Oh my, how I LOVE this book! As a Homeschool Mom, Teacher of Bible History, & Olympian Club Teacher I couldn't wait to get ahold of these maps. I was so happily surprised to find that the book also included detailed outlines of each book of the Bible, which has become invaluable in my Bible History Class. This resource is a great value considering that it also includes downloadable pdfs of each map! Each book of the Bible is covered with a section that informs about; the author, dates, themes & literary structure, & other important topics. I especially liked the tabernacle diagrams, the "Placement of Tribes in the Israelite Encampment", a chart describing the "Pagan God's of Egypt" (Which really helped my students understand the plagues at a different level!), detailed charts on "The Levitical Offerings", a chart on "The Harmony of the Gospels", and the various full-color pictures. This book has opened up Bible study to me in so many ways. The one con I did find, there some Scriptural inaccuracies, but if you are a careful reader you will catch them. My Dad, a Pastor, took one look through it and has already bought his own copy.

Is God in control when His people are in enemies hands?



Kabul 24 is the riveting story of Christians and some of their employees who were taken prisoner in Afghanistan just a month before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. When these Christians, varying in age and nationality, left their homes to help the Afghan refugees they knew exactly what they were risking. Still it was terrifying when their nightmares came true and they were taken, not knowing if they would ever make it back safely to see their families again. First response was to turn to God in prayer, and He answered in miraculous ways!

This book was impossible to put down. I simply had to know if the prisoners would make it home safe! I was afraid when I first received this book that it would be hard to read. I have read other books about Afghanistan under the Taliban’s power, and the evil that took place was hard to read about. Instead this book showed how prayer, faith, and endurance trumps the evil man will seek to do to those who love God!

I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255

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I just signed up to be a Book Review Blogger with Thomas Nelson! I am excited because I get free books and all I have to do is read them and then write a review & a blog, which I do most the time anyway! The first book they are sending me is Kabul 24, which is about Christians who were held prisioner by the Taliban. I am excited to get it and start reading. Please share by my blog with your friends who like to read and know about books!

So, I have been reading about Mark Twain lately. I love how Twain seemed to have an opinion on everything, even though not all of his opinions would be ones I agreed with. Twain had thoughts about everything that happened around him, new and old trends in the society he was living in. I wonder what it was like to live in Twain's lifetime when change was happening all around. He was born into a slave state and was surrounded as a child by many enslaved people. People whose freedoms, freedoms given to them by God, were taken away by other men. Then he watched his rather new country nearly destroyed as they fought over what the freedoms, granted by God, and ensured by the Declaration of Independence, meant. He moved out west and saw the gold rush, the settling of the west. He was a major, maybe the most important author of a new kind literature which gave the United States their own literary voice. He built a home complete with 19 rooms, 7 bathrooms, flushing toilets, gas powered lights, & tubes that made it possible to talk to people in any other part of the house. He was one of the "Pilgrims" on what would be considered our country's first luxury cruise. He traveled to the "Sandwich Islands" (Hawaiian Islands). He came East. He worked in Washington DC, watching the politics, seeing up close, political dramas not much different from what we see today. I just got done reading about him buying a brand-new machine, a typewriter.

I guess today we are seeing things change as well. The way news is given and spread has changed from just being what we read in the paper or hear on the news. The people who not very long ago controlled what news we heard, how we heard it, and when we heard it are now struggling to keep up with the exchange of information on Twitter and Facebook. I watch the news and hear reports on various people of interest's Facebook statuses, or recent Tweets. Really do I need the news at all? Couldn't I follow these people on Twitter or Facebook myself? Isn't the time I spend listening to people, on major network news, sit in pride as they "report" on statuses just wasted time? Still, even as I say that, I feel that there are certain reputable news agencies that actually give us really important information. Yet, again even as I say that, I know that my Dad just returned from Nepal. The first day he was there a church was bombed by Hindus. I am not really sure if anyone reported this information in the United States. I do know that I didn't hear about it, until he came home and told me, and he only knew because he was there! Shouldn't we as citizen's of the United States of America care about people who are being attacked for being Christians, no matter where they live in the world, Especially since we live in the country where freedom of religion was pioneered?

Anyway what would Mark Twain think about the exchange of news and information, which is nearly instantaneous on the internet? Especially considering that he worked for hours and hours, as a printer for a small town newspaper just to get each page slowly, and laboriously ready for the sharing of news. I think he would have appreciated that information was readily available, but it's just a guess.

I wonder what Mark Twain would have thought of Texting. I know that he absolutely HATED grammatical errors. He had a great love of languages. He liked to learn about their make-up, and grammatical rules. (I really find him interesting and love many things about his writing, but I don't really get this interest! I hate grammar....Ugh how boring! I would much rather read about Huck floating down the Mississippi, Tom attending his own funeral, or a Connecticut Yankee in King Author's Court than study present participles, correct ending marks for sentences, and when to capitalize.) Personally, I feel like his love for grammar had a lot to do with his desire to feel like he was good enough, smart enough, and the fact that he fought with a fear of failure all his life. Unfortunately for me, I have never personally met Mark Twain (although, when I visited Hannibal I did meet a dude dressed up like him) anyway, I not really and truly friends with him, so that's just guess. I wonder if Twain, with his love for grammar would have hated the abbreviations used in texting? Would he have studied the grammatical "rules" of texting? Would he have bought a textionary? Would he have written a book in texting dialogue? I think so, I don't think he could have resisted satirizing texting! Maybe he would have done something like my mother-in-law. Once I was iming her and said, "ttyl" and "lol". So she wrote, "hoamihtgttbr". I was like "WHAT?!" And she said, "Hang On A Minute I Have To Go To The BathRoom."

