I Spy the 50 States, by Sharyn Rosart, illustrated by Sol Linero

Talk about a whirlwind tour of the 50 states!  In Sharyn Rosart's I Spy the 50 States, each state has a page of its own.  Key landmarks, plants, foods, or other distinctive (OK, many not-so-distinctive) features are shown in simple illustrations, about 15-20 per state.  Some are labelled, some are not.  Most make sense, but almost every page had one or two unlabelled illustrations that left me scratching my head.

Each page has a "I spy" challenge, with three things starting with the same letter.  I can see this as an activity book for very young nonreaders who have someone reading to them.  Adding a little interest is a hole to the next page, although in most cases it's just an eagle; there's a bald eagle on every state's page except Hawaii.

I Spy the 50 States is fun and colorful, and captures some of the highlights of each state.  But it's not terribly informative.  I would see this as level 1 of learning about the states.  Kids will want to move on to level 2 and 3 and 4 to learn more about our great nation.  (I'm not thinking of a particular book, just pointing out the very basic nature of this one.)

Gather the toddlers in your lap for an armchair cross-country tour!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

Sky Runner, by Emelie Forsberg

Emelie Forsberg is one of the top trail runners in the world.  In Sky Runner: Finding Strength, Happiness, and Balance in Your Running, she gives a glimpse of her running life and spreads a bit of her contagious love of running.  The book is full of gorgeous photos of the mountains she loves to run in.  Her boyfriend and running partner, Kilian Jornet, took the terrific pictures.  (Jornet is an accomplished runner himself, who wrote Run or Die.)

The pictures not only show the beautiful scenery but show Forsberg running and enjoying life.  Every shot captures the joy and love of running and life.  Even without reading, the message is clear, to run, to play, to enjoy.  "RUN OFTEN! RUN FAR! RUN SHORT! RUN FAST! RUN SLOW!"  She writes about planning her life so that she can run every day and enjoy it.

Oh, and by the way, she wins a lot of races, both in mountain running and skiing.  Even though she talks about her training and diet, she makes all that winning sound pretty easy.  In this sense, she reminds me of Jornet.  Both of them grew up running and skiing in the mountains, and both certainly have the genes for distance.  They put in the training hours and miles on the trail, but I'm not sure many runners could follow their path, at least not at their pace!

Above all, even at my slower pace, I can learn from Forsberg's training tips, exercises, and especially her attitude.  For running, and for all of life, this is pretty good advice: "One way to find out if you're doing the right thing is to pause for a moment.  If there is nothing else that you would like to do there and then, nowhere else you would like to be than where you are, then it's right."  It's clear that when Forsberg pauses during a run, she knows that's exactly where she wants to be.


Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

Not a Poster Child, by Francine Falk-Allen

Francine Falk-Allen is, thankfully, one of a small and shrinking group--survivors of polio.  Polio has all but been eradicated, but Falk-Allen and others do continue to live with the effects of the once-common disease.  As a child in the 1950s, Falk-Allen contracted polio and ended up with a partially paralyzed leg.  Throughout her life she has used crutches, limped, used a cane, worn a variety of orthotics or braces, or some combination of all of the above.  She writes about her life in Not a Poster Child: Living Well with a Disability--A Memoir.

The subtitle tells the story in a nutshell.  Despite her disability and the other setbacks she had--of which there are many--Falk-Allen persisted in life, finding varying measures of happiness, satisfaction, and success.  She writes that in college, and really in many stages of her life, she "was trying so hard to be like everyone else that my self-image did not involve identifying with the group called 'disabled.'"  I suppose this is common among people with disabilities like hers.  One friend told her, "You're not disabled, you just have a limp."

But while her disability might seem of little consequence to the casual observers, she details the many ways in which it affects her.  Fatigue.  The inconvenience of not being able to walk long distances.  Having to buy two pairs of shoes every time. (Her feet are 4 sizes apart in size.)  The back and hip problems that result from her leg paralysis.  The self-image issues.  Wondering if anyone would love her romantically.

I enjoyed her honesty and transparency about her struggles.  I did, at times, wish she'd had an editor with a big red pen.  She included way too much information about her "becoming a woman," her troubled family, her free love and drug use stages, her Sufism, and more.  Granted, this all tells the story of who she is, but really it wore me out.  Snow skiing with a disability: good stuff.  Advocacy for disabled people whose disabilities may not be immediately evident: important.  Some of the other stuff, I could do without.

