Book Review: THE MURDERESS

Title: The Murderess

Author: Laurie Notaro

Publisher: Little A

Pages: 367

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

 

When two stinking trunks make their way to Union station, the porters have no idea what they contain. Only that they are bleeding and that the stench is overpowering. Mrs Ruth Judd claims that the trunks contain books belonging to her husband, Dr Judd. But she doesn’t have the key to the trunks. When the trunks are opened, they are found to contain the bodies of Agnes Anne LeRoi and Hedvig (Sammy) Samuelson. Now Ruth is on the run, declared a fugitive and wanted for the murders of the two women.

But who is Ruth? Married to a much older man, who she addresses as Doctor throughout their marriage, Ruth is swept into an affair with Jack Halloran, the neighbour of the Fords, in whose household she serves as a nanny. At the same time, she befriends Anne and Sammy, and the three women help each other through challenges.

But as the heat rises in Phoenix, Arizona, we see passions get inflamed, until the time comes when confrontation becomes inevitable, leaving the police to probe the question of how Ruth came to be responsible for the murders of two of her closest friends who she loved?

 

The greater part of the book is set around the late 1920s and 1930s. the past tense omniscient narrative is interspersed with newspaper stories and Ruth’s first person past tense account. Ruth’s account takes us back to 1923, when she is a young girl, slowly leading up to the present.

 

I was drawn to the book from the very first paragraph when the trunks are found. Soon we meet Ruth and know that she is responsible for this. The mystery lies in why she killed her two dearest friends. What follows is an intense story of passion and intrigue, as the police attempt to piece together the puzzle. This is the early 1930s, so a lot of the forensic technology and techniques available today are not in place.

The period comes with its own challenges, when tuberculosis could kill you. We learn about the challenges that Ruth faces, her tuberculosis, her husband’s opioid addiction, her loneliness, among other things. We learn also about the circumstances that people faced in that time, with the Depression looming large, the challenges faced by single women, the outlawing of homosexuality. In 1927, Ruth says, “people were still spending money like mad then,” reminding us that the Great Depression is still in the future.

The weather in Phoenix is as powerful as a character, influencing and driving Ruth on. The weather, combined with her loneliness, her struggle between choosing her own happiness with Jack and worrying about her lack of faithfulness to her husband (she is, after all, a pastor’s daughter), her dependence on substances to tackle the challenges she faces and her failing mental health (the illness runs in the family; her mother is eventually institutionalized too), all egg her on to make dubious choices.

 

 

The author pulls off the unimaginable, helping us to see the murderess as a flawed human. Despite the gory nature of the crime, the author treats it in a manner that is neither prurient nor base. I couldn’t help feeling an inexplicable feeling of compassion for Ruth as she slowly loses her mind. Ruth herself describes it as a ‘wire running through her.’

The crime may inspire revulsion, but Ruth’s story demands attention. Through flashbacks, we get to know how Ruth, Anne and Sammy become friends. We see the exact moment at which the situation changes for Ruth, hurtling her and the others to their inevitable fate.

Ultimately, the Murderess is one of us, like us. The book reminds us, as it did the staff at the matrons in the prison, how close we may be to having our own wires stretched too taut. It reminds us that there is a very thin line between mental health and mental illness. 

 

(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.) 

Book Review: CHRISTMAS STORIES YOU'VE NEVER HEARD: LIKE HOW BABY JESUS HAD A CONE HEAD AND STUFF

Title: Christmas Stories You've Never Heard: Like How Baby Jesus Had A Cone Head And Stuff
Author: Sammy Adebiyi
Publisher: Sammy Adebiyi
Pages: 88
My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

 

This book does the impossible, bringing about a sense of newness to the Story of the Nativity, a story we’ve heard a thousand times and could recite in our sleep.

Through seven short chapters, all quirkily named, this book brings about a newfound reverence in all readers.

In Christmas Choir Gone Bad, the author reminds us that the people in the Bible were far from perfect. Their stories were the kind of stuff that Sunday School teachers would frown at, but that’s how it is. And yet, God picked these imperfect people to be part of the lineage that ultimately Christ was part of.

It is a reminder that our imperfections can’t get in the way of our salvation, as long as our faith wants in. As Adebiyi says, “Don’t worry about the super ripped, balding angel bouncer at the door.”