I know that Mark Twain kept many notebooks throughout his life. Today we blog. I know that he was a great man of letters. Throughout his life he corresponded with many people, friends, family members, women that he loved, and even with enemies and rivals. Many times the letters exchanged with enemies and rivals were shared via letters posted in newspapers for all to read! Today we write on each other walls, comment on notes, im, and complain about each other on our status.

I do know that Twitter has nothing on Mark Twain! He was "tweeting" with literary greats long before computers or cell phones even existed. Many of the letters he wrote talked about people he had been "twittering" with. Back then it just meant they were discussing, chatting, and passing time. Guess that's what it means today, and it's not really all that much different from what they were doing back then! They just had to work harder to do it.

Reading about the year 1871 & feeling thankful for those women who fought for women to be able to have the right to vote!

I didn't really know what to expect when I checked out this book; "Princess Benn" by Catherine Gilbert Murdock. The book looked a little interesting and so I decided to give it a shot. I have to admit that when I first started reading the book I almost didn't get past the first couple of pages. The book is written in first person narrative, and it is very lyrical. I really questioned if the book would be worth getting used to the weird way it was written. Turned out, I was so glad I gave it a chance because it turned out to be pretty good book.

Most of the characters in the book turn out completely differently then I had expected, and best of all, it has a great message for young girls. I hate those books that teach kids that they have to find the perfect prince and then their lives will be happily ever after. I think girls should learn to be happy with themselves before they worry about finding a prince. Well, this book doesn't pull that stuff. I would definitely recommend this book to parents of younger kids.

Too Many Metaphors……

Just got done reading "Peculiar Treasures" and "On a Whim" by Robin Jones Gunn. I didn't realize when I first started this series that it is a series that goes with some other books this writer has written. It looks like she started with the Christy Miller series, then Christy and Todd; the College Years, Sierra Jenson, and then Katie Weldon Series. So, if you wanted to read them all, you would probably want to start with the Christy Miller. I don't know if I will bother to go back and read them all, since now that I started these I already know where Christy and Sierra have ended up so far. Still while this series goes along with the others, it stands alone just fine. She gives enough history to be updated and enjoy the books just fine.

My favorite part about the books was the main character, Katie Weldon. She is a fun, quirky, cute character. As well as being well-flawed. I like to read about a character that isn't perfect, does stupid things, loses a temper sometimes, has issues…because that is real. I feel like I can learn how to live better when I read about someone else who isn't perfect learning how to live better. I also liked some of the little qualities that the author gave to Katie, they were ones I could relate to. For instance, Katie is a big bargain hunter, I loved a part of the second book involving garlic-butter popcorn that she bought at garage sale! It cracked me up that she was going to feed her friend food that she bought a garage sale, without telling her! I have to say buying food a garage sale, maybe where I draw the line! It was a fun part of the book though. I got the feeling that the author really enjoyed and liked this character as she wrote her.

There was something the author seemed to overdue that annoyed me a little, too many metaphors! Some of them bordered on silly. I am all for using literary elements such as this, but to a point, it can be overdone. In the first book, she used the metaphor of "Peculiar Treasures" and how we are a peculiar treasure to God, and how he puts peculiar treasures into our lives. This was a cool metaphor which she backed up with Scripture, it was the title of the book, and well-done. There was another that started off a little cool about an old Hawaiian proverb, and the "ripening" of a relationship. But it ended up with women in the book calling their husband "Gummy Bears" and their relationships with their boyfriends "Gummy" or "Not Gummy". That just went too far and made it really silly! There was like 3-4 pages at the beginning where Katie talks to her boyfriend about driving in the slow lane, switching to a fast lane, and turning on turn signals. This was all meant to represent the level of commitment in their relationship and how quickly their relationship was progressing. As I was reading it I was thinking that it was too silly. Then to make it worse the metaphor was carried on throughout the whole book! UGH! I am sorry but who really talks to their boyfriends like that? And what boyfriend actually sits there and participates in a conversation like that? If I started talking to my husband like that, he would soon by rubbing his temples, turning up the volume on the basketball game, and just nodding and saying "Mmm-uhm". It wouldn't be a long time at all before he would have totally turned off the volume on what I am going on and on about and would not be listening at all! Guys don’t think like that. I would like to see a writer, who decided to write about real men, who act like real men, and that's ok that they act like real men, why not? I think it would be refreshing. Not that it is not okay to read sometimes just for fun, about unrealistic men and relationships. But when the guys are constantly unrealistic I feel like it just puts ideas of how men and relationships should be in women's mind that aren't real.


Still, with all that said, I would recommend these books. The writer pointed out some really great Scripture references, made me think about a lot of different topics as far as Christian living is concerned, I learned a lot. On top of all this, it was a good piece of fiction, that was interesting and held my attention. They are definitely worth the read.