Book Reviews

Product Review–American Coaching Academy

July 7, 2022 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

Incentive charts can be hard to design. When I make one, I tend to end up with a very basic grid. These work, but they sure aren’t attractive. Sometimes, it’s nice to have something pretty and fun, though. It’s great, for non-techy, uninspired people like me, when someone else does the hard work and designs a pretty, fun chart. I was offered the use of the Healthy Habit Trackers from American Coaching Academy last month, in order to write a review.

The Healthy Habit Trackers were designed to get children off screens and moving. Each of the 12 pages that come in one PDF has a list of five or six habits, with a 30-day checklist to help get these habits established in the life of the user. Most of them focus on exercise, while a few involve healthy eating. One even has common household chores! One page is a yoga challenge; I didn’t even print that one.

Quite a variety of exercises are included. The Flexibility Challenge includes 30 seconds each, doing a quad stretch, touching toes, a hamstring stretch, butterfly stretch, neck stretch, and v-stretch. The muscular endurance challenge includes one minute each of wall sit, run in place, high plank, crab bridge, and wall pushups.

I also like the Kindness Challenge, which encourages giving a compliment, sending a text or email to a friend, giving a hug to someone, or holding the door open for someone. There is also a Nutrition Challenge. To fill in this chart, a child would need to drink five glasses of water, and eat two servings each of fruit, vegetables, lean protein, and grains. This chart has fun drawings of various foods from each of these groups to fill in.

Each chart is shaped differently. Some are spirals, some are calendar pages. One is a rainbow, and one is shaped like honeycomb. Each chart is colorful; Miss Joy badly wants to cut the pictures out of each one!

Now, how did we use this? Well, I’ll have to admit that we didn’t use it very well. I printed all the pages (except yoga, of course), and had the school children look them over. Each of them chose a page, as did I, and we did the exercises on our page that day. It was rather fun, doing exercises all together. Miss Joy positioned herself right in front of me, and imitated my every move! For several days, the children kept doing their exercises and filling in their charts, but then life happened. Our children get a lot of exercise anyway, caring for the animals, so I’m not too concerned about getting them off screens (which they don’t get much of, anyway).

More useful than the Healthy Habit Trackers is the bonus that came along: a set of blank habit trackers! They are just as pretty as the main set, but I can fill in any habits I want to establish. We’ll definitely be using those at times. I like having incentive charts I don’t have to design myself.

If you are in need of a physical education program for your homeschool, definitely have a look at the Healthy Habit Tracker from American Coaching Academy. This might be just what you need. And, be sure to click on the image below to read reviews from other families. I’m sure some of them found this product much more useful than we did.

Product Review–The Language Mechanic

June 14, 2022 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

I enjoy using products from The Critical Thinking Co.™. This time, I chose to use and review The Language Mechanic, which is designed for use by children ages 9-13, in grades 4-7. I received a PDF of this book, and have been printing sections of it for Mr. Sweetie (grade 7) and Mr. Imagination (grade 5) to work their way through. That’s something I really like about these digital books—I am allowed to print them as many times as I want to for as many of my own children.

The Language Mechanic is intended to be used as a supplementary Language Arts resource, to help children learn grammar and punctuation. The first few lessons cover capitalization, run-ons, and sentence fragments, and then the lessons move on into using parts of speech correctly. During the past few days, my boys have been working on making sure pronouns agree with the nouns they replace, in both number and gender. The next section we’ll do discusses unnecessary words, and then we’ll start on a number of lessons about punctuation. Near the end of the book, there is a series of lessons about friendly letters, and then some work with spelling and vocabulary.

Each lesson begins with a funny mistake that could be made with writing a sentence. If you leave out a comma, or use the wrong pronoun, you can easily mislead your readers. Did the man really dive into the ice cream? Maybe a period would be helpful to break up a run-on sentence and make it make sense! Or, do you know babies who weigh 85 pounds?! It might sound better if you use the correct verb tense. Some of the sentences make us laugh.

Next, the logic behind the rule under discussion is explained. Why do we need to use the correct verb tense? This is followed by two or three pages of practice sentences, in which the student needs to choose the correct word, or choose the sentence that matches up best with the given clues. Sometimes the child gets to choose a word for themselves. At the end of the lesson is a challenge, where they need to find the mistakes in a paragraph and correct them. After several lessons is a review, which covers the entire section.

