Elsie's Endless Wait

I just have to start by saying that I love this book, and all of the other A Life of Faith books. I can't believe that I haven't posted on them before. I like these books because they present a clear Christian message. Elsie's Endless Wait is the first in a series of eight books. It is followed by: Elsie's Impossible Choice, Elsie's New Life, Elsie's Stolen Heart, Elsie's True Love, Elsie's Troubled Times, Elsie's Tender Mercies. and Elsie's' Great Hope.

The Story Behind the A Life of Faith: Elsie Dinsmore Series

In 1868 a woman named Martha Finley wrote a novel called Elsie Dinsmore. It did very well. She continued to write novels about Elsie until 1905, writing a total of 28 books. Martha Finley died in 1909. In 1999, Mission City Press decided to redo the Elsie Dinsmore novels. They were rewritten in more modern English and each book was given a foreword about the time period, or a topic discussed in the book. You might be wondering how Mission City Press made 28 novels into only 8. Actually, there is also the A Life of Faith: Violet Travilla series, which finishes the original Elsie series. This is due to the fact that many of the later original Elsie books center around Elsie's daughter Violet and not Elsie herself.

Summary of Elsie's Endless Wait

When little Elsie Dinsmore was only four she was sent from her home near New Orleans to live with her grandfather and his family on the plantation of Roselands. The book takes place four years later. Her mother is dead and her father has been in Europe from the time Elsie was born on, so he has never seen his daughter. The year is sometime in the early 1840's. Although it seems as though Elsie has a perfectly good home, and she should be totally happy, she isn't. Her father has six younger half brothers and sisters, who are a great trial to Elsie, the fourth child Arthur especially. He is constantly doing things to annoy Elsie, and make her be on bad terms with his horrible mother or their nasty schoolteacher, Miss Day. There is also Enna, the youngest of the six children, and her mother's spoiled pet.

Then suddenly, Elsie's father makes a sudden return from Europe. Elsie does everything she can to please him. Sometimes though, Elsie thinks that her father is trying to make her do something that she believes to be going against God. She wants desperately to obey her father, Horace, but she wants to obey God more. It all comes down to one Sunday when Horace demands that Elsie play the piano at a party. Elsie believes that the only things that should be played on Sunday are Christian songs. and the song her father wants her to play isn't one. When Elsie refuses to do as her father says, he tells her that she will sit at the piano until she will play the song. Elsie ends up fainting, and it results in a large gash above her eye that is potentially life threatening. Elsie recovers, and her her father promises not to try to make her do things that she believes to be against her conscience. For now at least things seems to be turning out right.

Elsie's Endless wait was published in 1999 by Mission City Press.

Check out their website here.

To see a list of all of Martha Finley's original Elsie books, click here.

Eragon or Star Wars????

Okay, I don't know if many people reading this will have actually read the book Eragon or seen the movie. It is considered "high fantasy", so if you don't like that kind of thing you probably haven't read it and won't want to. However much I enjoyed this book, which I did, it seems kind of like Star Wars set in Lord of the Rings. When you first look at it you might think, oh great, this is another copycat of LOTR, but the plot is a lot more like Star Wars. Lets see:

A teenage boy living with his uncle on a farm located in the Empire, ruled by a evil king. He ends up getting a dragon, which puts him in peril. Evil agents come and destroy his farm and murder his uncle. He then flees his home town with the old story teller man, who teaches him magic. The old man ends up getting killed. Eragon the joins forces with a an older teenage boy, who is also running away. Together they rescue a beautiful woman in a prison filled with the king's soldiers. From there the escape to the secret hideout of a band of rebels who want to dethrone the king and destroy the Empire. The book ends with a big battle.

Now, lets see, excepting the dragon, you can probably see how the story compares to Star Wars. If you have read Eragon you could probably play "Match the Eragon Characters to the Star Wars Characters."

I know that my Mom wrote a very similar post about this same thing, but I just felt like writing a post of my own.