The writing is imbued with candour; the author relates each of the highlighted elements with experiences from his own life. He explains the analogies, occasionally stretching them to the limit, until we get what he is trying to say.

As he promises, he delivers. It is true that we have taken the superawesomeness of the Christmas story for granted but that’s because no one really pointed it out to us the way Adebiyi has.

Messrs Mathew, Mark, Luke and John used simple words to write their versions of the Gospel because, of course, a story as amazing as that didn’t need embellishment. The truth was amazing by itself.

That is why it helps that Adebiyi has highlighted some of the most inspiring elements of the Nativity story, all tied up casually in a tone that mixes up the elements of pop culture with all things Biblical. Once you focus, you see the thread of deep faith and reverence that suffuses the writing.

Don’t get me wrong. Silent Night is still my favourite Christmas song. But it conjures up such a peaceful and calm world that it’s easy to imagine Jesus in His divinity, and think of Him as perfect, never peeing or pooping, Mother Mary never facing issues of sleep deprivation, or any of the normal frustrations that a new mother faces.

Christmas Stories You've Never Heard: Like How Baby Jesus Had A Cone Head And Stuff is just the kind of book you need to remind you of what a miracle Christmas is. I read it after Christmas and it helped me to wipe the dust of the ages and see Christmas as I did as a child: with a sense of pure joy and wonder.

Book Review: THE GRAVITY OF JOY

Title: The Gravity of Joy
Author: Angela Williams Gorrell
Pages: 245
Publisher: Eerdmans
My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Gravity of Joy tries to understand and measure the concept and feeling of joy against research done from multiple disciplines. The author, who describes herself as a practical theologian, has proposed that joy be a counteragent to America’s crisis of despair.

In early 2016, Angela was hired by the Yale Center of Faith and Culture to work on the Theology of Joy and the Good Life project. At this point, she was full of hope and the future filled with possibilities. Within a year, she lost three family members within four weeks. Her cousin’s husband died by suicide, her nephew died of a heart attack, and her father died as a result of illness stemming from his opioid addiction.

Through the throes of her sorrow, Angela felt that life was not joyful. It was a long walk towards death. She felt suddenly ill equipped to discuss joy, let alone teach others to strive to achieve it.

Struggling with grief, Angela became part of a team leading a Bible study at a women’s prison. It was there that she became aware of the helplessness of the lives of the female convicts, how badly the odds were stacked against them, and how they cling to hope. These women acted as the friends who took the lame man on a mat to Jesus. Lost herself, Angela helped the prison women and was helped by them in turn.

The author’s experience in the prison ministry touches our hearts, making women like Amy, Gloria and Jayla and many others real to us. Her experience there proves that Joy has grit… Joy has a mysterious capacity to be felt alongside sorrow and even -- sometimes most especially -- in the midst of suffering.

It is these experiences, combined with stories from her life and other observations that make up the book.

 

Each chapter begins with a verse from a famous writer, such as Rainer Marie Rilke, the Psalms, Acts of the Apostles etc. This quote sets the tone for the chapter.

Angela relates her commentary to relatable events, such as Anthony Bourdain’s death by suicide, even as he projected joy and passion for his work. Along the way, we get introduced to poems like Walt Whitman’s “O Me! O Life!” along with bits of her course work that she teaches at Life Worth Living.

The writing style is engaging, friendly and meaningful. The author writes candidly on subjects that must have been painful to write about, in particular, her father’s addiction to opioid pills and how they altered his personality.

With time, Angela learns that It is incredibly difficult to lovingly bear witness to grief rather than walking away or trying to fix it. It is much harder to share space with grief, to breathe its pungent air.

Talking to the family members of young people who have given in to their addictions, she creates a counter to the culture of despair. She encourages us to name and acknowledge our emotions, particularly our grief and fears.

The author gives us real examples of young people driven to death on account of addictions. She accurately spells out what is wrong with the world today. The fact that social media has influenced us to believe that life matters only if there are high impact achievements. And that people obsess over ways to market their life better as if they were products instead of human beings.

Part of facing emotions is attending to grief through deep listening. To lament openly the things that bring us pain and to search hard for beauty.