I have been reading the introduction to each lesson to my boys, although it is set up so that students should be able to understand it on their own. My boys have read it themselves a few times, when I was too busy to take the time for them, but they understand it better if I read over it with them. I usually watch them do the first couple of exercises, to make sure they understand what they are doing, and then they are on their own. They are both doing very well with this book. It is not thorough enough to be a stand-alone Language Arts course, but as a review or brush-up resource, I really like it. The silly sentences make it fun and keep the boys’ interest up.

The Review Crew has been using several other products from The Critical Thinking Co.™. Click on the image below to read reviews of several other books! Or, if you would like to read my previous reviews of their products, go here. And, if you would like to try out some of their products before buying, they offer free PDFs of Math and Critical Thinking Worksheets. Just go here to find them!

Book Review–Corner Booth

May 11, 2022 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

About the Book:

Book: Corner Booth

Author: Chautona Havig

Genre: Contemporary Christian Romance

Release date: March 17, 2015

A daring move forges the love of a lifetime

A rushed lunch and a bold move introduce Carlie to a stranger—one who hardly acknowledges her existence as he sits across from her, sharing his booth to save her a wait in a long line.
What began as a random encounter becomes a weekly date in which Carlie chatters about her life to a silent lunchmate. Much about him interests her–his slightly Euro fashion sense, his commitment to the work he does as he eats his lunch week after week, and his evident attention to the running monologue she shares between bites of meals that he inevitably pays for.
Dean gets to know the woman across from him–looks forward to their lunches each week, learns valuable lessons about himself—but when the cafe is threatened, and then when she doesn’t show up one day, he suspects their unusual friendship means more to him than he imagined.

Settle into the booth with Carlie and Dean and learn just how eloquent silence really is.

My Thoughts:

When I first read Corner Booth, six or seven years ago, it didn’t do a lot for me. I remember being disappointed by it, and just didn’t get much out of it. I just finished reading it again, though, and it really spoke to me this time. It really shows the worth of each person. There is a lot to learn about conversation, about communication, and about how to listen to other people, in this story—but there is also so much about the value of each person. One of my favorite lines from this book, and which I think sums up the theme perfectly, is “You are a child of God, bought with a price beyond anything you can even imagine.” What a beautiful story! See my earlier review here.

About the Author:

USA Today Bestselling author of Aggie and Past Forward series, Chautona Havig lives in an oxymoron, escapes into imaginary worlds that look startlingly similar to ours and writes the stories that emerge. An irrepressible optimist, Chautona sees everything through a kaleidoscope of It’s a Wonderful Life sprinkled with fairy tales. Find her at chautona.com and say howdy—if you can remember how to spell her name.

More from Chautona:

You know, originally, I had Dean as a guy who was too wrapped up in his own little world to care about anyone else—the stereotypical academic. I pictured him buried deep in original Biblical manuscripts, annoyed that anyone would dare to invade his study time.

But you know what? That’s the easy character.

When I went back to edit the book, I had this thought. What if Dean weren’t reclusive at all? What if he were kind of a know-it-all who couldn’t keep his thoughts to himself. Maybe a child prodigy who was used to people thinking him rather brilliant and looking for his insights.

Yeah… I could get into that.

There was just one small problem. I’d written the entire book without him talking much at all on those Wednesdays. Now what?

After much deliberation, even more prayer, and a bit of fudging, I came up with the solution. What if he just challenged himself for “one lunch?” Just one hour or so of not talking to prove to himself (and his peers) that he could do it.

How could he possibly know he’d set things up for months of wordless lunches—on his part? And what would a person learn in a situation like that?

I’ve never admitted this before, but I tested it a bit. At situations where I could, I forced myself to listen to people’s stories, their questions, their opinions. The hard part was not spending my listening time formulating my response (how rude anyway!). I really had to focus on exactly what they said, how their voice altered based on their emotions, and what others around us had to say to encourage (or not—too often not, I’ll admit).

I learned a lot with the experiment, and I’ll be honest. I still catch myself listening with an ear to how I’ll respond instead of really listening. No, I don’t expect to find some café romance for myself. My guy is amazing, and he’s probably the only person on the planet who could put up with me, so… I think I’ll keep him. But I do expect to keep learning how to really hear people. You know… kind of like Jesus did. Imagine that.

To purchase your copy, click here.

To visit more of the blog stops on this tour, click here.

To enter a fun giveaway, click here.

