The Creation Story for Children by David and Helen Haidle - Great Read!

The Creation Story for Children by Helen and David Haidle is a simply told and beautifully illustrated retelling of the creation story. Each page encompasses one day of the creation. Each page begins with the verses from Genesis and then has a short paragraph that retells those verses in more of a story-form.

Pros:
-The verses are taken from the King James Version, which some might consider a con, but as an English major, I appreciated. I don't think children and younger generations get enough exposure to the sort of beautiful language that can be found in the King James Version of the Bible.

-The illustrations: every page has a beautiful depiction of what was created on each day. I really enjoyed the inclusion of dinosaurs in the illustrations.

-The last few pages after the story of creation talk about how God specially created and cares for each person from conception through our entire lives, how He thinks about us, how He has plans for us, etc.

-The story ends at the end of day 7 of the creation, before the fall. After thinking about it for a while, I actually am listing this as a pro. After all, the book is called: The Creation Story.
Cons:
-I can't think of any.

Overall:
-This is a great book. I loved how it used the actual Bible verses in the retelling of the story, it kept me from feeling as though the authors were "adding" or "changing" the Bible story. I really can't say enough about the illustrations, they are gorgeous. The text of the book is a bit advanced (a lot of words per page) for my 2 year old daughter, but she loves the pictures, and if I just read the Bible verses or just read the story part to  her she can pay attention for the whole story. Her favorite part? The day where God created fish and whales, of course! :)

The FTC demands that I inform you that I received this book for free. New Leaf Publishing Group, however, demanded nothing from me. They did not ask for a positive review, just an honest one.

A Christmas Prayer by Amy Parker - Good Read

Always ready to add to our Christmas book collection, I requested this book to review from booksneeze. I was not at all disappointed. This story is a very cute retelling of the Christmas story. A child, surrounded by parents and small sibling, acts out the Christmas story and thanks God for the various characters in the Christmas Story - calling them each "precious Christmas gifts" to all of us. The story ends with the child thanking God for Jesus, the "perfect Christmas gift."

With uncomplicated, yet very cute illustrations, this retelling of the Christmas story in rhyming verses from a child's perspective is simply adorable. I enjoyed the inclusion of all the characters from the story, and I especially loved how the story includes the Wise Men, without improperly placing them at the stable in Bethlehem. I also loved how the story emphasizes the true reason for the season of Christmas on the first page, where the child says, “So this, my Christmas prayer, is not for toys and dolls - it’s thanking You for Christmas gifts, You’ve given to us all.”

My two-year old also approves of this book and it will definitely be one of the stories we pull out at Christmas-time for years to come.

The FTC demands that I disclose the following information:
Many thanks to Tommy Nelson for providing this book to me for free. They did not ask for a positive review, merely an honest one.

Free Books? Sign me up!

• Ok, so I've gotten sucked in. My friend, Shannon, has been signing up to review books for various publishing companies (they send you the book for free and in return, you review the book on your blog for them, they do not require a positive review, just an honest one). After hearing about all the free books she is getting, and realizing that I can get children's books for free through these programs... I have decided to jump on the bandwagon... so, I'm sorry, you're gonna have to put up with reading some book reviews every now and then. I am only planning on requesting/reviewing children's books though, b/c they require a smaller time commitment. Hopefully those of you who read this blog and are parents will find some of those reviews helpful. :)
  
  Hey... free books? I mean, why not?

Yet Another Story Idea

A few months back, my brother sent me an idea for a story. I have it rolling around in the back of my head and am looking forward to expanding on it. I thought I'd let you take a sneak peek at it.

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     The whole world looked muffled.  If you’ve ever lived within a University dormitory and had to put your head under your pillow to try and get sleep or if you’ve ever heard a conversation through a wall you would know the feeling.  However, Devlin blinking hard at the hazy surroundings, noted that the world did not sound muffled, it looked muffled.
    Devlin was perplexed.  He was standing in the middle of an open space.  A foreign and unknown open space.  Yet not a moment ago he had known exactly where he had been.  He had been in his hotel room getting ready for the last leg of what had already been an overlong journey home. 
    Slowly, it seemed his eyes were adjusting.  The fog that was either filling this space or filling his head seemed to dissipate.  And yet he remained motionless.  Frozen to the spot in which he had been standing.   It was as if he had woken up only to realize he was still dreaming.  He had been awake he thought to himself. 
    “You’re not dreaming you know.”

The Skin Map Review

When I heard Stephen Lawhead was writing a new book, I was thrilled. When I learned the title of the new book was The Skin Map, I was confused. It didn’t sound very ... well... Lawhead-y. However, as I began reading this beginning to a brand new series, I swiftly became engrossed in the story.

Filled with descriptions that beguile all five senses and all the beauty and charm of the language I have come to expect from Lawhead, this book is a fascinating blend of fantasy and sci-fi. In the world of The Skin Map, there is an Omni-verse, a universe filled with alternate realities that are easily accessible to those who know where to look via roads known as “ley lines.” These alternate realities are also located in different “time zones” as it were, and thus jumping from one reality to the next also inevitably includes a certain amount of time travel.