Bridge to Terabithia

This is an interesting book, because, for once, I actually liked the movie better. I'm just warning anyone before they even continue reading this post. I enjoyed the literature of this book, HOWEVER, I didn't enjoy having to make my mind skip over swear words. The 'd' word is used four or five times. There is also another swear word. That is not really what I had a problem with, although I prefer not to have to read that kind of stuff. My problem was with the fact that the main character uses 'lord' when not praying or speaking about God. And that is all the way through the book. So now you are probably thinking, WHY did she read this book?? Well, I read this book because I wanted to see how it compared to the movie. Also because it is written well, which is testified by the fact that is won a Newbery Medal in 1978. And nowadays, it is hard to find any books to read without a few bad words in them. I still can't figure out why the author would have put bads words in her book, though. It was written in 1977. And, I did forget to mention the fact that no one seems to hold any specific beliefs in this book. I mean that it kind of seems like they author is saying that if you just "believe in something" your life will turn out perfect. Yeah, whatever.

So here is my summary:

Jess Aarons is a fifth grade boy living in rural Virginia. He lives on a farm, and his dad is always trying to find a job, so their family is short on money. Jess is a runner. His biggest goal is probably to outrun every boy in the school and become the fastest runner in his grade. His five year old sister May Belle adores him; sometimes his likes that other times he doesn't. Then a family moves into the farmhouse just down the road from him. Jess meets their only child Leslie. Apart from his four annoying sisters, his life seems to be going pretty well...until Leslie Burke outruns him in the boy's race on the first day of school. He ends up forgiving her and the become good friends. Jess and Leslie find an old rope hanging above the dried up creek bed in the woods behind their houses. Together they swing across it to the other side, where the build a "castle stronghold" and create the magical kingdom of Terabithia.

Katherine Paterson is the author of this book. Bridge to Terabithia was fist published in 1977, and won a Newbery Medal in 1978.

Bridge to Terabithia was made into a Disney movie in 2007, starring Josh Hutcherson as Jess Aarons and AnnaSophia Robb as Leslie Burke.

Beware, Princess Elizabeth

This book is the story of Elizabeth, daughter of King Henry VIII by Anne Boleyn. The story begins at the death of King Henry. By this point Henry had divorced his first wife, beheaded his second, the third one died, but after she gave birth to a living boy, now heir to the throne, he divorced his fourth wife, beheaded his fifth, and finally died being survived by his last wife, Catherine Parr. So Henry's son, Edward becomes the king. But since he isn't of age he has a lord protector who basically rules the country for him. Meanwhile, Mary and Elizabeth are also in the line for the throne, although they are still considered illegitimate. But Edward is a frail child and is regularly sick. Eventually he dies. By this point his lord protector is a man named John Dudley. He has married his son Guilford to a young woman named Jane Grey. The privy council that helps rule the country all agree--except one-- that Jane Grey should become the new Queen instead of Mary, even though Jane is fifth or sixth in line for the throne. John Dudley plans to have Jane make Guilford king. Then he can control him and essentially rule England. But Mary has more supporters than Dudley realizes. They soon remove Jane, who never made Guilford a king, but only a duke, from the throne and throw her and her husband in the Tower of London. The rest of the book tells of Elizabeth being imprisoned by Queen Mary, who is afraid that someone will plot to put Elizabeth on the throne, and overthrow her. Also Mary is a devout catholic, and has always been. But Elizabeth is Protestant, because Anne Boleyn was. So Mary is also making Elizabeth attend Mass and profess to be Catholic. The book finally ends 11 years after it began, when Mary dies and Elizabeth becomes the Queen of England.

This book is the second book the Young Royals series. It was written by Carolyn Meyer.

Check out Carolyn Meyer's website at www.readcarolyn.com

Out of Hiding

I FINALLY got a hold of a copy of Out of hiding, by Catherine Farnes. So here is my review on it. Or, you might call it a "book blurb."


When Ashton Cook leaves for a mission trip to Mexico, she doesn't expect to have to face the painful memory of her brother Tommy's sudden death. All she expects is a three week trip into the jungle, hiking into a village, building a church for the missionary working there and then leaving. Maybe it will change her life, maybe not. But a she arrives in Mexico, that painful memory is suddenly thrust directly in her face. As well as that, when she a the rest of her mission trip team arrive in the remote village, the missionary they were supposed to meet there has disappeared. Will Ashton be able to finally face the realization of her brother's death, or will she thrust it away again like she has been doing for the past two years? And will they be able to find the missionary who has vanished into the jungle?

Out of Hiding was written by Catherine Farnes and published my BJU Press in 2000.

