Reading, Writing & Pondering

  Grow Wild, My Child by Ainsley Arment is a beautifully illustrated hardcover children's book that was written to encourage children to spend time having outdoor adventures of all kinds. Grow Wild, My Chil d is 32 pages long, aimed at children ages four to eight. This beautiful book measures a little larger than 9 by 11 inches. The illustrations by Bianca Pozzi are gorgeous! The end papers with drawings of various items in nature are also gorgeous. Grow Wild, My Child is meant to instill a sense of wonder in children--wonder at all four seasons outdoors--and having adventures outside through all of those seasons. It also encourages a sense of make-believe and dreaming while outdoors. I think the writing has wonderful rhythm. I love the writing and the pictures. I grew up loving my time outdoors in nature--but that was before the internet got going. I would love to see children continue to love time outdoors in nature and to use their time to dream and imagine as this book encour...

  I don't know about you, but a lot of times I just want to fit in with everyone else. According to Ginger Stache, you weren’t born to be like everyone else because God made you to stand out. In Chasing Wonder , Stache encourages readers to live the life of adventure and to trust God through all of the adventures. Chasing Wonder is divided in to 3 sections: An Adventure Mentality, Live in Wonder and Splashing Joy. Each chapter is full of encouragement, stories from Stache's life of adventure and uplifting Bible verses. At the end of each chapter, there is a short page that sums up the basic ideas from the chapter called, "Step by Step." Stache is definitely an encouraging writer and, as a reader, I could feel her energy and excitement for life as I read through the pages. It did make me want to become more adventurous in my own life. I enjoyed her stories of traveling all over the world as she works for Joyce Meyer as her Chief Creative Officer. Some of her storeis w...

Are you looking for a book that is full of action-packed adventure? The Way of the Brave by Susan May Warren is the first book in the Global Search and Rescue series and it is full of nail-biting, page-turning action. Former pararescue jumper Orion Starr joins Hamilton Jones and his buddy Jake in the search for three lost climbers on Denali in Alaska. Jenny Calhoun and her friends, Aria and Sasha, are headed up Denali for their annual mountain climbing excursion--when things don't go as planned. When things on Denali get out of control with the weather and the winds, the ladies find that they are in a bad place. It is then that Orion and the guys step in to rescue them. The Way of the Brave kept me turning pages quickly. I read this book during a blizzard where I live so it wasn't hard to imagine the climbers stuck in the wind and the snow on the mountain. I did like the main characters in this book. However, at the end of the book, Warren leaves us hanging in several w...