Tag: Reader

Book Review: The Legend of Luke by Brian Jacques

An ancient weapon. A missing father. A warrior son. An infamous villain. A community of happy woodland creatures. Aged companions. A tale waiting to be told.

A tale Martin desperately needs to know. All his life he has carried his father’s sword and used it to defend the helpless and innocent. His prowess with a sword and his good heart has earned him a warrior’s renown, as well as many loyal friends, but until he knows what happened to his father Martin cannot rest.

Long ago, an evil pirate captain who terrorized the seas raided Martin’s home and killed many, including Martin’s mother. His father, Luke, though a kind, peaceful farmer, vowed to avenge the deaths and destroy the tyrant once and for all. He left his sword with his baby son and promised to return victorious, but Martin never saw him again.

Martin’s friends, wanting only for him to be happy, organize a journey to Martin’s old home in search of answers. Few of them have any experience with adventuring or battle, but what they lack in skill they make up for in determination. Along the way they attract an unlikely collection of helpers and companions, who with imagination and ingenuity help them reach their destination safely.

None of them expect what they actually find when they reach Martin’s childhood home. The end of their quest begins a true tale of friendship, courage, and heroism. Martin will finally know what happened after his father embarked on his own quest, and why he never returned.

My kids chose this book for our bedtime read, and as we made our way through it a few chapters at a time, they quickly fell in love with the adorable woodland characters. We laughed together over the creatures zany antics, cheered for their courageous exploits, and cried when they were sad. This is a must read for all ages and a captivating read-aloud for families.

The Old Sleigh

Of all days for the truck to break down, Liam grumbled to himself. The coldest day of the season so far, and the only way to get the feed out was Gramps old wooden sleigh. Good thing he hadn’t sold Trix and Mule like he’d planned. The fat things were about to earn their keep again, at least for today.

Sakes! Those buckles were a job and a half! Trix danced sideways as the cold metal dangled against her coat, almost yanking Liam off his feet as he fumbled to connect the the stupid things. He shook his fist at her after he recovered his balance, and moved around to hitch Mule beside her. Even in his work gloves his fingers ached with cold, and his boots felt like ice blocks chained to his legs.

Why on earth did Gramps insist on using this old relic every year? The first thing Liam had done when Gramps died last year was buy a new truck; he’d been bucking for it for years but Gramps wasn’t having it. Liam managed to hook the last of the buckles to the sleigh and hung onto the reins as he clambered awkwardly into the front seat.

“Now to load up the bales,” he said aloud, as if it mattered. Mule, as usual refused to respond to the reins, and he ground his teeth. Stubborn animal. Gramps had always laughed and hollered affectionately at the dappled gelding, but Mule wouldn’t start without a feedbag of oats strapped on his face. It was Gram’s fault; Gramps had always said she spoiled that horse. Liam really didn’t have time for this, but he clambered back down and went for the oats.Oats.

It was Gram he thought of as he drove the team through the trees to the upper pasture. And it was Gram’s memory that stopped him at the crest of the hill, looking down at the little house and barn. Gone for ten years, she was the soul of the place, and even Mule knew it. Guess there was something to be said for Gramps’ hard head after all.

Book Review: Hans and Peter

Hans and Peter are best friends with opposite problems. One hates living in the basement, one hates living on the top floor. They dream of building a beautiful house with no basement or top floor where their families can live together.

One day the boys take a walk and find an empty shack on an abandoned construction site. Who could it belong to? The boys have the perfect idea; they could fix up the shack to be their own little house.

With several amusing mishaps and the help of some encouraging friends, the boys spend their days making their dream happen. The shack may not be the house of their dreams, but they are so proud to show it off to their friends and families. Even the owner of the shack approves of their work and promises them a job building real houses when they grow up.

This book is such a delightful inspiration for children. Hans and Peter encourage young readers to work hard for what they want, to learn from their mistakes, and to ask for help when they need it. It also serves as a reminder that the imagination of childhood, when encouraged, forms the foundation of adult success. This is a favorite in our household and I hope it remains one for years to come.

The Dust Siren

“Come with me, my lord,” she whispered in his ear. She was perfect, enchanting in her beauty. She laughed, silver notes of music, and caught his fingertips with hers as she danced lightly away. He followed, allowing the touch to remain. She twirled with delight, the hem of her robe indistinguishable from the dust on the path for one distracting moment.

“Where shall we go, my lady?” he asked, held captive by the gray that seemed to whirl in her irises. The city faded from memory, the path disappeared beneath his feet. He cared nothing for where his sandals carried him so long as that laughing smile flashed before him.