Angela draws parallels between her own situation and Holy Saturday’s unique place in Christ’s Passion. She likens Holy Saturday to the in-between space when we no longer feel overwhelming grief but comfort and meaning are beyond our reach too. In this space, she realises that The God who sometimes is shrouded in sheer silence is apparently also the God of marching bands.

She urges us to seek joy and meaning in the midst of grief and reminds us to forge connections and listen to one another’s stories with empathy. So we realise we matter.

Through her experiences with grieving, Angela clarifies how joy and meaning can help us beat sorrow. Despair struggles to breathe where meaning resides.

(I read this book through NetGalley. Thank you, NetGalley, the author and the publisher.)

Book Review: THE GOSPEL IN DICKENS: SELECTIONS FROM HIS WORKS

Title: The Gospel in Dickens: Selections From His Works
Author: Charles Dickens, Gina Dalfonzo
Publisher: Plough Publishing House
Pages: 264
My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

As a child, when I read the abridged editions of Charles Dickens’ novels, I had an overwhelming impression of bleakness. It was only when I read the complete novels while pursuing my BA in English Literature that I became aware of the essential faith, the consistent belief in the good and the right, that informed his novels and shone through his writing.

I only managed to read Oliver Twist and A Tale of Two Cities in their entirety. The earnest desire to someday finish reading all his novels remains unfortunately just an earnest desire.

That is why I was glad to read Gina Dalfonzo’s book. I am so happy that she considered Dickens’ work a fit subject for intense study as part of the Gospel In series.

Much of the theme of the book is set in context in the foreword by Karen Swallow Prior where she describes Dickens' compulsions and beliefs against the background of the time and place in which he lived and wrote.

The book quotes liberally from Dickens’ voluminous body of work, including 17 novels and 3 minor works. We are treated to excerpts from Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, A Christmas Carol, Bleak House, Hard Times, and several others. The most iconic characters from his novels, including Ebenezer Scrooge, Sydney Carton (as a child, I was struck by how self-sacrificing he was and how he had been Christ-like in giving up his life in place of another), Miss Havisham and Madame Defarge.

The author divides her book into three sections, Sin and its Victims, Repentance and Grace, and the Righteous Life.

Through large chunks of quoted text, the author draws attention to how each of Dickens’ villains sets out to tell the reader what kind of behaviour and conduct Christians must and must not display in their lives.

No part of any novel is meant for entertainment alone. There is scathing irony and ferocious sarcasm on display as Dickens points out the hypocrisy of the powerful and wealthy.

Religious hypocrisy is called out at every stage, proving just how offensive Dickens found that character trait.

I must commend the author for the painstaking manner in which she has mentioned each noteworthy character in Dickens’ novels, good and bad, alike, and delineated with copious examples why they deserve to be emulated or decried. If you need a push to head back to reading the Dickens novel you abandoned a long time ago, this book might just drive you to it.

But the admiration of Dickens is not blind. As Prior points out in the foreword, for all his larger-than-life world view, as exemplified in his writing, Dickens didn’t often show his best face at home. She points out his many flaws on the domestic front.

 

The only issue I had with this book was that the formatting in the Kindle made the footnotes hard to read. Also, there should have been some differentiation in terms of font or point size or even style for the portions quoted from Dickens. In the absence of this differentiation, it’s hard to tell where the author’s commentary ends and the quoted text begins. 

I am inspired to re-read my copy of A Tale of Two Cities.

(I read this book through Edelweiss. Thank you, Edelweiss, the author and the publisher.)

Book Review: PRAYERS OF BLESSING OVER MY ADULT CHILDREN

Title: Prayers of Blessing Over My Adult Children
Author: Bruce Wilkinson, Heather Hair
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers
Pages: 144
My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

I have great faith in the power of prayer, especially so when it starts from a place where our deepest need meets our greatest faith. Nowhere is the power of faith displayed more strongly than when God-fearing parents trust their children to God’s infinite goodness.

I’ve seen the power of prayer at work in my own life and I know how I could have been on a far less happy path were it not for the faith and unceasing prayers of my parents. It was with this understanding that I too started praying for La Niña and El Niño when they were born. I still pray for them every day.

Of course, my children are still young. La Niña is a pre-teen and El Niño younger, so I don’t need this book right now but I have two beloved teenage nephews, and I know a few people with challenging family members, who I always pray for. So I hoped this book would provide me insight to pray more pointedly for their situations. 