Book Review–Farmyard Faith

May 10, 2022 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

I’m always delighted when an author is willing to ship a physical copy of a book to us! Because we live in New Zealand, and it is very expensive to mail books from the United States to us, almost all of the books I review are digital copies. Kinsey M. Rockett, who sells her books under the name Whatsoever Stories, sent us a copy of her most recent release, Farmyard Faith. We just received it about a week and a half ago, again because of shipping internationally, so it has been one of our read alouds for only about a week. I did skim through most of the book myself, though.

Each of the 26 chapters in this book tell a story from the author’s life. When she was nine years old, her family moved to a small farm in Eastern Washington and began learning about rural life. They quickly learned that animals can make life very interesting—either hectic or funny! With goats and geese being among their first acquisitions, there were some very fun stories to tell. Because we have always had a variety of animals and know them pretty well ourselves, these stories are especially fun for us. We can really relate to little things like the geese racing frantically after their human “parents” with their stubby little wings flapping, or the goat who could find holes through which to escape where a human can’t imagine anything getting out. The chicken escape artist was another story that rang a bell with me, although the one I remember from my childhood didn’t have such a happy ending.

Kinsey has found spiritual lessons to be gleaned from many of the stories she tells. The stories about the chicken and the goats who wanted to escape all the time illustrate why we need to be content within the boundaries set by God and our human authorities. The goose story I mentioned wraps up with a few paragraphs discussing the need to imprint on God our Saviour. There are a few short chapters I noticed that just tell a funny incident from the farm, so there is a nice variety. Each chapter is illustrated with a photograph of the animal(s) that the story is about.

I asked the children what they thought of Farmyard Faith this morning after we read a chapter. They all said they were enjoying it, and Mr. Sweetie, who is 12, enthusiastically mentioned that he likes the spiritual lessons that are brought out. Because of those lessons, I decided to add it to our morning read alouds, when I like to have Bible stories and other devotional-type readings. As I mentioned earlier, this book is especially interesting to my children because they can relate so well to Kinsey’s experiences with her family’s animals, but I think any child who likes animals would enjoy it, too. The stories are very well-written, with a nice amount of descriptive words but not excessive. I am happy to have this book by a homeschool graduate on our shelf, and look forward to reading the rest of it. Click on the image below to read reviews from 34 other families who received this book and two others that Kinsey has written (which I would also love to read!).

Book Review–Spines & Leaves

April 28, 2022 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

About the Book:

Book: Spines & Leaves

Author: Chautona Havig

Genre: FICTION / CHRISTIAN / WOMENS FICTION / ROMANCE

Release date: July 8, 2021

♥ Books are the strings that tie hearts together. ♥

With a month to get from Orange County, California to Delaware for his next corporate challenge, Milton Coleridge decides to spend a week at Joshua Tree National Park.

He never expected to find a floundering bookstore in need of his particular business skills. Will his methods of saving companies from bankruptcy or takeover work on such a small scale? And can he convince two people to risk their hearts?

Step into the Spines & Leaves, Tamarisk, California’s oldest (and only ever) bookstore. Come in out of the harsh, desert sun and wind and peruse all the store has to offer. It might just be more than you think.

One man, one store, thousands of books. What’ll it take to keep this bookstore from becoming a book ghost town… and what’ll it take for Milton to tie two heartstrings together?

Spine & Leaves is the introductory novella to the Bookstrings series.

My Thoughts:

I first read Spines & Leaves about a year ago (see the review I wrote then here), soon after it was written, but when I read it again last week, I enjoyed it every bit as much. I loved reading a story set in one of my mom’s favorite places. I have never been there, but I have seen her pictures of Joshua Tree National Monument from when she lived in California in the 1960s. I also loved the story of how Milton helped revitalize a struggling bookstore, and his parrotlet was pure fun! The one thing I didn’t enjoy so much was the kiss that the love story in the book cantered around. I did like watching the interactions between Milton, Marcus and Ced, and how they learned to know and appreciate each other.

About the Author:

More from Chautona:

The more I think about it, the more I realize that the Bookstrings series is a process rather than an idea. Each time I saw an indie bookstore close, each time I went in one with no one else in there for the hour or two I browsed, and each time I heard book lovers lament the lack of a store in their town… Yeah. Those experiences slowly grew into a wish—one where I knew how to rescue those stores from extinction. So maybe that’s a bit melodramatic, but that’s how it felt.

Somewhere in the midst of all that, Milton appeared—a business genius who, along with his faithful parrotlet, Atticus (not Finch), travels the country saving corporations from takeover or bankruptcy.

