the fear of the Lord. Then an 1800 court case over whether tomatoes are vegetables or fruit is tied in, along with our relentless desire to be “right.” “Humility simply leaves room that my understanding of a situation could be wrong” (p. 124). We may not have all the facts or may be influenced by culture. Because we’re limited, “my faith cannot rest on my own knowledge . . . or ability to understand . . . humility leaves room for grace” (p. 124). How unlike most social media discussions, where everyone is right in their own eyes. Hannah then refers to an Isaac Watts book which discusses a “dogmatical spirit.” Our wisdom and safety come not from our being right, but from Jesus being right. Then the chapter goes back to the process of creating store-bought tomatoes, compares that with our search for wisdom, and extols the wisdom of waiting: “Humility teaches us to let knowledge ripen on the vine” (p. 129). The chapter is much more beautifully woven together than my cobbled summation here.

Hannah points us to Jesus, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:6-8) and who invites us to “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:20).

Besides benefiting from the truths Hannah shares, I marvel at the way she is able to weave together facts from nature, literature, Scripture, and personal example seamlessly into each chapter. I don’t know how she accomplishes this without time to just sit and think, but as a busy pastor’s wife and mom, I’m sure such time is at a premium. I first read one of her books during Advent and have been working my way through her others. She has quickly become one of my favorite authors.

Even though I just finished this book, reading one chapter a week, I am thinking about going through it again. I need to soak in its truths more.

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)

A Place to Hang the Moon

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In A Place to Hang the Moon by Kate Albus, William, 12, Edmund, 11, and Anna, 9, live in 1940 England. Their parents died when William was 5. “The grandmother” had charge of them since, but she sent them off to boarding school and was cold and aloof when they were home.

Now the grandmother has died as well. The family solicitor, Mr. Engersoll, explains that the children have been left a lot of money, but no one has been named as their guardian. Apparently there is no one to ask. The children plead to stay with the family’s housekeeper, Mrs. Collins, but she’s too old to take them in.

Mr. Engersoll suggests that the children join evacuees being sent to the country. Perhaps the foster parents they find might take them in permanently. The children are advised not to tell anyone that they are alone in the world or that their family has money, so they don’t get taken advantage of.

The children agree with what Mrs. Collins calls “the preposterous plan,” as there seems to be no other option.

The children are billeted together first with one family, then another. I don’t want to spoil the story by telling what went on in those places, but neither is suitable.

The children spend many afternoons in the town library. Books have always been their friends, and the warmth and quietness of the library provide a refuge. The kind interest of the librarian, Mrs. Muller, makes the place even more welcome.

It’s not long, however, before they discern Mrs. Muller is something of an outcast. She’s married to a German man who has disappeared.

The children wish they could stay with Mrs. Muller, despite her husband’s possible Nazi leanings.

This story starts out like a classic fairy tale, with children alone in the world having to overcome various difficulties. I had thought it was a young adult book, but Amazon recommends it for grades 4-7.

I don’t often read secular books for this age group, but the Story Warren and Hope both spoke well of this story, piquing my interest. I agree with C. S. Lewis that a good children’s book can be enjoyed by adults as well. When the title came up temporarily free from Audible. I gave it a try.

I’m so glad I did. I loved this book. The story is well-told and the characters are beautifully drawn. Descriptions of both warm and cozy and difficult scenes make you feel you are experiencing them along with the children. References to beloved classic children’s books are scattered throughout. Polly Lee’s British accent enhanced the audiobook. I didn’t want the book to end.

Some of my favorite quotes:

The first words of a new book are so delicious—like the first taste of a cookie fresh from the oven and not yet properly cooled.

The librarian took this all in, standing by the fire and observing the children for a while, letting the silence be. Somehow, it didn’t feel awkward, the way silences often do. Perhaps librarians are more used to quiet than most.

William, Edmund, and Anna knew, somewhere deep in the place where we know things that we cannot say aloud, that they had never lived in the sort of home one reads about in stories – one of warmth and affection and certainty in the knowledge that someone believes you hung the moon.

Edmund took in the boy’s mended jacket, the eyes underlined in shadows, the skin above his upper lip chapped raw from a dripping nose gone unattended, and saw the sort of hunger whose endlessness digs a pit in a person. Being eleven, Edmund wouldn’t have put it quite in those words, but he recognized it nonetheless.

While she wasn’t sure of the precise definition of the word “bibliophile,” Anna was certain it meant something that she wanted to be.

The stealing of sweets, after all, is an act committed only by those with unspeakably black souls.

The smell of the cookies filled the children with a warmth that can only come from the magnificent alchemy of butter and sugar.

Truth be told, Anna was rather giving away the ending, but sometimes one cannot help oneself.

Anna thought of offering up a hearty platter of I told you so, but she didn’t. Why foul perfection with such a sharp thing as bitterness?

This is a lovely book. Not fluffy bunny and serene landscape lovely, but a wonderful tale beautifully told.

The Four Graces

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The Four Graces are daughters of the vicar of Chevis Green, England, during WWII. This book is sometimes listed as the fourth Barbara Buncle book, but Barbara only appears in one scene at the beginning at a wedding. The setting and some of the characters from the previous book carry on, however.

The vicar has been a widower for some time, and his grown daughters all help around the house and village–or at least they did, until one went into the service during WWII.

Liz works on the neighboring farm of Archie Chevis-Cobb, the local squire. She’s always up for adventure and is unconventional and outspoken.

Sal takes care of most of the home chores. She was sickly as a child and therefore did not attend school. She has a quiet, steady disposition and helps her father smooth the ruffled feathers of his congregants.

Addie enlisted in the WAAF and lives in London but pops in and out.

Tilly is quiet and shy and plays the organ.

Amid the war shortages and rationing, the Graces live a quiet, pleasant life. But then William Single, a scholar interested in Rome, comes to stay with them and study what he thinks is an old buried Roman settlement nearby. William is a large but gentle, bumbling man and fits into the household nicely.

A young officer, a friend of Addie’s comes to visit–too often for Tilly’s tastes. She’s afraid he has designs on one of her sisters.

But the household is totally disrupted by the arrival of Aunt Rona, the girls’ late mother’s sister. Bombing shattered all her windows of her London house, so she came to stay with the Graces. But she takes over and tries to manage everything and everyone. And then the girls fear Aunt Rona might be trying to worm her way into their father’s affections.

This book reminded me a bit of Little Women, if it had been set during WWII. The girls here are older, though, all in their twenties.

Some of the quotes I loved:

Life was like that, thought Liz. You drifted on for years and years—then, suddenly, everything happened at once and all the things that had seemed so stable dissolved and disintegrated before your eyes…and life was new.

I have noticed that nowadays when people speak of being broad-minded they really mean muddleheaded, or lacking in principles—or possibly lacking the strength to stand up for any principles they may have.

“Books are people,″ smiled Miss Marks. ″In every book worth reading, the author is there to meet you, to establish contact with you. He takes you into his confidence and reveals his thoughts to you.

She talked less than some of the others and perhaps thought more.

I listened to the audiobook nicely read by Karen Cass.

This was a secular book, so I would not agree with every little thing–like brief mentions of astrology and a universal religion. But otherwise, this is a sweet English village story that I enjoyed very much.

In fact, I am a little disappointed to leave this setting and these characters behind. I’d love for  there to have been a sequel or at least a mention of the sisters in other books like Stevenson does with some of her characters. But we’ll just have to imagine the Graces continuing in in the ups and downs and pleasures and sorrows of life.