The books starts by reminding parents that adult children are not their responsibility. That when a child becomes an adult or is married, parents must cede their responsibility and assume the role of mentors. On an aside, try telling Indian parents that.

It points out the traps that parents fall into, while assuming responsibility for adult children, and gently guides parents to ask God, their children and themselves for forgiveness for any failures in parenting.

The book gives instances from the Old Testament and from their own lives. It guides parents to pray through the traps, to pray in the Truth, pray through the struggles, pray for the victories, and praying for the Character of Christ. There are 65 guided prayers and affirmative truth for parents to pray and reflect on. Each prayer begins with a verse from the New Testament and then goes on to a specific prayer and finally invites parents to express gratitude for something.

There are some errors, mostly avoidable. On one page, they describe Generation X as the one born between 1965 and 1976 and Millennials as those born between 1977 and 1995. Some pages later, they describe the Boomer Generation as the one born between 1944 and 1964, Generation X as the one born between 1965 and 1979 and then Millennials as those born between 1980 and 1994.

(I read this book through NetGalley.)

RE-LEARNING THE ABC WITH MAMMA -- Now available on Amazon Kindle

As we stand at the beginning of a brand New Year 2019, I come bearing glad tidings.

This December gone by, I gave myself a Christmas gift that had been years in the making. Five years, to be precise.

My first book, a work of non-fiction, is finally available on the Kindle store. Re-learning the ABC with Mamma consists of the life lessons I learned from my parents, lessons that I now want to share with my kids. 

I'd be mighty thrilled if you'd click on the link in the paragraph above right now to check out my book.

I'd be even more overjoyed if you would click on the link that says, BUY NOW.

And my joy would absolutely hit the roof and sail upwards through the air if you would go on to read the book from cover to cover, and leave behind a review to tell me, and the world, that you loved it, or liked it, or even if you didn't.

Meanwhile, I want to draw your attention to the cover. The image has been drawn by my 10-year-old daughter, who's been my biggest cheerleader on this journey. Art professionals and publishing experts might scoff and sneer and tell me the book won't get noticed if the cover isn't a professionally managed job. That it will never sell. That it will gather a lot of figurative dust.

I'm choosing to listen to my heart.

This is my way of honouring her. Of thanking her for cherishing my dream and rooting for it through the many hurdles that have sprung up, when I came so close to giving up.  

Sometimes you make decisions that are more important than the ringing of the cash register. 

Not that the sales numbers aren't important.

The sales proceeds, I promised the One Upstairs long before the book was even fully written, would go to the Missionaries of Charity, and so every sale matters. Particularly to those who will benefit from the proceeds.

The sales figures, so far, have been in the lower end of the single digits, but the joy these rare species have brought us has been immeasurable. My little girl and I have held hands and danced around the room each time we saw that oh-so-tiny spike on the sales chart.

This book has been a labour of love for us both.

As I write this, still awash in the glow of a season that someone far wiser than me described as one  "which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love," I believe and hope that the love with which this book has been infused will go around and be shared and return to bless all those whose lives it touches.

Happy New Year to you and yours!

Book Review: BIBLE TRIVIA, JOKES AND FUN FACTS FOR KIDS

Title: Bible Trivia, Jokes and Fun Facts for Kids
Author: Troy Schmidt
Publisher: Bethany House Publishers
Pages: 176

I realised just how little I knew of the Bible, particularly of the Old Testament, when I encountered the questions in this book. Of course, different versions of the Bible worded things differently but that was no excuse for my ignorance. So I set about reading this book with gusto.

There are a number of formats in this book that can be used to enliven Bible learning classes. Multiple Choice questions, Fill-in-the-Blanks, Match the columns, you take your pick.

The Did you know? Section includes fact learning related to the Bible. For instance, the size and scale of Noah’s Ark, the height of Goliath, the sizes of the chapters and verses in the Bible etc. The history is explained with humour. There is also a lot of interesting trivia on the longest and shortest chapters in the Bible, and the length of the verses.

The book begins with Knock, Knock jokes. Most of them are names from the Old Testament, with Matthew, Luke and Jesus, the only exceptions from the New Testament. The funniest one for me was “It’s me, Adam! There’s only one other person on the earth. Who do you think it is?