Milton went through several iterations. Older, balding, mustache, and always wearing a golfer’s cap. Then I had him as a young hipster dude who got sick of the rat race on Wall Street and took off on his own, using what he’d learned. That just felt too cliché.

Instead, I have a forty-ish guy who wears chinos and oxford shirts with topsiders, shorter than most men, and with a nonchalant air about him. And charm. The quiet guy with serious business skills just oozes quiet charm.

After deciding on Milton, I had to choose where to put the stores. I’ve been watching out for towns for years—using trips different places as research times. Would I create places that felt like real towns or use actual small towns? Though drawn to real towns, I had an idea for where to end the series, and, doing that meant a fictional town. Would it be weird to have four or five books set in small towns across America followed by a final fictional one?

The solution came to me as I learned that the Mosaic authors were doing a summer collection in 2021. If I started with a novella and ended the series with both in a fictional town, at least that fictional bit wouldn’t be out of the blue!

So, the Bookstrings series has two novellas and five full-length novels. (I couldn’t resist a Christmas “noella” in the charming town of Noel, Missouri—the “Christmas City.”) We’ll be off to other small towns around the country—one in Red Wing, Minnesota, another in Berne, Indiana, and one somewhere between Kingsport, Tennessee and Traveler’s Rest, South Carolina. If I can find a place in New England, that’d be great, too. Or maybe down in Mississippi… I’d love to visit my sister down there.

The Bookstrings series books all have one very important thing in common (aside from Milton and Atticus, of course). They all illustrate that books truly are the strings that tie hearts together.

To purchase your copy, click here.

To visit more of the blog stops on this tour, click here.

To enter a fun giveaway, click here.

Book Review–Noise in the Night

March 26, 2022 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I don’t know about other parents, but I have rarely found a book with solid Christian values that is also adventurous enough to keep boys’ attention without having violence in it. I’ve been very pleased with Katrina Hoover Lee’s Brady Street Boys series. Though the stories are fairly simple, they are interesting enough to keep my attention, and my boys’ attention. The boys in the story have parents who teach them about living a Christian life without being preachy, and the boys themselves try to do what is right. Noise in the Night is just as good as the first two books, if not better.

Terry, Gary and Larry were surprised, when they went to the swimming hole at the edge of the St. Joseph River that flowed past their house, to find a strange boy there. They were even more surprised when he seemed to hold a grudge against them for something they had done to his family—but they were sure they had never seen him before! The fruit of the Spirit their family was focusing on this week was peace, so how could they put that into practice with a boy who was being mean to them?

The three boys were very excited about the camping trip they were going on this week. Dad was allowing them to camp by themselves on an island in the river! Once they got there, though, mysterious things started happening. Could the strange boy still be harrassing them? They were sure there was no way to make peace with him—and would they even survive the dangers they found themselves in? Or were they imagining everything? And would they ever find more clues about the surgeon who amputated Gary’s leg?

Once again, this author has come up with a great story about simple, plausible events. I can picture everything happening as she has described it. I like the way the boys’ parents give them freedom to be boys and to explore their surroundings, while keeping tabs on them and being in their lives, giving guidance where it was needed. Noise in the Night is a fun, gentle mystery that a wide range of ages will enjoy.

I rI received a review copy of this book from the author, and these are my honest thoughts about it. Links may be affiliate links, which will benefit Esther’s website if purchases are made through them.

Buy your copy of this delightful book here.

Book Review–Corrie Ten Boom

March 22, 2022 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

Several months ago, some friends of ours borrowed a large box full of books from us. A week later, their house was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. Everything in it was destroyed. We had some money in the bank in America, so we decided to replace the books that had been burned, and buy some more. A number of the books that were destroyed were from the Christian Heroes: Then and Now series, by Janet &Geoff Benge. For about 15 years, I have been collecting these books, buying them wherever I can find them used. We decided that since we needed to replace several of them anyway, we would splurge and buy the entire set, as well as the Heroes of History series by the same authors. What an exciting day when a box of 80 books arrived here! (Each stack in the photo is five books!) We’re all looking forward to reading the ones we haven’t read before.

Not too long ago, I was offered the opportunity to to review one of these books and a study guide that the publisher has produced to go with it. Because I’ve been curious about the study guides for a long time, but didn’t want to spend the money to buy one because I wasn’t sure if we would use it, I signed up for the review. Of the books offered, there were three that were possibilities, ones that we hadn’t reviewed yet, and that were not loaned out. I let my three school children vote on those, and they chose Corrie Ten Boom: Keeper of the Angels’ Den. We read through this book for morning history time, and used the discussion questions for each chapter from the study guide to talk about what we have just read each morning. All three children were eager to hear more each day, although it may have been almost too much for my seven-year-old daughter. One morning she told me she had dreamed about being in prison!