Remembering Laura

Today marks the 140th anniversary of Laura Ingalls Wilder's birth. She was born on February 7, 1867 near Pepin, Wisconsin. Laura married Almanzo James Wilder in 1885. In December of 1886 their first child, a girl, was born. They named her Rose. Over the next years Laura and Almanzo moved many times. In 1894 they finally settled near Mansfield, Missouri on a farm they called Rocky Ridge. On February 10, 1957, three days after her ninetieth birthday, Laura died at Rocky Ridge farm. She is probably most remembered for the nine books she wrote for children.

The books Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote are:

* Little House in the Big Woods
* Little House on the Prairie
* Farmer Boy
* On the Banks of Plum Creek
* By the Shores of Silver Lake
* The Long Winter
* Little Town on the Prairie
* These Happy Golden Years
* The First Four Years

See also this book by Carolyn Strom Collins and Christina Wyss Erikson :

* The World of Little House

Click on this link to visit the official website for the Little House books.

Click on this link for a list of the Little House books from Wikipedia.

The Breadwinner

Picture this:

You are and 11-year old girl living in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. You can't leave the house unless you have a male relative with. You are considered to be worthless. No one cares about you, except for your own family and a very few close friends.

That is life for Parvana. She lives with her brother, two sisters, mother, and father. Her father is crippled. It happened one day while he was teaching in a school. The building was bombed, and he lost part of one of his legs. Parvana has to go with him every day to the market and sit while he writes letter and sells things to make money for his family to live off of.

But then one day several men from the Taliban arrive at Parvana's house. They ransack it and drag her father off to the prison. Her mother and one of their friends, Mrs. Weera, decide to dress Parvana as a boy and send her off to earn money. Will Parvana's disguise work or will the Talib men see right though her?

This book was written by Deborah Ellis.

It was published in Canada in 2000 by Groundwood Books. It was published in the US in 2001.

Visit www.groundwoodbooks.com for more information.

Prairie River (Book 2)

Okay, I finally got around to doing the review for A Grateful Harvest the second book in the Prairie River series. Sorry for the delay. I had so many other books I wanted to do. I still have a ton on my bookshelf waiting to be blogged about.

The beginning of A Grateful Harvest starts shortly after the end of A Journey of Faith. Nessa Clemens has been given the position of schoolteacher for Prairie River for another term. The head of the school board has told her that this is only a temporary position. It is only until they can find a more suitable candidate. The school board hadn't even wanted to give Nessa the position in the first place. The had all voted for another woman, Miss Laura Sears. But after Laura proved incapable of teaching in a prairie school the school board only had one choice--to accept Nessa as their schoolteacher. But now one of Nessa favorite pupils has died, and no one seems to trust her. To make matters worse, Fanny Jo, a woman who came out west on the stagecoach with Nessa, has entrusted her with a secret. When Nessa lets her mouth run, and ends up telling Fanny Jo's secret to Ivy, one of her new friends, Nessa risks losing some of the most important friendships she has made in Prairie River. When a time of trial comes, will Nessa be able to stand? Can she prove to Mr. Applewood, the head of the school board, that she isn't totally incapable of keeping the schoolchildren safe and that she isn't as completely worthless as everyone seems to think?

Sound Friendships: The Story of Willa and Her Hearing Dog

Sound Friendships is the story of Willa Macy and her Hearing Ear Dog, Honey. Willa abruptly lost her hearing at the age of fourteen. She stayed in a kind of "cage", almost, within herself until she was 24. Then one day, Willa saw something on TV about a program that NEADS (Dogs For Deaf And Disabled Americans) offered. It was a program that trained and serviced dogs for the deaf community. Willa decided to apply for the program. After she was accepted, she was able to attend a training the the NEADS program offered. She and her new Hearing Dog, Honey, trained for several weeks, and by then Honey completely trusted Willa and was able to go home with her and assist her in her everyday life. Willa is a fictional character based on 2 women that the author met through the NEADS program.

This book was written by Elizabeth Yates (author of Amos Fortune, Free Man.)

Sound Friendships was originally published in 1987 by Elizabeth Yates. It was re-published in 1992 by Bob Jones University Press.

The ISBN for this book is 0-89084-650-2.

Click on the link to read a sample chapter of Sound Friendships.