We also have Multiple Choice Questions from the Psalms, the Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. The answers follow each question, and that was a relief. On a Kindle, going back and forth between pages is rather tedious.

Are You Smarter Than King Soloman? asks interesting questions, through the medium of Multiple Choice questions. there is a breath of good humour which suffuses the book, suggesting that Bible reading should be a joy, not a chore.

We also have Anagrams from the Old Testament. I enjoyed making words out of the Old Testament names.

Who Art Thou? presents us with questions, each with a series of clues. Each time we click a clue, the number of points we can earn from answering that question goes down.

We also get the details of phrases like “a wolf in sheep’s clothing” that are popularly used in the English language today, but that originated in the Bible.

And then we have the lists, especially the one list that I struggled with all through Sunday School. The listing of the ten plagues that struck Egypt, in the right order. We are also quizzed on the order of the Ten Commandments and the names of Jesus’ ancestors in the order of their birth.

Bible Banter contains some funny one-liners.

Another section calls us to match the names of husbands with wives, fathers and sons, and brothers too. Another quizzes us on the old and new names of well known Biblical characters. We are also asked to match people with the dreams they saw.

The sheer number and variety of questions is astounding. This book could serve as a fantastic way of getting youngsters and older people interested in reading the Bible.


(I received a free copy of this book from Bethany House. I read it on NetGalley.)

Book Review: PRAYERS FOR YOUR CHILDREN: 90 DAYS OF HEARTFELT PRAYERS FOR CHILDREN OF ANY AGE

Title: Prayers for Your Children: 90 Days of Heartfelt Prayers for Children of Any Age
Author: James Banks
Publisher: Discovery House
Pages: 235

Prayers for Your Children: 90 Days of Heartfelt Prayers for Children of Any Age by James Banks invites us to commit ourselves to 90 days of heartfelt prayer for our children, as long as we are alive.

It relates to verses from the Bible, especially the Psalms, from both the Old and the New Testament, spread over every day of 13 weeks or 90 days.

The book affirms that as parents, the best gift we can give to our children is the gift of prayer. No matter what their age, we can pray for them.

Each section begins with a brief reflection which introduces the week’s theme. The themes are pointers to live the Christian faith more meaningfully and include Knowing, Growing, Walking, Loving, Protected, Faithful, Fruitful, Thankful, Humble, Pure, Hopeful, Overcoming and Blessed.

The prayers are properly cross referenced to the appropriate chapter and verse, and related with examples and anecdotes.

The prayers don’t end with Amen, encouraging parents to add their own prayers at the close of each day’s reading. Also, it emphasizes that we can never pray too much and that the full worth of our prayers will be made evident only in Heaven.

As I prayed on, and I prayed for the 90 days as the book asked us to, I felt myself drawn into the book, pulling my nephews into the ambit of prayer, besides my own daughter and son. I prayed for the children by name and felt a deep sense of comfort knowing that I was committing my little ones to the care of Our Lord. 

I recommend this book to Christian parents, grandparents and aunts and uncles.

(I read a Kindle edition of this book through NetGalley.)

Book Review: AN INSIDER'S GUIDE TO PRAYING FOR THE WORLD

Title: An Insider's Guide to Praying For the World
Author: Brian C Stiller
Publisher: Bethany House Publishers
Pages: 288

As the Global Ambassador of the World Evangelical Alliance, Brian C Stiller has visited more than 40 countries around the world. These visits have offered him insights into the modalities and complexities of life in those countries. His passion and keenness have helped him forge an understanding of the needs of the people in those places.

As he says, Often it takes travelling through a country before its geography comes into focus and conflicting issues begin to make sense.

Most of these countries are nothing more than dots on a map for us. Realities not our own,

Brian takes us out of ourselves and gets us to think about the lives Christians in these places lead, lives of religious control and persecution and, in worst cases, torture. He takes us through Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Korea, Albania, Romania, Kenya, Nigeria, Turkey etc, a spread of nations from South America, Europe, Asia and Africa.

Many of these countries are still broken by Communism, the World wars, imperialism, tribal warfare and a host of other issues.