The book follows the stories of several different characters: Kit Livingstone a young man from modern-day London, who encounters his great grandfather and is shown how to ley travel; Wilhelmina, Kit’s girlfriend, who, when Kit tries to prove to her that ley travel is real, gets trapped in 17th century Prague; Cosimo (Kit’s great grandfather) and Sir Henry, ley line adventurers who wish to use the ley lines for the betterment of science and humanity; Lord Burleigh, the villain of the story, whose motivations seem to stem from greed; and Arthur Flinders-Petrie, the “Ernest Shackleton” of the ley line adventurers who mapped out the ley lines and had them tattooed on his body so they could never be stolen or lost.

Something I love about this book is the masterful way Lawhead subtly uses his characters to point to Christ. He never beats his audience about the head with his beliefs, despite publishing with a Christian publishing house. Instead, he allows his books to unfold the message of his faith - either through characters whose faith is an integral part of who they are (such as Etzel), or through characters who don’t know what they believe and the conversations they have with other characters about questions they have (such as Kit and Lady Faythe). As always, Lawhead is unique in that he is not a writer of Christian Fiction. Rather, he is a Christian Author who writes Fiction.

On the flip side of this rave review I do have a couple of negatives to mention. First, is that I have to wait until next September to read the second book in the series. Second, don’t read this book expecting to have any questions answered. I was about 10 pages from the end when I realized that the book was leading me to a cliff-hanger ending, and I was going to have to wait for the rest of the series to find out what happens. Since Lawhead is delving back into sci-fi with this series, this first book was mainly an introduction to the characters, the concept of ley travel, and a tantalizing glimpse at the story this series will become.

Overall, I would say I thoroughly enjoyed the book and would recommend it to anyone who likes a good blend of sci-fi, fantasy, and history as well as the idea of time travel and being able to mess with historical events.

Technically, nobody ever asked me for anything, but I'm sure that the FTC would like me to explain that I received this book for free but was not required by the publisher to give it a good review.

A new adventure

Hey all, thought I'd share the prologue to the new story I'm writing. Let me know what you think!


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Prologue
    Firelight flickered across the man’s face, shadows making his wrinkles seem deep, deeper than they were. The room was small and nearly empty, bare of decoration. There was a small rug, woven in threads of blue and gray, in front of the hearth and the wooden chair in which the old man sat staring into the dying fire. Three walls of the small garret room were lined with bookshelves and every shelf was filled with large, ancient, hard-bound books, dusty from disuse. In the middle of the room was a small, square table with two mismatched chairs. Against the one wall that had no shelves was a small counter with a sink that allowed running water, an odd luxury for so poor a dwelling. A cabinet held a few pieces of pottery, presumably for holding food, and further down the wall was an old cot with a straw mattress.
    The old man sat hunched over, wrapped in an old cloak. His white beard hung nearly to his waist. In a different time he had kept his beard shorter and neatly combed, but what, really, was the point anymore? Closer inspection would have revealed that the tattered, gray cloak the man had pulled about his shoulders had once been very fine. It had once been a royal blue in color, with fabric as soft as a newborn chick and as waterproof as a duck’s feathers. It was lined with gray silk and trimmed with silver cords. But there was no one around to examine the cloak, none left to wonder how such a fine cloak had come into the possession of this old man living in this poor tower room.
    The fire in the hearth had burned down to a handful of glowing embers and the room began to grow chilly. The man sighed and shifted, looking into the hearth and then glancing out the one window above the wash-basin at the rising silver moon. He could get more firewood easily, now that it was dark, and restarting the fire itself would require little effort at all, and yet there he sat, as immobile as carved stone, his face filled with bitter sorrow. What was the point? What point in keeping the fire burning? What point in keeping his post. All was well, all had been well, all would most likely continue to be well. For two hundred years, nothing had needed his attention. Perhaps allowing himself to slip into oblivion would not be a desertion of his duties after all. He long to sleep, to be reunited with his brothers. He glanced guiltily at the table as though to reassure himself, as though afraid that his very thoughts might cause some change. The orb, however, did not flicker.
    The orb was the only decorative piece in the room: a small, round, glass ball no larger than an apple, made of what looked like blown glass and so delicate that a breath might cause it to shatter. It sat wrapped in the open jaws of a silver statue carved to look like a dragon in flight. the orb glowed a steady, pure blue and the man sighed again, a sound that was filled with both relief and weariness. If all was not well, the orb would become streaked with orange and red, but there would still be time, time to stop the darkness. If the streaks grew until the orb was overwhelmed... the old man shook his head, not liking to think about what that would mean.
    It would not happen, it could not, he had seen to that. He pulled his cloak tighter and snapped his fingers, expending very little energy, but more than it would have taken to actually go get the wood from the nearby forest. The fire in the hearth blazed up, warming the room and chasing back the shadows that had risen up and threatened to overwhelm him. Dalmir blinked back tears at the sudden memories and scowled into the fire.