Medallion

Prince Trave is the prideful prince of a land called Gadalla. His country is ruled by his lazy uncle, Panii. Because of this, his uncle refuses to side with the other good countries called Kapnos, Kolonia, and Dider. Then Gris, King of Kapnos, comes to see King Panii in Ganet, the capital of Gadalla. Panii still refuses to become allies with the other countries even though the Dark Alliance-- the three remaining countries of Sarda, Torridia, and Litoris-- plan to take over Gadalla by force.

Then Gris tells Trave of a medallion. A medallion that belonged to Trave's late father. A medallion that the true king of Gadalla needs. A medallion that is needed to successfully rule the kingdom. Then Trave leaves with Gris in search of his father's medallion. But will Trave's prideful attitude get the better of him?

This book was written by Dawn L. Watkins and was published by Bob Jones University Press in 1985.

The ISBN for this book is 0-89084-282-5.

Visit www.bjupress.com for more information.

A Father's Promise

Rudi Kaplan is a Christian Jew. But just because he is saved doesn't stop the Germans from tormented him.

It is 1939 in Warsaw, Poland. Rudi's father is a doctor who works in the local hospital. Rudi sometimes goes along to help him. He sees many things there that could change his life forever. Then Rudi's father refuses the Germans' order to poison injured Jews. Dr. Kaplan knows that the Nazis will be back for him. So he sends Rudi to live in the forest. For the next five years Rudi has to survive on his own in the woods outside Warsaw.

But even though Rudi was spared the concentration camps, others may not have been. What about his father or his best friend Salek? Did they succumb evil of the death camps?

This book was written by Donnalynn Hess and was published by BJU Press.

Cameron Townsend: Good News in Every Language

Cameron Townsend: Good News in Every Language is a biography of missionary Cameron Townsend, the founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators/SIL. It tells of how he began is work as a scrawny 21-year old selling Bibles in Guatemala, and eventually came to found Wycliffe Bible Translators, an organization devoted to translating the Bible in all the languages in the world. Today Wycliffe has more than 6,000 personnel in countries all over the world. They have also been involved in translating the Bible into more than 600 languages.

Click here to read to history of Wycliffe Bible translators at www.wycliffe.org.

Visit the website for Wycliffe Bible Translators at www.wycliffe.org

This book was written by Janet & Geoff Benge and was published by YWAM Publishing. It is part of a series called Christian Heroes: Then & Now

Prairie River ( Book 1)

Here is a better summary of A Journey of Faith, the first book in the Prairie River series by Kristiana Gregory.

A Journey of Faith
Nessa Clemens is a thirteen-year old orphan living in an orphanage under headmaster Carey's strict rules. She doesn't know who her parents were. She only had two friends. Albert is an orphan just like Nessa. They arrived at the orphanage within days of each other. Albert is really the only kid in the orphanage who is nice to Nessa. Nessa's other friend is Miss Eva. She is the school teacher at Mr. Carey's orphanage. Miss Eva is a orphan , too, so she knows what Nessa is feeling.

Then Nessa turns fourteen. Mr. Carey has a rule that when a child in his orphanage turns fourteen they have to leave and get a job or get married. It doesn't sound so bad to Nessa until she find out that Mr. Carey plans to marry her to Reverend McDuff, one of the ministers in their town. Nessa loathes the idea because th minister never wants to have children, and one of Nessa dreams is to become a mother.

Albert tells Nessa about a town in Kansas called Prairie River. It is barely a dot on the map, he says. It sounds perfect to Nessa. A town in the middle of nowhere, where it is highly unlikely that either Mr. Carey of Reverend McDuff will find her.

So on the morning of the day that Nessa is supposed to be wed she boards a stage to Prairie River. When she arrives she is taken in by kindly Mrs. Lockett. It seems like life will be fine for Nessa, but do other surprises await her in Prairie River?

Prairie River

Prairie River is a series of 4 books by the author Kristiana Gregory. It is about a girl named Vanessa "Nessa" Clemens. She is a 14-year old orphan who runs away from her arranged marriage to the town of Prairie River, Kansas. This book is set at the very end of the Civil War. The Prairie River books were published by Scholastic Inc.

Prairie River books
1. A Journey of Faith
2. A Grateful Harvest
3. Winter Tidings
4. Hope Springs Eternal

I hope to post more information about these books in the near future.

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle

This book is a novel by the award winning author Avi. This book is about a girl named Charlotte Doyle and her terrifying ocean voyage in the summer of 1832.