Chapter 2 of this book tells the story of Corrie’s life up to the beginning of World War II. There are 15 chapters in the book and, except for the last chapter, the rest of the book tells the story of the Ten Boom family during World War II. The last chapter tells about how Corrie travelled around the world sharing her message of love and forgiveness for the rest of her life after the war. Basically, the contents of this book are almost the same as The Hiding Place, although there were a few things added in. I appreciate the way these authors tell the story of a persons’ life.

As far as the study guide goes, most of it doesn’t work very well for us. There is a section of key Bible verses which are good to read together and discuss how they apply to Corrie’s life. Suggestions are made to form a display corner with a long list of things you could put in it about the Netherlands and Corrie’s life. We don’t have room in our house for something like that so we didn’t even consider doing it. The chapter questions are what we used the most in the study guide. As I said before, after reading the chapter we used the questions to discuss various aspects of the story. Then there are suggestions for essay questions to help older children think more deeply about the story, creative writing suggestions, hands-on projects, audiovisual projects, and some arts and crafts that children can do to go along with the story. There is a chapter that gives suggestions for field trips or people that you can talk to to add to the study. Another chapter suggests map activities and vocabulary studies. More miscellaneous activities are suggested in another chapter and then the appendix has suggestions of books and resources to go along with this book interest. Interestingly, we had just started watching the movie The Hiding Place when we were assigned to this review; because we don’t spend a lot of time watching movies it took us a few weeks to get through it. Watching that along with reading this book made both more meaningful to the younger children. The study guide comes as a PDF download. I printed it and made a cover, so that it would be easy to use.

If you are wanting biographies for your children, I highly recommend Janet and Geoff Benge’s books. These are the best children’s biographies I have ever found. They’re accurate and interesting. Our entire family, from Gayle down to Little Miss, who is seven, enjoys listening to these books, either when I read them aloud or when we listen to an audiobook of one. As far as the study guides I’m not sure I will be interested in using any more, simply because that type of study doesn’t work very well for me personally. I’m glad I have had the chance to look at it, and I know it will be a good fit for a lot of families, especially those with high school children that are academically inclined. There are lesson plans and a schedule for using it as a group that meets periodically, so if you have a homeschool co-op it would be a good way to study the book together.

WARNING (things to consider when thinking about letting children read the book): The Germans mistreated people in chapter 7, 8, 11 and 12. Corrie’s sister died in Chapter 13.

Click the image below to read other families’ reviews of this and other books by the Benges!

Book Review–Shackled

March 15, 2022 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

About the Book:

Book: Shackled

Author: Mariam Ibraheem

Genre: Religion/Inspirational

Release date: March 8, 2022

Sentenced to Death for Her Beliefs

Mariam Ibraheem was finally rising above her difficult childhood and building a new life for herself. Born to a Muslim father and an Ethiopian Orthodox Christian mother, she grew up in poverty in a refugee camp in Sudan. Her father left the family when she was only six, and her mother raised her in the Christian faith. Left without family after the deaths of her beloved mother and sister, she was beginning to move past her grief—earning a medical degree, marrying the man she loved, and having a baby boy.

But one day in late 2013, her world was shattered when an unknown relative on her father’s side reported her to the police. The authorities insisted she was Muslim because of her father’s background. She had broken the law by marrying a Christian man, and she must renounce her Christian beliefs and abandon her marriage and her son. Under intense pressure, Mariam repeatedly refused to deny her faith. She was charged with apostasy and adultery, and she was imprisoned with her nine-month-old, Martin, on Christmas Eve. There, awaiting sentence, she learned she was pregnant with her second child. A few months later, Mariam was sentenced to 100 lashes and death by hanging by a Sharia court.

Shackled is the stunning true story of a courageous young mother who was willing to face death rather than deny her Christian faith. Mariam Ibraheem took a stand on behalf of all people who suffer from religious persecution and all women who are maltreated because of their gender and beliefs.

Follow Mariam’s story from refugee camp to life under Islamic law, through imprisonment and childbirth while shackled, to her remarkable escape from death following an international outcry and advocacy involving diplomats, journalists, religious freedom activists, human rights groups, and even Pope Francis.