The book is written from the standpoint of the Evangelical Alliance, but I didn’t let that bother me. I thought that the prayers that Brian invited us to pray were heartfelt and so I joined in. After all, I do worship the same Crucified One.

Once inside a country, the author highlights the nation’s troubles through the example of one family or an individual, an example that both isolates the family or individual and holds them up for our notice. While showing us that it is just one instance of many others like it. Of people who served as witness to the Gospel by their lives, often amid difficult conditions.

Each chapter follows the same pattern: A brief history of a particular country, followed by information about its geographical location, the countries that it shares borders with, and the religions practiced by its people. Some of these countries have a high percentage of Evangelical Christians, others a lower percentage, many have a low percentage of Christians.

This section is followed by the dispatch relating to Brian’s visit there, followed by a passage from the Bible, and 3-4 points on which we readers are invited to ponder over and pray for, and finally a closing prayer.

Brian makes each country’s plight his own and writes feelingly about the travails that afflict different countries. He makes each cause for concern a reason to pray.

Some of the chapters relate to people whose lives are a witness to Christ. They include not only Evangelical leaders but also, surprise, the Pope, the spiritual head of the Roman Catholic Church. Other chapters are devoted to the World Prayer Movement, and issues like persecution and martyrdom, caring for the vulnerable, Prison Ministry, for Muslims, Mexican prisons, other prison ministries, and on finding new places of Spirit empowerment.

I faithfully prayed the prayers that Brian invited us to pray, and felt no need to question the veracity of the facts presented at the beginning of the chapter on each country. In the chapter on India, however, I found some glaring errors. Brian mentions that India was colonized by Germans, Portuguese and British. The truth is that the Germans never colonized India; the Dutch and the French did, apart from the Portuguese and the British.

Also, Christians in India do not form 7% of the population. Around 2% is the right figure.

Errors such as these lead me to wonder which other facts the author might have inadvertently got wrong.

I had no such grouse against the basic idea of the book, which forced me to think about people in the Third World, countries other than my own, homes to people considerably worse off.

As a general rule, one rarely thinks of others. Here one finds oneself thinking of issues like liberty, religious freedom, mortality, all in countries with unstable governance. For people who need our prayers.

Read this book. More importantly, pray for the intentions mentioned here. I think that is one way in which we can make a difference.

(I received a free copy of this book from Bethany House.)

Book Review: ANSWERING YOUR KIDS' TOUGHEST QUESTIONS

Title: Answering Your Kids' Toughest Questions

Author: Elyse M Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson

Publisher: Bethany House Publishers

Pages: 176

When I signed up to read and review this book, I thought it would serve as a wonderful guide and that it would help me to field the tricky questions right.

I certainly needed the guidance. As a parent, I don’t always have the answers, even though I’d like to have them. As a Christian, I’d like my answers to reaffirm my faith.

Tough job indeed.

Often I struggle with my own doubts and fears. You know what I mean. We are all plagued by questions such as Why does God allow wrongdoing to thrive? Why doesn’t He clean up the mess, when He could so easily do it?

With two children bombarding me with difficult questions (a few weeks ago, La Niña asked me, “Mamma, what is an affair?” and I found myself hemming and hawing, as I fumbled for an answer), I thought this was one resource that would help.

Whatever I imagined that Answering Your Kids' Toughest Questions: Helping Them Understand Loss, Sin, Tragedies, and Other Hard Topics by Elyse M Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson would be, it was not. I had expected the book to be a practical guide that would help parents to answer those tricky questions. I found instead a book that thought it was enough to answer all questions with the same answer: faith.

The authors, a mother and daughter pair, emphasise that the book is not a script. That all questions must be answered in keeping with children’s ages, which they have divided into three age groups, preschool, 5-10, and 11+. In each chapter, they first explain the teaching to adults and then break it down in a manner that will be understood by children. Each chapter ends with a section called, “In a nutshell,” which summarises the answers for those in a hurry.

The authors answer questions like what is sin, what is death and why God allows it to happen, what is satan and hell, why do people get divorced, why and how do some people sin sexually, with sub-chapters on homosexuality, child sexual abuse and pornography, why does God allow natural disasters to happen, and why terrorism exists.

To make things more understandable, the authors use examples from popular films like Star Wars, anecdotes from daily life. They quote heavily from the Bible, proving well their familiarity with the Old Testament and the New Testament.

