love to paint

This week I read several Christian fiction books.  One was a quick and easy read and one wasn't so easy to read. The first book I read was one that Tracie Peterson wrote several years ago titled What she left me .  It is a story about abandonment and abuse, but also about healing.  There were several truths about forgiveness and the truth of situations that are the kind that leave deep scars for life.  There were several parts that were extremely difficult to read--which I skipped parts of.  The author explains at the beginning of the book in a note that it isn't a book for teenage girls to read.  I agree.  Tracie Peterson typically writes romantic fiction.  This book is a realistic fiction in which she tries to tackle some of the yuckiness of life.   It was good.  I am glad that I read this book, although it will probably take some time to get a few of the yucky scenes out of my head.  This is one of those books to read with cau...

Whenever someone comments on one of my reviews on Amazon, I get a little email with a snippet of the review.  Yesterday, I received such an email about a comment posted in response to my review of The Midwife's Apprentice, by Karen Cushman.  This book is a 1996 Newberry Award winning book. Two years ago when Autumn and I read it, I was flabbergasted.  There's no other word but "flabbergasted" that describes how I felt.  I wanted her to read it because it set in Medieval times, a period of history she didn't usually read books about and it was a Newberry Award book.  This was the last Newberry Award book I've ever made my children read. This book was given rave reviews by the Library Journal and many, many reviewers.  I was floored as much by the book as by the Library Journal's review.  Whoever wrote the review saw The Midwife's Apprentice as a story in which a girl finds her identity and place in the world.  On Amazon, the description of the b...

I find for some reason that I am often in the minority.  Such is the case with regard to a book I've begun reading over the past few days.  A good friend of mine had asked if I'd read it because several of her friends had really enjoyed it.  My curiosity was piqued, so I began looking for a preview of the book online.  I found a pdf preview of the first third on the publisher's website, which I read a few nights ago.  Then, on Monday I happened to be at a friend's house who had the book (and wasn't reading it), so she let me borrow it to get the full picture of the book. When I was reading yesterday, I thought to myself, maybe I'm just missing something...  So many people like this book...  As I read on, I found that there were some things I agreed with the author about and then others that I saw very differently. The book is Teaching From Rest:  A Homeschooler's Guide to Unshakable Peace by Sarah MacKenzie.  The premise of the book i...

Most homeschoolers I know, including myself, are continually looking for reading lists with ideas for books their children can and should read. A good friend of mine gave me this book by Leslie Raynor and Christopher Perrin to peruse and asked me my opinion of it.  I read through all of the lists in the books and found it to be problematic.  It tries to do too much in a small space.  The lists are divided into K, Lower Grammar (1-3), Upper Grammar (4-6), Rhetoric (7-9) and Dialectic (10-12).  Within the lists, books are classified by genre and then by level (1-3--easy, normal, challenging). I discovered as I read that book that I would not recommend this book for several reasons. 1.  There is almost no realistic fiction in this book. I only found 2 books--From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankenwiler and Bridge to Terabithia in the 4-9 lists.  Dickens is considered realistic fiction by these authors. 2.  The way the books were leveled d...

Sometimes books tend to blur into one another.  Sometimes they stand out.  I have been trying to figure out where the last book I read falls.  I'm not sure. The book is titled The Reluctant Duchess by Roseanna M. White.  The story is about a young woman, Rowena, and the grave predicament she finds herself in.  Trapped by an unwanted suitor and possible pregnancy.  Enter a young gentleman who lives elsewhere.  He becomes trapped circumstantially and accepts the consequences of that trap rather than fighting them. The writing of this book flows and I didn't see any major issues with the plot.  The dialect that the characters from the Highlands speak made me slow down my reading at times and there wasn't a glossary for the words included in the book.  But, there was an elaborate list of characters in the very beginning--which I didn't find necessary. The one major key to the character of Brice Myerston, the Duke of Nottingham, that I w...

My husband and I were talking yesterday about whether or not people can change.  Change is hard.  In our lifetimes, we have seen people change and we've also seen people refuse to change.  God can heal people when they--when we-- let go our our idol of control and trust Him. Yesterday, I sat with my husband and he mentioned the healing that has taken place in someone we know and I cried and thanked God.  In the next moment, we were aware of another situation where all remains the same and I cried for a very different reason. This song from the movie Like a Country Song is kind of interesting to me.  Things that have been done never really can be undone, but--BUT I know that God tells me in his Word that we can be washed clean--that we are made white as snow by Christ's blood when we repent and turn to Him.