My Thoughts:

I was a bit hesitant about signing up for Shackled. I could tell by reading the synopsis that it would be a challenging read. I do not enjoy reading about people being abused, and people hurting each other. At the same time though, it sounded like it would be an encouraging story about showing how God’s truth and love triumph over evil. I was right on both counts.

What a story. There are two things that really stood out to me in this book. One, of course, was the physical abuse. Being circumcised as a young girl, the horrible things her father did to her mother before leaving the family when Mariam was only six, the way she was treated in prison, and the abuse she suffered while giving birth. On the other side, was the contrast she felt between Islam and Christianity. Though Muslims claimed to have a religion of mercy, she only felt love while with Christians. That love was so real to her that she never considered denying Jesus. I was also touched by her experiences with Jesus while in prison. This is an absolutely amazing story of a courageous woman, who stood up against all odds to maintain her faith in Jesus and protect her children. If you’ve ever been even a little bit curious about the difference between Christianity and Islam, read Shackled. Mariam lived with that contrast.

There is so much more I could say about this book. It has left quite an impression on me. All I can say, though, is read it for yourself. Don’t miss this one. Your faith will be challenged and strengthened. A quote that stood out to me, to wrap up this review: “The friends of Sudanese suffer as much as their enemies because hate cannot be confined to one person or one people group. Once it is allowed to live, fester and grow, it lashes out at everyone and everything.”

WARNING: Mariam’s father’s abuse of his wife in chapter 6. Vivid description of female circumcision in chapter 8. Physical abuse in chapter 47. There is more; these are the ones that were hardest to read about.

I received a review copy of this book from the author, and these are my honest thoughts about it. Links may be affiliate links, which will benefit Esther’s website if purchases are made through them. If you buy this book, please put a review on Amazon. There are no reviews there, and I am not allowed to post one.

About the Author:

In 2014, Mariam Ibraheem of Sudan was sentenced by a Sharia court to 100 lashes for adultery because she had married a Christian man, and death by hanging for refusing to renounce her Christian faith and follow Islam. Mariam was imprisoned with her young son while she was pregnant with her second child, a daughter, to whom she gave birth while still shackled in the prison. After an international outcry, Mariam was eventually freed through the help of Pope Francis, the United States, Italy, and the embassies of various other governments. Today, Mariam advocates on behalf of others who are victims of religious persecution and also for women who suffer from the personal prison of abuse. She is the cofounder and director of global mobilization for the Tahrir Alnisa (“Setting Women Free”) Foundation, which serves women and children impacted by domestic abuse and religious-motivated violence. She also serves on the board of directors for Anti-Trafficking International.

Eugene Bach is a pseudonym for a member of the Chinese underground church who, for security reasons, does not wish to be identified. He has been working with the underground church in China for twenty years, helping them to establish forward missions bases in closed countries around the world, including Iraq and Syria. Eugene leads the Chinese missions movement Back to Jerusalem, which provides essential support for Chinese missionaries in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, and he has written books about the underground church in China, North Korea, and Iran. His books with Whitaker House include China and End-Time Prophecy; I Stand with Christ; ISIS: The Heart of Terror; Kidnapped by a Cult; Leaving Buddha; Smuggling Light; and The Underground Church.

More from Mariam:

Shackled is the stunning true story of a courageous young mother whose plight led to international outcry on her behalf. Mariam Ibraheem was willing to face death rather than deny her Christian faith, taking a stand on behalf of all people who suffer from religious persecution and all women who are maltreated because of their gender and beliefs.

To purchase your copy, click here.

To visit more of the blog stops on this tour, click here.

To enter a fun giveaway, click here.

Book Review–Turtle Heart

March 9, 2022 by NZ Filbruns 6 Comments

About the Book:

Book: Turtle Heart

Author: Lucinda J. Kinsinger

Genre: Memoir

Release date: February 22, 2022

What happens when a sheltered young Mennonite befriends an ornery old Ojibwe woman in order to lead her to Christ—and finds that old woman has more to teach her about God and humanity than she ever dreamed? These two women from widely differing cultures and belief systems soon build a connection that runs deeper than their differences. Kinsinger’s memoir of friendship reads like a novel, at once riveting and introspective, timeless and surprising.

Turtle Heart invites you into the world and perspective of a young Mennonite woman who allows love to lead her beyond her comfort zone into uncharted territory.

My Thoughts:

When I saw the cover of Turtle Heart I was immediately intrigued. A Mennonite woman and someone else who was obviously not Mennonite juxtaposed in one picture. Reading the description only made me more intrigued, and I knew I wanted to read this book for sure. I was not disappointed.