Falk-Allen's memoir is a word of encouragement especially for women with physical disabilities who wonder if they can have a fulfilling life.  Her story answers a resounding yes, while not sugar coating the difficulties she has faced.


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

Rehearsing Scripture, by Anna Carter Florence

Anna Carter Florence teaches preaching at Columbia Theological Seminary, but besides drawing on traditional preaching methods, she harkens back to her days studying theater.  In Rehearsing Scripture: Discovering God's Word in Community, she describes and models her method of community scripture reading.  Just as actors read a script together, Florence calls on Christians to read scripture together, aloud, in character, and including movement and even staging.

I know, it sounds awkward, right?  If all you normally do is read alone, or perhaps in a group where one person reads, Florence's method is a huge paradigm shift.  But what she describes has the potential to establish the truths and demands of scripture more deeply into our hearts, minds, and actions.  "When we read Scripture as a community, we're doing the same that musicians do at band practice, or singers do at choir practice, or actors do in rehearsal: going through the script and practicing ways to play it." 

A starting place is focusing on the verbs.  Many nouns in the Bible are unfamiliar, whether names, places, measures, tools, or other dated references.  But "reading the verbs in Scripture allows us to talk about what we know, first--before we plunge into the mysteries of all that keeps us wondering."

I can see Florence's methods being very effective and having a great impact--with the right group.  It would take strong leadership to direct the readings, and lots of patience and willingness on the part of the participants.  The good news is that she does provide a great deal of guidance, so that someone wanting to coordinate rehearsing scripture with a group can get a head start by following her lead.  I could see this method dovetailing nicely with something like Discovery Bible Study, a method of Bible study that has been used effectively by InterVarsity, Cru, and other groups to introduce the Bible to seekers and new believers.

Florence's method is unique, and many readers of the Bible will be uncomfortable with it, especially as they first try it.  But I can definitely see it being useful and effective.  Any means to bring the Bible to life and deepen its role and meaning in our lives is worth pursuing.



Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

It's Just a . . . What?, by Hartley Steiner, illustrated by Anait Semirdzhyan

If you or someone in your care has sensory processing issues, you will get a kick out of this book.  You know what it means when that tag just won't quit bothering you. . . . Or that thread in your sock. . . . The tag feels like a prickly porcupine. . . . The thread feels like a dinosaur eating your foot!  When your child complains about something that seems so minor, your first inclination might be to ignore it or ignore them, but you quickly realize that their struggle is all too real.

Hartley Steiner knows how it is.  She has written about sensory issues and autism, and now writes It's Just a . . . What?Little Sensory Problems with Big Reactions.  With cute illustrations by Anait Semirdzhyan, she presents a problem a child is having--sand's too hot, goggles are too tight, tag is itchy--and the child's response to the adult's "It's just a . . ." remark.  At first, it seems like the adult is downplaying the offending bit.  But in each case, the adult assists with a practical solution: put on flip flops, adjust the goggles, cut off the tag.

Children who read this will receive a validation of their struggle.  They are not the only ones who experience extreme discomfort from tiny things that don't bother most people!  It's a good reminder to adults, too, not to ignore the pleadings of a child who complains about something seemingly so trivial.  I was surprised that she left out audio and visual stimulation.  Many kids experience discomfort with loud noises or bright lights; those would have fit in well in this book.  Nevertheless, It's Just a . . . What? is a great teaching tool for kids with sensory issues, as well as for the adults who support them.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

Daring to Hope, by Katie Davis Majors

In Kisses from Katie, Katie Davis tells the story of moving to Uganda as a teenager, adopting a whole bunch of daughters, and starting a ministry to families and orphans in Uganda.  She has been in Uganda for a decade, adopted a few more children, and married another missionary.  Now Katie Davis Majors, she writes about her life and continued ministry in Daring to Hope: Finding God's Goodness in the Broken and the Beautiful.

Several things strike me about Daring to Hope.  First and foremost is her intimate relationship with God.  She talks about speaking with him and spending time with him in a personal, tangible way.  This is no great revelation, of course.  This is how God wants us to relate to him.  But I, and I suspect most Christians, fall short of this kind of intimacy.

Second is the apparent ease with which she serves her family and neighbors.  To read her account, having thirteen children, frequent house guests, huge dinner parties, and constantly serving her neighbors is no big deal.  I don't know about other families, but keeping up with my three kids and having dinner guests over a couple times a month seems like a challenge sometimes.  Yet she does so much with her family and in the community, and for much of the time she has been in Uganda, it has been as a single mom.