“Eat with me, my lord,” she crooned, leading him to a gray couch beside a laden table. She sat beside him as he lay back, a bowl of sweet plums in her hand. Her lithe fingers slipped one between her teeth, rosy lips closing over it just as its juice began to flow. His own mouth parted, and he leaned toward her, his hand reaching out to touch her arm with reverence. She blushed winningly and popped another fruit into his mouth with a giggle.

“Stay with me, my lord,” she pleaded, running a hand through his hair. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, her scent of earth and dried grasses filling his senses. Her fingers stroked his forehead as he drowsed with his head in her lap. His own hands played with the folds of her gown as it seemed to flow through his fingers.

“I must sleep, my lady,” he whispered, arms drooping weakly from the couch to trail in the dust. She wailed in anguish, slipping from beneath his head to kneel beside him. He felt her arms around him, as if her skin blended with his. Strange, he thought as he fixed his eyes upon her face. The color faded from her cheeks, leaving nothing but gray that matched her eyes.

“Come back to me, my lord,” she wept to the skull that lay alone in the dirt. The tatters of her robe formed furrows in her skin as she buried her colorless face in one crumbling hand. The wind blew across the bare ground, lifting dirty clouds into the air to obscure the ruin of his city in the distance. She knelt there, cracked and crumbling, in the accusing gaze of his empty bones.

Moment of Truth

It was three in the afternoon. The hilltop and city walls were lit with torches that smoked and sputtered. The sun had disappeared at noon and not even a single star could be seen in the unnaturally dark sky. Crowds of people shoved against a perimeter of Roman shields, shouts and raucous laughter filling the eery darkness. Behind the crowd near the city, desperate weeping could just barely be heard by a careful listener, but went unheeded by anyone. A stern-faced centurion stood within the perimeter at the base of three rough posts on which hung three men. Their bodies dripped sweat and blood from uncountable wounds, and their labored breathing and cries of pain could be heard even above the crowd.

Though one of the crucified men railed furiously at the crowd and echoed their taunts, and another hung limp and unresponsive, the crowds attention seemed to be focused on the man hanging on the center pole. His body was so badly mauled as to be barely recognizable, and sticky blood oozed from the thorny crown shoved deep into his skull. A moment before he had uttered a single cry of abandonment, his voice filled with pain. It was that cry that had riled the crowd and prompted the weeping.

As the mob began to quiet once more, the man shouted in a voice not weakened by hours of torture, a voice that echoed from the city walls and left a hush hovering over the hilltop. His head fell forward in the silence, his agonized breathing as still as the mob.

Immediately the mountain shook, throwing many in the throng to the ground. Despite the quaking of the earth, a wild shout went up from the mountain, a hideous celebration of death. The weeping women had fallen on their faces and lay wailing in despair, held by a few men who gazed at the dead man with stricken eyes. Only the centurion and his soldiers, fighting to maintain their footing at the top of the rocky hill overlooking the valley, saw what happened beyond the frenzied crowd.

The earthquake had shaken open the many sealed tombs in the hillside, leaving gaping holes out of which walked living figures trailing strips of burial linen. The figures left the tombs and made their way up the mountain into the city, leavimg the centurion gaping in terrified fascination. His eyes travelled to the drooping figure hanging above him, and his trembling knees gave out. He fell against the pole, shaking hands gripping its trunk, forehead resting against lifeless feet. He glanced over his shoulder at the people, who no longer tried to break the shield line now that their hated enemy was dead. No one seemed to have noticed anything that had just happened. Jewish leaders, their meticulously groomed beards stiff over their embroidered robes, haggled with an officer over their approaching holy day almost as loudly as they had mocked the dead man a few moments before.

An old woman, staggering in the arms of a man whose face was drawn and set, approached the crosses through a gap in the gradually dispersing crowd. The centurion rose quickly and stepped away, waving to silence the indignant officers attempting to stop such unlawful proceedings. The woman took his own place at the victim’s feet, stroking them with her fingers and laying her wet cheek in the blood stains. Her companion stared at the lifeless face above, swallowing repeatedly.

The centurion moved hastily away to the edge of the embankment, removing his helmet and running fingers over his closely cropped hair. His eyes went to the sign above the victim’s head and his mind played the man’s last words over and over. He had chosen to die, the centurion realized with shock. He watched more of the dead leaving the tombs, understanding that somehow this man who had behaved so strangely on the cross had been responsible. With sudden conviction, he strode back to the cross and rested his hand on the waiting man’s shoulder. “This man raised the dead but chose to die,” he said simply as the man nodded mute agreement. “He could only have been the son of God.”