Charlotte was a perfectly normal girl setting out on what she thought would be a perfectly normal voyage. But why are all of the porters at the dock in Liverpool, England so scared of Andrew Jaggery, the captain of the Seahawk, Charlotte's ship? And why does a kindly old black man entrust her with a small knife saying, "If any thing happens you might need it"? And why does the crew of the ship seem so evil toward the perfectly, docile seeming captain? Is there something more happening here that Charlotte is unaware of?

I would recommend this book for ages 11 and up. Although the book may be written at an easier level, the content is quite advanced.

Remeber that this book is a novel. I would not classify it as Christian literature.

This book was published in 1990.

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle won a Newbery Honor in 1991.

The Way of Escape

The Way of Escape is the last book in the series by Catherine Farnes. It is sequel to The Rivers of Judah, Snow, and Out of Hiding.

The Way of Escape is about a girl named Brenna Ewen. She is a cousin to Judah and Nathan Ewen from the other books. When her parents are suddenly killed in a car wreck, she and her brother, Connor, have to go live with their uncle. Ben Ewen. The pastor. Having never really payed much attention to religion, this is a big step for Brenna. And all she has to support her through this time is her rebellious brother. But Brenna comes to realize that just because her uncle is a pastor, it doesn't mean that he will somehow be hostile to her because her family hardly ever went to church. She also learns to place her trust in the Heavenly Father.

Click here for a summary of the book or here for a sample chapter.

The Way of Escape was published in 2000 by Bob Jones University Press.

The ISBN for The Way of Escape is 1-57924-454-8

For more info visit www.bjupress.com

Out of Hiding

This book is the third book in the series by Catherine Farnes. I haven't actually read this one yet. As soon as I do, I'll write more on it. Out of Hiding is the sequel to The Rivers of Judah and Snow and the prequel to The Way of Escape.

Based on reading the summary at www.bjupress.com (The website for Bob Jones University Press) I know quite a bit about this book. But I am not going to actually give a summary until I read the book.

Warning: The sample chapter for Out of Hiding contains spoilers for The Rivers of Judah. I would not advise reading it if you haven't read The Rivers of Judah before and wish to do so.

Click here for a summary of Out of Hiding or here for a sample chapter.

Out of Hiding was published by Bob Jones University Press in 2000.

The ISBN for Out of Hiding is 1-57924-329-0

For more information visit www.bjupress.com

Snow

Here is the review on Snow by Catherine Farnes. Snow is the sequel to The Rivers of Judah and prequel to Out of Hiding and The Way of Escape.

Snow is about a girl named Stephanie Teale. Stephanie is a sixteen-year-old, visually impaired albino. From Stephanie's point of view there is no God. And if there was why would he make her an albino? Why couldn't he have made her 'normal' like all the other kids? Then Stephanie moves from New England to Colorado. She has to adjust to a new house and most of all, a new school. She is no longer attending her special school for the blind. (As an albino, Stephanie is visually impaired, with vision of 20/400, making her legally blind. ) Stephanie meets one kid at her school who is nice to her. Only one. Nathan Ewen. He is the only one that will stand up for her when the other kids tease her. On the occasion that Stephanie visits Nathan's church, she also meets Nathan's brother Judah and Rebekah Cahill. They all talk about God and how good He is to them and how they are used by Him. Could what they are saying actually be true?

Snow was published in 1999 by Bob Jones University Press.

The ISBN for Snow is 1-57924-199-9 .

Click here to read a summary or a sample chapter of Snow.

The Rivers of Judah

I have just read a really good book by author Catherine Farnes. This book is called The Rivers of Judah.

This book is about a teenage girl named Rebekah Cahill. When Judah Ewen's family moves to her town Rebekah finds out that there is a subject Judah doesn't like to discuss. A bad memory from his past. But Rebekah doesn't know about the river. A river in Alaska that holds the key to Judah's past and that painful memory. She also doesn't know that the river at Silver Canyon Park--her church's retreat spot-- will become a big part of Judah's life, and bring her closer in her relationship with God.

I really enjoyed this book, and think that it is good read for all teenage girls.

The Rivers of Judah is a prequel to Snow, Out of Hiding, and The Way of Escape. I will write about these books in future posts.

This novel was published by Bob Jones University Press in 1996.

Click here to read a summary of the book or a sample chapter.

Katie Hart is another blogger and a freelance writer. Click here to read her thoughts on this book. You may have to scroll down once you get to Katie's blog page.