Several days after finishing reading this book, I’m still thinking about it. There is so much depth in the book, that it takes awhile to process it. Having come from a background similar to the author’s, I could identify with her attitudes about salvation. It was amazing to see how God worked to open her mind to the way He works in various people‘s lives, with no two people having the same experience. The author is very real about her struggles with being a friend to Charlene.

It was fascinating to see the two cultures interacting. The author’s and Charlene’s cultures were extremely different, as were their upbringings and life experiences. Even so, their spirits connected and they learned to love each other and were very real and vulnerable with each other. This is an amazing story. I recommend it for mature readers, because of some of the content, but it is one that most Christians should read, to get a different perspective on the way God works in people‘s lives.

About the Author:

Lucinda J Kinsinger has always viewed herself as a shy little Mennonite girl but refuses to let that stop her from pursuing what she loves—whether that’s writing with honesty and vulnerability or traveling to a remote village in China. She is the author of two memoirs—Turtle Heart: Unlikely Friends with a Life Changing Bond and Anything But Simple: My Life as a Mennonite, as well as a children’s book, The Arrowhead. She writes a column for Anabaptist World Review and blogs at lucindajkinsinger.com. Lucinda lives with her farmer husband Ivan and her baby daughter Annalise in the rolling hills of Oakland, Maryland.

More from Lucinda:

I Met an Old Lady

On a foggy morning one early March, I met a tiny woman encased in a puffy tan coat. I loved her from the moment I saw her—the tiny, intense perfection of her, the way her glasses sat sharp and clean on her face, the bright look of her slanted eyes, and the way all her wrinkles massed upward when she smiled. She was Ojibwe. Her name was Charlene.

At that time, I drove for a company called Indianhead Transit and had been assigned to take Charlene to her dialysis appointment. I helped her to my car, my steps excruciatingly slow to match hers, got into the driver’s seat, and backed into the foggy street. “The Ojibwe have a saying about the fog,” Charlene said. “They say, ‘The Creator sent the clouds to earth.’”

We talked a lot about God that dialysis trip. “I am amazed at how He made everything on earth round,” she told me. “The leaves are round, the drops of water are round, the scales on a fish are round, and even the little blades of grass, when they first come up, are curled into a ball. It just makes me love Him so much.” There was wonder in her voice, joy in her eyes.

I asked her if she believed in Jesus. She considered a moment. “Yes, the Ojibwe have taken the Creator’s Son, Jesus.” But when I mentioned the Bible, she snapped, “The Bible is just a white man’s book!”

I wondered how she could believe in Jesus while not believing in the Book that taught about Him.

As I got to know Charlene better, I found her a study in contrasts.

She would coo at her little dog in the sappiest, drippiest form of baby talk possible, and fifteen minutes later when the dog displeased her, would yell so harshly it would streak for its crate, her hand raised threateningly behind it.

She was the sharpest, meanest little lady I ever knew, with a perverse sense of humor and a penchant for original slams. “I dig your shoes!” she crowed to a Croc-shod woman once. “Dig a hole and bury them,” she muttered as the woman passed.

She was the most loyal and loving lady I ever knew, a lover of beauty, lover of God. She went hunting only once and when she had the opportunity to shoot a buck, couldn’t do it—the buck was just too beautiful, she told me.

She held a vehement dislike of Black people and spoke so disrespectfully of them I grew angry. Then she turned around and voted for Obama in national elections.

By that time, I realized that with Charlene, you had two choices: you could let her drive you mad, or you could accept her. I chose to accept her.

She also chose to accept me.

She understood what it was to be Mennonite and different. After all, she had grown up Ojibwe and different. She didn’t ask, like others might, if I got cold in the winter because I didn’t wear pants or why I couldn’t go to the fair. She accepted my oddities as a matter of course.

“People have to label everything. Whether Mennonite or half-breed, they label you and that’s what you are to them,” she said to me one day. “But our friendship doesn’t have to fit a label.”

Fit a label our friendship did not.

We were different in almost every way—one young and one old, one shy and one feisty, one sheltered and one who had experienced the harshness of life. And yet in the middle was a spot we connected, where we shared nerve and muscle and bone like conjoined twins.

She dispelled multiple prejudices of mine—yes, I also carried them—and taught me to see that people are people wherever you find them, taught me I could understand and be understood by someone from a very different background.