Tears of the Cyborg

I walked through the empty rooms, no footprints visible but mine in the soil-thick dust covering the floor. My steps echoed thinly from the metal cabinets lining every wall. My ears tingled from a faint hum that could be felt more than heard, and an occasional click or whirr felt like a church bell in the silence.

Double doors, windowless and cold, jerked on clogged tracks into the wall, exposing thick darkness tinged by a faint red glow. I took a ragged breath, my chest aching with anticipation that bordered on fear. Two agonizingly slow steps carried me over the threshold, and I strained for every shred of light to illuminate the room’s contents.

The whirring and clicking surrounded me here, along with the faint gurgle of some sort of liquid, and a steady drip against a puddle. As my eyes adjusted I could make out the source of the red glow, clear tubes filled with a luminescent fluid snaked toward a single point against the far wall. I walked toward it, a shape materializing slowly as I drew near.

The whirring grew louder, and I could make out exposed gears, wires, and pulleys against a narrow strip of white somehow untouched by the dust that pervaded the place. A little closer and something moved; I jumped backward with a compulsive squeak as a pale, expressionless face rose to view, colored only by the glow of the tubes that culminated behind it.

A crack appeared at the edges of the face, and a light breeze fanned the loose hair at my neck, obviously the reason for the lack of dust on what I could now see was an old-fashioned dress collar. A drop of blood-red liquid spilled from the corner of a dark eye and rolled down the delicately human cheek to drip on the floor. Another followed it, then another. The lips parted with the whir of gears, and a mechanically female voice spoke incongruously through their stillness. “Is it the end?”

Not Normal

As anyone who follows my blog knows, I have been silent for several weeks. This was not by choice, but by circumstance. I want to try to explain why because I hope to encourage others to embrace who they are in whatever situation they may find themselves.

Life is not one size fits all. Every person is an individual with unique characteristics and needs. When individuals are combined into families, the combination of however many individuals are involved becomes a new and unique personality. That sounds complicated enough, but as individuals within the family grow and change, the family personality grows and changes. Puzzle pieces that fit together perfectly one day fit differently the next.

Our family has an extra unique personality. For starters, there are eight of us. Consider the standard occupancy limits on things like vehicles or hotel rooms if you want to grasp how unique that is. In addition, we homeschool all six of our children and have from the beginning; our days are full of living books, hours outside, family projects, and conversation. To add another difference from “normal,” my husband is a preacher, so is present and involved in most daily life instead of only nights and weekends. And on top of all of it, as a family we manage extreme personalities, emotional disorders, and behavioral disorders.

We’ve been growing this family personality for twelve years (longer counting the time my husband and I dated), but it has been four years since the last addition. Until this year. This year God blessed us with our sixth child, a precious boy who needed a family. It was unplanned and unexpected, so the adjustment period has been consuming. We went from officially homeschooling three last year to officially five plus a preschooler thus year. We went from knowing every person in the house intimately to learning how a whole new individual fit into our family personality. Adjusting to the new family personality that individual helped create.

In short, our life has never been “normal,” and the last few months made us even less so. For many, this fact makes us unappealing, even crazy. For others, it makes us a novelty. The truth is that not being normal makes us awesomely normal. There is no such thing as normal; it’s an imaginary construct that we as individuals and families constantly stress ourselves out trying to achieve or at least pretend we have. In our stress and our pretense, we miss out on the beauty and variety of “not normal.” We miss out on everything different individuals have to offer each other.

Because we are not normal, I had to take a break from this aspect of myself as an individual. I had to focus on adding new elements to our family personality. I had to find our new normal. It won’t be the last time our life brings change. It won’t be the last time I have to step back and learn something new. It won’t be the last time I get to experience the beauty of “not normal.”

The Assignment

“Today’s writing assignment is to write a one page short story using this picture.”

“It’s a rowboat!”

“I don’t know how to write about a rowboat!”

“That’s a wooden framework, y’all.”

Now, kids, there are many elements in the picture. There’s a sunset, and water, and a boat, and you’re right, some kind of wooden building in the background. So many things to be creative with.”

“But I don’t know how to write about any of that!”

“I can’t think of anything to write!”

“Well, what does a boat on the water make you think about?”

“Nothing. I don’t know.”

“THE LAKE!”

“Oooh, I can write about what I did at the lake!”