The book is full of heart-breaking stories about the painful lives of many of her neighbors.  Poverty and disease are a fact of life in Uganda, more so than in more developed countries.  She is privileged to have a ministry of service and a reputation for compassion, but that means that people come to her with their broken lives, giving her opportunities to love with the love of Jesus but also to share in their suffering.

I couldn't help but wonder what else she does away from home. . . . She started an organization, Anazima, to "educate and empower the people of Uganda with God's love," but she writes little about her day-to-day activities with the organization.  I suspect she is more involved than the narrative of the book lets on, but with all she has going on at home, she might be content to delegate the operation of the ministry to others.

In a broad sense, Daring to Hope led me to wonder, What might I be able to do if I was fully supported financially, freeing me to minster to my family, my neighbors, and my community full-time?  It seems like this is the case for Katie.  Many people would not live and intentionally and inspirationally as she has, were they given the opportunity.  But she does inspire me to live more outwardly and sacrificially for those around me.  I don't have to go to Uganda to love my neighbor.


Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

Blurred Lines, by Vanessa Grigoriadis

If you think that the Columbia student who lugged her mattress around campus for year is a real hero (or, I guess I should say, "shero"), then you'll probably love Vanessa Grigoriadis's book Blurred Lines: Rethinking Sex, Power, and Consent on Campus.  If you think Mattress Girl is a vindictive attention seeker who wrongfully made an ex-boyfriend's life a living hell by continually publicizing his name and the alleged act of rape, smearing his name all over campus and the national media, then reading Grigoriadis's book will be a frustrating and infuriating experience.

Grigoriadis spent a few years traveling to college campuses to interview Mattress Girl and her friends and like-minded survivors/victims and activists at Columbia and elsewhere.  If her account is all you ever know about college life, you will get a picture of hyper-sexualized post adolescents who have sex all the time and frat boys who have no qualms about having sex with passed-out young ladies.  You will be disturbed by the author's accounts of young ladies who knowingly attend parties where they know vast quantities of alcohol will be consumed and where the male hosts intend to have sex with someone--anyone--before the night is done, and then they're shocked--shocked!--when a girl wakes up hungover, her panties off, her clothes in disarray, and doesn't remember who or how many guys she had sex with.

In this world, it's perfectly OK to ruin a young man's reputation and educational experience over a misunderstanding about intercourse, or even kissing or groping.  It's perfectly OK to willingly have sex with a bunch of fraternity brothers, then turn them all in to the school administration when they compare notes and make up a bawdy story about their shared experiences.  And it's perfectly normal to go to an ABC (anything but clothes) party and not expect that the guys there won't see the presence of a bunch of mostly naked women as an invitation for a bit of whoopee.

Look, rape is horrible.  No one should ever be forced to have sex.  No one should take advantage of a passed out drunk person.  I think everyone agrees on that.  But Blurred Lines and other books and articles written from a similar perspective weaken the case of rape victims by placing them in the same category as a girl who gets mad because the guy she was grinding with on the dance floor grabs her boobs without asking, or the girl who is on the receiving end of an unwelcome kiss from a guy she's talking with at a party. 

Grigoriadis does talk with and about guys who claim to have been wrongfully accused, but she seems to minimize their plight.  The whole "believe the victim" mentality puts guys in a position of "guilty until proven innocent."  In fact, Columbia found Mattress Girl's accused perpetrator innocent, which prompted her to begin her years-long smear campaign.  After suffering her public shaming, which Columbia allowed and even encouraged, he won a lawsuit against the school, getting some measure of satisfaction, but his name is forever linked to this case.

Here's what I would have liked to have heard from Grigoriadis, but she and her ilk will not say.  "Ladies, you think you are liberated by having lots of sex.  But you're not weighing the costs."  Even though she mocks calls for abstinence before marriage, there is no question that a lifestyle of chastity keeps young people away from much of the pain and hardship she discusses.  The vast majority of cases of campus rape and sexual assault are in the context of sexually promiscuous lifestyles.  Does that make it OK?  Of course not.  But if college kids embrace a culture of sexual promiscuity, the opportunities for misunderstanding and miscommunication, especially after a few drinks, increase exponentially.

If you read Blurred Lines and still get excited about sending your kids to college, you're crazy.  The college life she portrays herein is predatory males, non-stop drunken parties, hookups and promiscuity, and very little studying and academic work.  Weep for our culture and teach your sons and daughters to live right. 


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!