Here, the authors speak from the vantage point of their faith and trust in God is an oft-repeated theme throughout. And therein lies the rub.

All the answers are from a Christian perspective, and of course, I am a Christian, but I felt a little let down, partly because I was looking for practical answers that one could give to children.

Every chapter is imbued with the conviction that Jesus knows the paths we tread and is with us always. I too have strong faith in Jesus but to keep harping on the same explanation for varying problems to a target audience that has not quite achieved the age of developing a strong faith is, in my opinion, not achieving the promise made in the book title.

While I understand what they were trying to say, I found the book unduly harsh, particularly to those who don’t share the same beliefs.

When explaining terrorism to ages 11 and upwards, she says, “We don’t need to fear someone who wants to kill us because if you are a believer, death is not your final destination.” That is taking things too far. Is a statement like that enough to soothe the fear in a child’s mind, say, a child who has seen some horrific images on TV or in real life? I don’t think so.

Earlier in the book, Jessica’s son asks her, “What if I snap my fingers? Is snapping a sin?” She asks him if he is snapping his fingers because he loves God and his neighbor. The boy replies no, and his mother tells him, “Then according to this verse you have sinned.”

I’m not really equipped to speak on matters relating to theology, but when the author makes a comment like that, I’m already feeling more than a little peeved.

Even when talking about natural disasters, the authors make no mention of the fact that human beings are largely responsible for environmental degradation.

The Death chapter is another example of this strict adherence to matters of the faith. I cannot imagine talking to my son, who is a pre-schooler, in the manner prescribed in the book. Even if I did, I doubt he would understand.

The authors remind us to temper our explanations, based on the children’s perceptiveness and maturity levels, so that our little listeners are able to make sense of them. But the answers they give don’t follow this guideline at all.

While we must encourage our children’s faith, I don’t think this is the way to do it. Continually skirting the minefield of issues that daunt each question, and playing the faith card as the one-stop answer to all questions isn’t the right way to go about building a child’s faith. A child’s faith needs to be nurtured slowly.

And Jessica admits that faith cannot be taught. That we, as parents, can only nudge and guide our children to the right path, and that we need the Holy Spirit to make their faith come alive. I appreciated that sentiment. I was also touched by the parts where she explained the issue of Child Sexual Abuse to children. This section was handled sensitively and it struck a chord with me.

The book ends with an exhaustive listing of books that the authors have referred to for “Suggested reading.”


(I received a free e-copy of this book from Bethany House. I read it through NetGalley.)

Book Review: MISS BRENDA AND THE LOVELADIES

Title: Miss Brenda and the Loveladies
Author: Brenda Spahn and Irene Zutell
Publisher: WaterBrook Press
Pages: 240






Miss Brenda and the Loveladies is the remarkable account of one woman who made a difference in the lives of thousands of women convicts, enabling them to rebuild their lives and turn their backs on their guilty pasts.

Growing up in poverty, Brenda Spahn had built up her own accountancy and audit business and an enviable lifestyle for herself on the strength of her own hard work. Investigated by the IRS for a crime she hadn’t committed, and under the mercy of a fierce legal system which threatened to send her to jail for it, she learned to rely on God. She promised herself, and God, that if she were able to avoid imprisonment, she would take an active part in prison ministry. She would rehabilitate women ex-convicts and help them re-build their lives again.

She kept her promise. For months she worked with the inmates of the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women in Wetumpka, Alabama, listening to them and giving them hope. The brief glimpse she had of prison life inspired in her the knowledge of the deadend it leads to. The knowledge inspired a God-directed vision, to give others a second chance, the way God had given her a second chance when she faced the possibility of years in prison.

And then the prison authorities sent her seven women convicts facing parole. One of these women was the proverbial gang leader from hell, and all were violent, hardened criminals who had done time for a host of felonies and crimes. The ones whose files declared them, CANNOT BE REHABILITATED.

And so began the greatest challenge that Brenda had ever undertaken.

Meanwhile, the housemother, cook and driver that she had hired quit on seeing the women. Through it all, Brenda has no idea what to do, or even what to do next. She fumbled on, knowing that God will direct her to do the right thing. Slowly the women got used to the routine at Brenda’s house, allowing Brenda’s faith to sweep over them.

