Reading, Writing & Pondering

Geared for children ages four and under, this little book shares the five purposes of The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. Amy Warren Hulliker, Rick Warren's daughter, wrote this book to help little ones start to grasp a few basic concepts about God and the Christian life. This board book "lets children know God made them solely for the purpose of loving them." The rhythmic wording is one that is easy to read over and over, like the little ones like to do with their favorite books.  Besides the simple repetitive words written for little ones to easily understand, the beautiful illustrations by Polona Lovsin are captivating. The animals look so cute, cuddly and lovable that even my 14-year old thought they looked like he could reach out and pet them. The pages are also thick and sturdy for little ones to hold and look at on  their own. This would be a great book to give little ones to help them learn that God loves them and that we in turn love others. It would ...

Take an artistic trip to Paris. From its fabled streets and alleyways, from the hill of Montmartre and Shakespeare & Company bookshop to Notre-Dame Cathedral, one can take a magical coloring trip with cats throughout the famous City of Light.Cats in Paris features pen and ink drawings of cats of all kinds-Persian, Siamese, Tabbies, and more. According to the author, Won-Sun Jang, a cat's charm cannot be expressed in just one way so there is plenty of room for creativity with this adult coloring book. . .the sketches, lines and patterns leave room for you to express your individuality. The paper in this book is sturdy and heavy and I think several mediums would work well with it. I used colored pencils for my samples and they went on nicely but I would try markers as well as I don't think they would bleed through, although pictures are on both sides of the pages in this book.  I liked that most of these pictures did not have a lot of small detailing to color. I lik...

Choose Joy. Sounds easy enough if you are a regular person having a sorta bad day like someone took your parking space or something like that. . .However, Choose Joy was a conscious choice that Sara Frankl made every day. She lived in chronic pain for many years as a result of a rare autoimmune disease. For several of those years she was confined to her home.Choose Joy by Sara Frankl and Mary Carver tells the story of Sara's life. It isn't the story of her disease but instead it is the story of how she chose to live each day for Jesus and reflected Him in her life. Choose Joy is Sara's words shared about lessons she learned while the disease progressed. Each lesson is pieced together with words of preface from her close friend Mary Carver. Sara blogged for several years as Gitzen Girl and was one of the writers at In-Courage. Before she became ill, Sara worked for a magazine and writing was a part of who she was. She was also a creative gal who designed her own type a...

Sometimes family devotions can get stale or a little boring. The Bible is My Best Friend Family Devotional by Sheila Walsh is anything but dull and boring. This bright little book offers your family a way to discuss and explore the Bible together in a fun way for 52 weeks (1 year) The Bible is My Best Friend Family Devotional has devotions are based on a memory verse.Within each weekly devotional are several little features.The  Let's Talk section offers a question for the kids and a question for the adults. Both are intended to facilitate family discussion. My family especially liked this part and we did find that we talked about the questions for a little while with some good discussion that we wouldn't normally have had. The Family Fun Section includes something fun to do: act out a skit, play a game, run a race, make a craft, follow a scavenger hunt, and more. There were great fun things to do here. However, we wish our family were a larger family for some of the acti...

I think at some point, many children hear about angels and wonder about them. We sing about them at Christmas and people talk about loved ones turning into angels. They wonder what the truth is. Angels in the Bible Storybook tells the stories in the Bible that share about angels. Children can learn how angels interacted with Abraham, Lot, Gideon, Joshua, Daniel in the Old Testament and Zechariah, Mary, Jesus, and Paul in the New Testament, as well as many other stories. There are 30 stories total. In addition to beautiful angel stories, this story book contains beautiful illustrations to go along with them. They aren't the typical old-fashioned angel illustrations of the past, but they are beautiful and colorful. The bright colors are even more appealing to young readers, I think. My family found the storytelling in this book to be quite good. The wording was some good prose and each story shared something different about angels in the Bible. It was a fun way to learn about ...

Kulreet Chaudhardy, MD is an integrative neurologist. I was not familiar with her before seeing The Prime, but I found it fascinating. It was both fascinating to me to read her story and to relate her plan to my own life. Dr. Chaudhardy shares how she came to the United States from India. In India, her grandfather was an Ayurvedic doctor and her family was treated through his methods. Then, after moving to the States as young girl with her family, Dr. Chaudhardy grew up and became a medical doctor. The Prime was written so I could easily understand as a layman and it was quite readable. As I have entered Midlife, I have found a few digestive issues and brain fog crop up in my own life that are troublesome. While I have not done so yet, I think her program looks doable and could help with those issues so they don't further develop into bigger issues down the road. I would recommend this book to everyone I meet. I think we are just beginning to realize how important our gut he...