Archive for Books

Revolve 2010

I received a free copy of the following book from Book Sneeze in exchange for writing a review. While I consider it a privilege to receive free products to review, my review is my honest opinion and thoughts of the book.

Revolve

I didn’t realize that Resolve was a Bible until it arrived. I thought it was a magazine for young people, but it is the New Testament with a magazine look and design. It certainly brings our present cultural issues to the forefront and will appeal to the younger audience, although it almost seems sacrilegious. I think I understand the concept – the desire to make the Bible more relevant to the younger generation, but I cannot agree with this approach.

I cannot get excited about a New Testament that contains fashion, makeup and dating advice or that is sprinkled with celebrity news, interviews and mission and Bible tips. It saddens me, to be honest. It saddens me that I have to write a negative review and it saddens me that we, as Christians, think that we need to be like the world to reach out to the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Perhaps it is my age, but my oldest daughter liked what she saw, even though she admitted it was kind of weird. She likened it to the Seventeen magazine, except Revolve has the Bible in it. She hasn’t even read Seventeen, she’s only seen it in stores.

I can see young people just reading the newsy clips and sidebars and completely overlooking the New Testament. Although it may contain relevant content, we, as Christians are called to be different from the rest of the world around us. We are called to be in the world, but not of it. To me, Revolve is just another attempt to be like the world, but it’s seasoned with biblical content. It may be a hit with some, but not with me. Just make a teen magazine, no need to call it a New Testament Bible.

Revolve retails for $16.99, but Christian Book Distributors (CBD) has it for $11.99.


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Book Review of Pajama School

I was sent a complimentary copy of Pajama School in exchange for writing a review. While I consider it a privilege to receive free products to review, my review is my honest opinion and thoughts of this book.

Pajama School

Pajama School was written by homeschool graduate Natalie Wickham. It is a book about her journey as a homeschooled girl, daughter and servant of the Lord.

I was encouraged by Natalie’s story, yet in some ways it made me feel inadequate, only because she and her family were extremely involved in the homeschooling community and ministry. That just hasn’t happened for our family, yet anyway.

I believe that Pajama School isn’t just hope for homeschool moms, but for our growing young daughters. I couldn’t help but think of my oldest at different points in Natalie’s journey because Natalie is the oldest child of a larger than normal homeschool family and so is our oldest daughter. Our daughter has already asked to read this book and I will gladly allow her to. However, since she has a “wee” tendency to share what she reads, I asked her to wait until I was finished and wrote my review. I look forward to reading her review of it, as I think it will be inspiring to her; it will be interesting to see if I am right. :-)

This is definitely a book that Christian parents /  homeschooling families can glean from. Natalie is a testimony to her parents and to the Lord for how He has graciously used her during her years of singleness, under the guidance of her parents. Even if you don’t homeschool, it will allow you to understand what it means to homeschool -from a graduate student’s perspective.

May the Lord bless her as she continues to seek and serve Him in all areas of her life.

More Resources and where to buy Pajama School:
http://www.sibropublishing.com/component/virtuemart/?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=1&category_id=1&vmcchk=1
http://www.pajamaschool.com/blog/


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Book Review – The Coupon Saving Mom

I was sent a complimentary copy of The Coupon Saving Mom in exchange for writing a review. While I consider it a privilege to receive free products to review, my review is my honest opinion and thoughts of this book.

The Coupon Mom

The Coupon Mom’s Guide to Cutting Your Grocery Bills in Half by Stephanie Nelson is a book I thought that I would learn alot from, but found that my dislike for coupons made it hard to properly apply it to our family. This book is geared more towards someone who is new to coupon shopping and isn’t use to shopping the grocery flyer sales. That’s not to say that experienced frugal shoppers won’t learn anything; they will. It’s just that over the years as our diet has changed and we have tried not to buy convenience foods, I found that most coupons were not conducive to healthy eating. Plus, I always forget coupons and so does my husband, even when I used my coupon folder! Even now, if I find coupons we can use, my husband groans or rolls his eyes. So over the years, as you can see, we’ve developed a dislike of manufacturers’ coupons. We will still use individual store coupons, if we don’t forget.

If you don’t know what kind of shopper you are already, Ms. Nelson provides a quiz to determine what kind of shopper you are and gives you tips on how to get started in using coupons for your grocery shopping, including where to look for coupons and how save money on your grocery bill by implementing her tried and true methods.

Ms. Nelsen shared legitimate websites where you can print off coupons, but again when I visited them, I only found a handful of coupons that could possibly be used by our family. She shares tips on how to save on clipping coupons through the use of your grocery store preferred shopper’s card and how to shop at warehouse clubs, as well as the Super stores, like Super Walmart and drugstores, like CVS and Walgreens whose locations are convenient and prices exorbitant prices, unless you know how to shop wisely.

I believe each of our family’s needs are so individual that each household’s buying habits will probably affect usefulness of coupon use. For example, if a you happend to have a large family a co-op probably provides greater savings because you can buy large quantities for much less than grocery store prices. We shop at Country Life Natural Foods for organic food in bulk and have used Natural Foods in the past as well. I also find the chapter on buying organic food was lacking. She doesn’t even mention buying from local farmers or the healthier alternative of pasture-raised meat, but that is another topic that could fill a whole other blog post. Nevertheless, I still think she has created a wonderful resource that will help many families save money. I just didn’t see how I could save any more money on our grocery bill since we buy alot of organic products and personal personal hygiene items to stay away from chemical ladden products as much as we are able since some of our children have had reactions over the years.

I do plan to require my girls to read this book as part of their school curriculum (we homeschool) so they can glean from the things Ms. Nelson shares because I want them to be prepared for real life and their future situations may be different than mine.

If you need to work on saving money and need a tutoring lesson in shopping frugally, The Coupon Mom is available at any major bookstore and retails for $15.00.

Here are websites Ms. Nelson includes in her book:

http://www.couponmom.com/registration

http://coupons2.smartsource.com/smartsource/index.jsp?Link=WOOX5QMOGEYUM

http://print.coupons.com/couponweb/Offers.aspx?pid=11540&zid=bm91&nid=10&bid=alk0211100227bb8235a4f17216

http://coupons.redplum.com/CouponMom/


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Book Review – Miracle in Sumatra

I received this book for free in exchange for writing a review. While I consider it a privilege to receive free products to review, my review is my honest opinion and thoughts of Miracle in Sumatra.

MiracleInSumatra

Miracle in Sumatra is a children’s storybook written by Jeanne McNaney. This is Ms. McNaney’s second children’s book. Both books have been written in a way that will help parents and teachers educate children about wildlife conservation and endangered species preservation. A portion of the sales from her books also goes to support each of these causes.

This cute story is about a young orangutan named Gus who meets a young human girl. It is a story that teaches children what can happen when man gets greedy and forgets to think about what is best for animals and the environment. Gus is called upon to help his parents and the rest of his species with the help of his new human friend. With the encouragement from his guardian angel, he exhibits bravery and belief in himself in a dangerous situation that saves the whole community of orangutans and challenges the views of human trappers. Other virtues “Gutsey Gus” exhibit are compassion, forgiveness, love and strength.

Our six younger children said that they liked this book. They thought it was “good”, “interesting” and “cute”. It is definitely written in such a way to appeal to the younger audience and their imagination.

Miracle in Sumatra is available at:
Amazon.com
BarnesAndNoble.com
Borders.com
Buy.com

This book is a hardcover and retails for $16.95.


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