“That’s right, you can! That sounds exciting!”

“Look, I wrote raptor three times! I did it, see?”

“I wrote my name!”

“Yes, you did, except that you skipped two letters that one time. And that is the most beautiful collection of M’s, H’s, and scribbles that I have ever seen. Great job.”

“Hey, I’m done! I wrote my whole story, I’m done.”

“No, sorry, you have to fill up the whole page. One paragraph is not near enough.”

“I have writer’s block.”

“Is this a whole paragraph?”

“Since I wrote my words can I go?”

“Sure, go play Legos.”

“I’m finished now! Look how much I wrote, a whole page! SO MUCH WRITING!”

“Great job, when everyone has finished you can read it out loud.”

“I only have two paragraphs. I’m no good at this!”

“You’re doing fine, just keep writing. Why are you moving to sit behind me?”

“I just wanted to lie down over here to write.”

“Sigh. Fine.”

“Is this enough sentences?”

“You can’t think of anything to tell me about going swimming except that it was hot and you were cold?”

“I said I was WET and cold!”

“…”

“Oh, I know, I can write about Daddy was there!”

“Sure, sounds great. Is everyone finished now? Who wants to read their story out loud? What? No, I didn’t get to write my own story for this assignment. Yes, you want to go first? Excellent, let’s hear it.”

Book Review: Through Grandpa’s Eyes

Until I read it to my children last night, I had never even seen this book, but it is definitely a new favorite. Patricia MacLachlan has a gift for describing the world through the eyes of a child, and this book is no exception. The story beautifully introduces to children the concepts of empathy and understanding the unique perspectives of others.

John’s Grandpa is blind, and experiences the world in a completely different way than John does. The sun wakes him with its warm rays instead of its light. He eats breakfast by turning his plate into the face of a clock. He sees faces with his fingers and identifies birds by the sound of their songs.

John doesn’t understand how Grandpa sees until he spends a summer day and night with his grandparents. Grandpa teaches him to close his eyes and listen for the little sounds around him, like Grandma clinking dishes in the kitchen. John learns to take deep breaths and identify every smell, like eggs and toast and marigolds. He learns that running his fingers like water over faces paints the same picture his eyes do.

There are some things that Grandpa can’t smell, hear, or touch, like color or light. While he learns about how Grandpa sees, John shares those special things that his eyes see with Grandpa. Together they experience the world around them in their own special way.

What If…

In the book of Mark we read about a man who was deathly ill, plagued with leprosy. This man had nothing left to lose, and threw himself at Jesus feet with a poignant faith born of desperate need. “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”

What if Jesus had practiced social distancing? It was the law, after all. The law He had given, in fact. Those who were sick with leprosy (a death sentence at the time and highly contagious) were unclean and anyone who came in contact with them became unclean. Lepers were cast out of society to die a slow, painful, lonely, poverty-stricken death.

What if when the leper fell on his face before Jesus and begged for healing, Jesus had stepped away to a safe distance? What if He had covered his face? What if He had demanded the leper follow the law to be examined by a priest and ritually cleansed before coming into His presence? What if He had ordered every other person nearby to declare themselves unclean from contact with the leper and be ritually cleansed by a priest before allowing them to interact with others, even their own families? What if He didn’t reach out and touch the leper with His own hand, didn’t look into his eyes and say, “I am willing?”

What if the law He had given was not about physical sickness at all? What if it was an object lesson about the importance of separating ourselves from the attitudes and behaviors of those who do not acknowledge God? What if it was about the corruption of a fearful and unbelieving heart? What if it was a reminder to look to Him for heart healing? What if God’s people got it wrong?

What if Jesus had stayed in Heaven? What if He kept His distance from all the corruption of men? What if He didn’t show His face on Earth so that men could know Him? What if He avoided the diseased and the outcasts to appease the misguided and self-absorbed people and to escape their constant verbal abuse? What if He didn’t speak about the depth and the wonder of His covenant, of the Kingdom which is not of this world, and fulfilled the Satan-driven desire of mankind for a perfect and safe physical life? What if He avoided the anger and rejection that tortured His body and broke His heart, that nailed His physical body to a cross and lifted His love so high that no one could avoid seeing it?

What if He didn’t come to be safe or comfortable or admired? What if being saved is not about being safe? What if following His example means I will look different, that I will never be accepted, that I will face misunderstanding and abuse at the hands of other humans? What if I stand beneath His cross, facing the world maskless, fearless, limitless, reaching out to hold the hands of the hopeless and lift them out of the pit?

What if?