It wasn’t easy. Living with ex-convicts who were doing time for some violent crimes. But Brenda never gave up. She overcame tremendous obstacles but refused to lose sight of her vision. Her patience and faith won eventually, as each of the women grabbed hold of the chance they had and decided to succeed, to repair their fractured lives and relationships.

Even as Brenda was convinced that the work she has undertaken was in keeping with God’s plan for her, she received a nasty surprise. When a local newspaper covered the work she was doing, her posh and wealthy neighbours accused her of harbouring convicts in their peaceful neighbourhood, and demanded that she leave immediately.

The hostility was overpowering and Brenda feared that this setback might spell the end of her programme. But God had a better plan. Eventually, He led Brenda on to establish the Lovelady Center in an abandoned hospital in Birmingham, Alabama. A whole-way house that serves 450 women and children every day, providing substance abuse counseling, drug rehabilitation, meals, childcare, career counseling, and job opportunities to women working to establish successful lives outside prison.

Miss Brenda and the Loveladies is the story of how Brenda got involved with a group of convicts and made their rehabilitation her life’s mission. This is not fiction, but real, although it does sound crazy enough to be fiction.

Each chapter begins with a quote that sets the stage for that which is to follow. The style is chatty, yet confessional, and matter of fact. The account is imbued with faith and hope, and conviction and a strong dash of humour. As when Brenda sees herself through the eyes of others and realizes just how crazy she must look.

Interspersed with Brenda’s narrative are single chapters each from Sharon “Shay” Curry, the toughest and the most vicious of the convicts, besides Tiffany, a drug abuser and felon, and Stephanie, an ex-employee of Brenda’s who came from a poor background and was helped by her boss, Brenda, and who eventually stole from her. The accounts detail the lives of physical and sexual abuse, besides drug abuse, stealing and prostitution.

Chapter 10, titled, “Imagine,” is hard hitting. Brenda proceeds to explain the abuse and deprivation that these women have gone through, through sentences preceded with the word, Imagine.

“Imagine if when your parents ran out of drug money, they gave you to drug dealers in exchange for dope.” Or “No one cared that you wore the same pair of underwear for weeks.”

With God’s help, the seven women later swelled to 20, and then to thousands of thousands. Brenda put in all she had into the programme, her money, time and resources, increasingly realising that it was her destiny to be doing that. Eventually she sold her business to devote herself full time to the programme.

Read this book to learn about how one woman, with God on her side, can achieve the seemingly impossible.

An inspiring true story, all the way.

Blogging for Books provided this book to me for free in exchange for an honest review.

Book Review: WALKING WITH MARY

  Walking With Mary by Edward Sri (Excerpt #2) by Image Books

Edward Sri’s Walking with Mary invites us to walk along with Mary along her journey from the moment she said Yes to the angel Gabriel to the moment when that Yes received fruition on the cross.

Sri’s devotion to Mary and subsequent strengthening of his faith started out in the best possible way: with questions.

While the Bible does not offer details about the unfolding of the most significant moments in history from Mary’s perspective, Sri pieces together the insights provided in the four Gospels, besides insights put forward by theological scholars. We get an understanding of what life must have been like then, of the hazards of having to travel miles while being in an advanced stage of pregnancy, of Mary’s journeying forth to be with her kinswoman Elizabeth, on receiving the news of her impending motherhood, despite being advanced in years.

Sri relates Mary’s experience to real-life instances that we can relate to. Mary’s Yes was the beginning of her journey of faith. It was a journey in which she must have struggled for answers, she must have floundered in her doubts, but she walked on regardless. 

Even before His first miracle in Cana, she believes that He will do something to help the Jewish householder, the father of the bride. She believes with a steadfast faith, even though she has no tangible evidence of that which she clings to so strongly.

The book discusses nine significant moments in Mary’s journey. At the beginning, the book sounded more than a little repetitive, as Sri seems to find more than one way to say the same thing. On a personal note, it was enlightening to know the depth of scholarly research about Mary. Sri relates Scripture passages from the Old Testament and correlates them with passages from the New Testament to point out the depth and strength of Mary’s commitment to God, and to demonstrate the fact that everything took place exactly as Scripture said it would.

(I received a copy of Walking with Mary from WaterBrook Multnomah.)