A Story of Love, Loss, and Grace (especially Grace)

I am not a dog person. I dislike getting licked and slobbered on. I can’t stand yapping. When I see the toothpick legs of a skinny little Chihuahua everything in me wants to see how easily they will snap. (At such times, I carefully keep my hands to myself.) At least I have gotten over the terror of dogs I had as a child. That terror was based on my grandfather telling me that the little girl next door didn’t have any ear lobes because a dog jumped up and bit them off. Now, I can’t in my wildest dreams imagine that he actually said that, but for years that belief was the basis of my hysterical screams when a dog came near. I tell you this to let you know that David Wheaton must be quite a writer to have won me over with his book My Boy Ben. 

[Disclaimer: I was hired by the publisher to edit this book, but these thoughts are entirely my own.]

When Your Students Succeed

 I once attended a one-day writing workshop. At the end of the day the leader asked us to visualize where we would like to be in ten-years time in our writing careers. He probably suggested a book signing as one possibility. By that time I had done at least one book signing for my first YA novel, The Wooden Ox. The desire to do writing workshops in Africa may have already been in my mind. What I remember is picturing the book signing of one of my students. Recently I have gone one better—one of my Kenyan students was short-listed for the Golden Baobab Award for African Children’s Literature.

Yahweh, Show Your Power!

In Valerie Comer’s fantasy novel Majai's Fury reviewed here, Shanh, the Jonah-inspired character sent from his legalistically god-fearing culture to invite a sinful city to believe, calls on his god to protect him. “Azhvah, show your power!” and he does, often in miraculous ways. But then, as with the God of the Bible, there are times when he seems not to. He leaves his followers to suffer while he brings Shahn out of his strict legalism into true relationship.

There are so many times when I have no idea how to pray. 

Speculating on the Real World

 

We’re trying something new today. I have often told you about books I have been reading. This one really had me thinking about my own cultural perspective, and since it was written by a colleague in American Christian Fiction Writers and fellow blogger on International Christian Fiction Writers, I have invited her to answer a few questions, as an “author interview” like we do on a lot of the book sites. There is even a chance to win a free Kindle copy at the end of this post. Let me know if you would like to see more of this sort of thing.

Valerie Comer’s new speculative novel, Majai's Fury, is “a fantasy tale of forbidden romance amid clashing religions and cultures.” As the Amazon blurb says:

If I Were Writing the Story...

If I were writing a novel, this is not the way it would have gone. The young man intent on murder steps into the church. He is warmly welcomed even though he is white and the church members are black; he is young and most of those present for Bible study are old. 

He fingers the gun in his pocket. He reminds himself of all the reasons he resents these people, trying desperately to hang onto his hate.

The Christians pray. The young man hears their words; he senses their relationship with their heavenly Father. The Holy Spirit is in that room as he promises to be wherever two or three are gathered in his name. The Holy Spirit touches that young man’s wounded heart.

At last he breaks down and confesses his evil intent. He is embraced in love by his former enemies and begins a new life in Christ.

That’s the way I would have written it.  

The Fault in Our Stars or in Ourselves?

I read John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars a couple years ago. (Another author I got to know through Calvin College’s Festival of Faith and Writing. Even if you have never attended, the booklist on their site is a great place to pick up recommendations.) I haven’t yet gotten to the theatre to see the movie everyone is talking about (Christianity Today gives it a 3-star out of 4 review), but I thought you might be interested in what I wrote about the book in 2012:

As I listened to the audio version, I was following Caring Bridge updates on the chronically ill grandson of friends. The Fault in Our Stars gives me new insights into what this family is dealing with and how this child may feel as he grows toward his teen years.

Second Thoughts on a Newberry Honor Book

 I picked up My Brother Sam is Dead because it is a Newbery Honor book and available from my library as an audio book. Tim and Sam’s father is Tory in this tale of the American Revolution. He just wants to be allowed to live his life and continue his business of running a tavern in Reading, Connecticut. He wants his sons to stay out of the rebellion, so we get more than the traditional American of-course-the-revolution-was-a-good-thing viewpoint. Neither the Tories nor Patriots are “the good guys” in this book; the war itself, with its indiscriminate killing and abuses of power, is the ultimate bad guy. The injustice of the ending (Sam is dead) left me incensed and must surely anger young readers. The author asks the question if the goal of freedom and rule by the people could have been accomplished without bloodshed.