One Dress. One Year.

I love seeing the youth of today getting actively involved in bettering our society and focusing on helping those who are oppressed and held down. I so appreciated reading this book and seeing the passion of Bethany Winz to make a real change in the lives of those trapped in slavery. I also loved that one simple concept, one idea could make such a huge impact not only in her own life but in those around here. That God uses the ordinary to do extraordinary things, and how making a stand in her own life to bring attention to this atrocity began an unexpected transformation in herself to understand the depth of love and forgiveness found in the Savior.
I don't have a daughter, but I will be encouraging my son to read this book, he's fourteen and I would love for him to see and understand that any act, no matter how small the beginning, can have such deep and extraordinary impacts not only on ourselves, but in the world!
I plan on recommending this book to our Youth group, and to anyone else out there who desires to see and begin to understand how much God can do when you're willing to let Him lead you!

"Book has been provided courtesy of Baker Publishing Group and Graf-MartinCommunications, Inc."

Debt-Proof your Marriage

As an adult couple living in this day and age, its hard to live a lifestyle that is debt-free, and although its something we do desire to be, I know for myself, we just haven't reached that point fully. So anytime I see a book for review on strategies to manage your money better, I'm always looking forward to reading them!!
I really did appreciate this book by Mary Hunt, above all else, it offered a lot of hope towards those striving to become debt free, and she offered a lot of practical and easy to implement ideas to attain that! I find that a lot of these debt-free type books are so difficult to even get through, let alone implement, that I'm left more discouraged than I started off! The advice given was practical and real-life; Mary Hunt didn't just throw out these hard to grasp concepts and expect her reader to just latch on. She gave clear directions, and based them in reality for a regular family with a regular income.
I really enjoyed how easy to read the book was too, there was enough humor laced through it that reading it wasn't a struggle! I highly recommend this for any couple out there wanting to adopt a dept-free lifestyle!!

"Book has been provided courtesy of Baker Publishing Group and Graf-MartinCommunications, Inc."

Hannah's Choice

I am always happy to receive Amish books for review, its one of my favorite genre's regardless of the author ( I've never found a poorly written Amish book!), I love the simplicity of their life style and their approach to living as Godly as they can. I also love how important family is portrayed in the lifestyle of the Amish in these books, the emphasis they have on the importance of family relationships is one I deeply appreciate!
"Hannah's choice" was no different, I loved the love that they portrayed in the novel, but it was also grounded in a realistic way. There were imperfections, mistakes and rebellions throughout the story, it made all the characters come across more realistic and relatable!
I could really feel Hannah's struggle as she fought with herself to discover what she truly wanted, while at the same time trying to be the daughter and sister that her family needed.  I found that the book was very well written, and had me fixed to it until (sadly) the last page, it was one of those books that I didn't want to end! (although it pleased me to see that its part of a series and I excitedly look forward to reading more from Jan Drexler!!)

"Book has been provided courtesy of Baker Publishing Group and Graf-MartinCommunications, Inc."

Raising uncommon Kids

I have the love/hate relationship with parenting books, I appreciate and love learning ways I can help shape my child into a good kind person, but on the other hand, it seems a lot of these books are either written with non-parents who have no practical idea of how to actually raise a child. Or by parents who eventually alienate their children and push them away from Christ by their unforgiving treatment!
I so appreciated that this book didn't fall into either of those categories! I loved the idea that we focus more on raising up positive traits rather than focusing on the current negative ones. It really spoke to me too on how I need to do so much more to show these Biblical traits in my own life, I really didn't notice the lack of my own before reading and getting into this book. We're now as a family working and growing together to become more Christ like in our behavior and more godly in our responses. I highly recommend this book for parents!

"Book has been provided courtesy of Baker Publishing Group and Graf-MartinCommunications, Inc."