Charlene did eventually read the Bible I gave her and grew in faith as a result.

I also grew. She, with her fresh eyes and unboxed faith, strengthened and deepened my own faith as few people have. I learned from her to see God in the small, everyday things of life that even a child can understand—things like fog and blades of grass and water at the kitchen sink.

I wrote a book about our friendship. The book is called Turtle Heart: Unlikely Friends with a Life-Changing Bond and came out recently with Elk Lake Publishing. It is available on Amazon.

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Book Review–Finding a Memory

March 2, 2022 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

About the Book:

Book: Finding a Memory

Author: Chautona Havig

Genre: Christian Contemporary Romance

Release date: January 25, 2022

He loved her then. Will she love him now?

When Mallory Barrows finds an old diary in a box of books, the story she finds within sends her on the hunt for the owner–and maybe more.

Theirs is a story ripped from a country song. A wedding, a former love presumed dead, her new love stepping aside. And over forty years later, their story is one few remember.

With Mallory determined to find the people in the pages of that diary, one couple is offered the second chance of a lifetime.

This “second-chance / seasoned romance” novel introduces the next island in the Independence Islands Series featuring five islands, six authors, and a boatload of happily-ever-afters.

The Independence Islands Series: beach reads aren’t just for summer anymore.

My Thoughts:

As everyone who follows me for very long can tell, I enjoy almost anything that Chautona Havig writes. Some books are a lot better than others, of course. Finding a Memory is one of my favourites. I read it as she was writing it, and now I have just finished reading it for the second time, straight through this time. Wow. What a story. I really liked the way she wove three stories together.

When Mallory found someone’s old diary in a box of books that had been brought to her to sell, she decided to quickly skim through to try to figure out who it was. She quickly found the story sucking her in, and couldn’t put it down. The story of a love triangle from 40 years ago broke her heart. Somehow, she kept finding herself seeking comfort from Benjamin Hornigold, who was always happy to give her encouragement and support.

I loved this story. Mallory’s story has been continued since Christmas on Breakers Point, so this is the fifth book about her. I’m very impressed by how Chautona has been able to weave Mallory’s story through all of these other books. The ending of this book hints at mysteries that will be revealed in the next book. I was really left hanging there! I really enjoyed the way the two parts of Patti’s story was woven together, too. Telling her present at the same time that Mallory was discovering her past through the diary was very effectively done. The story offers hope and healing for family members of people who struggle with PTSD. It was nice to find a story about older people, too. Don’t miss this one!

About the Author:

Chautona Havig lives in an oxymoron, escapes into imaginary worlds that look startlingly similar to ours and writes the stories that emerge. An irrepressible optimist, Chautona sees everything through a kaleidoscope of It’s a Wonderful Life sprinkled with fairy tales. Find her at chautona.com and say howdy—if you can remember how to spell her name.

More from Chautona:

I was a weird child. While my friends were listening to… whatever 80s kids listened to, the enormous console in my bedroom played The Brothers Four, The Kingston Trio, Roger Miller, Billy Vaughn, Patsy Cline, and Patti Paige. One minute I was a “Rovin’ Gambler” and the next I was “Chug-a-lugging.” Hmmm… In hindsight, one could say I listened to some dubious music. Drinking, gambling… Oh, that reminds me of another one. The Sons of the Pioneers. “Cigarettes, Whiskey, and Wild, Wild Women. (Hint: they’ll drive you crazy. They’ll drive you insane. The song says so).

But there were other songs—beautiful ones. “Greenfields.” “Little Green Apples.” “You Belong to Me.” And of course… “Go on with the Wedding.”

If you’ve never heard it, you should listen. HERE.

That one used to tear me apart. I never could decide which man she should have chosen. I’m a sucker for the underdog—for a hero. So, I always said Fred. And I meant it. Right up to the moment I thought about Jim being away, fighting, finally making it home to his girl only to see her marry someone else. How horrible is that?

Well, one of the tropes I chose for my books in the Independence Islands was going to be a “second chance romance.” I also wanted a “seasoned romance,” so this song came to mind. And then I had my story. It’s not the one my twelve-year-old self would have wanted. Truthfully, it’s not the story I wanted to write today, but it’s the right one. It’s probably my favorite of all of the ones I’ve done in this series. I hope you’ll love Frank and Patti as much as I do.

All that’s left now is for me to write one more story—the one that has been forming through each book. It’s time for Mallory and Benjamin to both learn and write their story’s end (which of course, is only a beginning).

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