Book Reviews--January Brighter Winter Challenge

 Like many others, I found that the Brighter Winter reading challenge from Daughters of Promise gave a welcome framework to my January reading. Again like many others, I’ve suffered from a lack of outside deadlines and schedules during this pandemic. The reading challenge provided structure but not rigidity.

Here are some of the books I read and the categories I checked off.

1. Call the Nurse—True Stories of a Country Nurse on a Scottish Isle, by Mary J. MacLeod

Categories: Read a memoir. Read a book set somewhere you’ve always wanted to visit.

Ok, I haven’t always wanted to visit the Scottish Hebrides Islands, but I do now. Mrs. MacLeod and her family, tired of city life in London, moved to an island off the coast of Scotland in the early 1970s. She worked as a home health nurse.

Some memoirs about a specific place are more like ACE math and some are more like A Beka. ACE focuses on one skill at a time and makes children plow through ten solid pages of two-digit subtraction before moving on to something else. A Beka, on the other hand, has a little buffet every day: a dozen addition and subtractions problems, two story problems, and a fraction or two.

I’ve considered writing a memoir of our years in the North in Canada and wondered which method would be best. My letters are much like A Beka math—a bit of culture, an update on the kids, a few details of daily life, and an interesting anecdote in each "chapter."

Call the Nurse, in contrast, is more like ACE. While they’re all structured around an interesting story, most chapters focus on one aspect of life on the island. Maybe the weather, or holiday customs, or going shopping on the mainland for supplies.

It works, because Mary MacLeod is an excellent writer and wraps everything in well-told stories. However, it sometimes seems a bit choppy.

Medical people get to see below the surface of a community, and this was certainly true of MacLeod. She traveled hither and yon, sometimes by boat, to all kinds of isolated stone cottages full of eccentric people. She shows personal and cultural quirks without mocking or patronizing, which is a rare accomplishment. Also, she works in just enough dialect to give us the flavor without confusing us, which is a delicate thing to balance.

I felt like I could see and feel the wind, the choppy seas, the bare hillsides, and the sturdy cottages. I also learned some of the history of the Hebrides and "saw" how the population dwindled on some of the islands until the last people had to leave, for practical/survival reasons, leaving abandoned villages and many years of history behind.

I recommend the book.

2. One Woman Falling by Melanie Campbell

Categories: Book with a three-word title, book inspired by a true story, book with a blue cover, book published in 2020. [We weren’t supposed to have more than two categories per book, but I didn’t follow all the rules.]

I have a personal investment in this book, because it was written by my friend Melanie from my writing group and I am listed in the acknowledgements.

One Woman Falling is about a young woman in an abusive marriage who escapes with her young daughter and works to create a new life. It’s always been hard for me to understand the dynamics in such a marriage—what motivates a woman to stay, what it takes for her to leave, and why she's so vulnerable in the process. This book was eye-opening in many ways, including the legal and mental challenges of leaving an angry and vengeful man.

It also followed the main character’s journey to faith and trust in God. 

Even though I’d critiqued the individual chapters, I was still gripped by the story and could hardly put it down. Melanie’s own story was the inspiration for One Woman Falling, which made it extra painful to read but also increased my understanding.

Around the same time, I watched the movie Herself, which shared many parallels with One Woman Falling—young woman, daughters, and a raging, manipulative husband. I don’t recommend Herself except to educate yourself, as it’s not a “fun” movie and it has a lot of rough language.

I would like to be a better resource for women in these hard situations, and I am more informed now than I was before.

3. Through a Glass Darkly by Lori Hershberger

Category: Read a poetry book for at least 20 minutes.

I like poetry that contains poetic devices like rhyme, metaphors, and unexpected connections. Poetry ought to convey an emotion, I think.

I am also practical and homespun with poetry preferences, gravitating to poems I can read and understand. I don’t like to frown over obscure combinations of words that must be sorted into little piles with a hairpin and examined under a magnifying glass before any meaning can be extracted.

I picked up a book I had on hand to fulfil this requirement, but my eyes soon glazed over. “Maybe you should read Lori’s book,” said Amy the problem-solving daughter. She went upstairs and fetched Through a Glass Darkly, a book by her friend who is both an Amish girl from Kansas and a missionary in Thailand.

I loved it.

In my favorite piece, Lori writes about airports as though they are romantic partners. Airports are full of promises, they draw you into their embrace, they offer gifts and adventures. But they also break their promises, abandon you, and disappoint you.

She also writes about children, rain, loss, and much more, all in language both mystical and accessible, with twists and connections that are timed perfectly. She shows the same respect for the Thai people as Mary MacLeod did for the Scottish people in Call the Nurse.

You can read her blog at In Search of a Brook.