Gravel Road Musings

Opening Your Eyes to Wonder This is the memoir of Lisa Gungor, part of the music collective known as Gungor. It gives snapshots of her life and how it shaped who she is today.  The tale is told in somewhat chronological order, but there are also hops back and forth between her childhood and adult life as well. Quite frankly, this book was very disappointing. Maybe not so much in the content as in the fact that it is advertised as a Christian life, spiritual growth book.  I failed to see it. Some of the problem I think is the fact that I think a lot of effort was made to write creatively, which I wholly applaud. I would love to be able to do the same thing, to use my words to create word pictures in the reader's mind. However, I felt that sometimes the creative words kind of muddled the image for me and so I was left a little unsure of what was being said. Lisa and her husband Michael start a church, then Michael decides he doesn't really believe in God anymore and Lisa...

In her debut novel, Rachel crafts a story of hope and healing, of beauty that shines from within, of the power of human kindness. An orphan, Em, is "adopted" by a cruel and uncaring man who basically ignores her, though she does her best to survive. Once he is killed, she escapes and is taken to Azure Springs, where a kind family takes her in, nurses her back to help, gives her a bath and good food and loves her. The sheriff takes on her case to find the killers and, of course, they spend lots of time together and eventually the sheriff realizes that there is more to beauty that a pretty face.  Em is kind, caring, and has a gift for story telling After she found out she was the talk of the town, her employer Margaret has some good things to say to her, things we could all benefit from. "Some people just haven't learned the secret." "Em's eyebrows rose. 'The secret?'" "'Yep, the secret. I'll tell you because we are much...

A cholera epidemic has stripped Adria Starr of her family. A kind black slave buried them and made sure she had a place to live. Years pass and now there is the potential husband that Adria can't quite commit to and there's the "scoundrel" Logan Farrell, who rescues her from a runaway horse.  Don't you see the story shaping up? I'm guessing you already have it figured out how the book will end. I had. But then I was wrong. The black slave is going to be sold and the community comes together to help him, but no more info there. I don't want to spoil the whole story.  Logan Farrell ended up being....well, I don't want to give away too much of the story.  Let's just say the story does not end up with the hero running off with the second runner up hero.  It totally surprised me and I loved it. The theme of the book is pray believing. And that is a challenge. How often do I pray, but don't really expect any changes? I want to try to do better ...

A dozer, a digger, a crane and a dump truck work together to get the job done. Written in rhyme, it reminds me a bit of the book "Little Blue Truck", if you have read that one. This one is much smaller, but it has the "Screech! Roar! Broom!" element that makes it fun to read. This book is also a touch and feel book. There is sand, blacktop, rubbery tires, glass/mirror reflection, etc. I'm a fan of touch and feel books and I think this book did a pretty decent job with getting some good touchy feely elements in it. This is a board book. The pages feel pretty sturdy, but not like they will hold up to teething babies and toddlers.  The book is about an 8x8, so big enough for little hands to hold, but not so big as to be hard to handle.  The equipment all have faces and are in the little children's style of not quite being true to life, but yet close enough to recognize. I would recommend this book for ages 1 to 3 based on the board book style, but the...

An unfinished, undelivered love letter.  What does it mean? Why wasn't it finished? What happened to the two parties involved? That single letter is the basis of a screenplay written by a new screenwriter. It has potential to be a big movie. Rachel has a way of telling a story, or rather two stories, in a way that holds your attention and keeps you coming back for more.  Weaving the life of a Revolutionary war hero and his first love along with the story of the great....grandson of this hero, the screenwriter, and the main actress in the movie and keeping it all together so it makes sense and captivates the reader. And then there's the second letter that shows up. Doesn't that make you wonder where it fits into this story? Well, you will need to read the book to find out. Along with the story, there is Chloe, the main actress, and her search for true love and commitment. She has watched her parents live together for many, many years, but they have never gotten mar...

Grief, loss, family dynamics, guilt, and no belief in God is the premise of this book. Lost and lonely,  feeling responsible for her twin sister's death, hiding in guilt for many years and sabotaging relationships and the result is a depressed young lady that struggles with panic attacks. Beth weaves an interesting story together combining all of these things, but the story isn't finished yet. There are more books to come in this series. Payton hasn't found God yet, though she's starting to be interested. Her sister hasn't fought and overcome her big challenge in life though she has been willing to face her fears and move forward. But progress has been made. While it's somewhat sad to come to the end of a book and not have all of the questions answered and the loose ends tied up, it's exciting to have another book or two or three to look forward to. I really liked the way Beth tells a story, I can't really put it into words, but I would recommend r...

Illustrated by Ben Whitehouse I can't find an author listed anywhere. This is a rhyming book, (which ups my opinion of it by about 5 points to start with, if we're grading on a scale of 1 to 10) about a couple of dinos who are putting together a picnic. They go shopping first and one complains that he doesn't eat mushy food and for sure not green food. Then another dino counters with how his mom says green food will help him to grow big and strong.  Back home, they cook the meal together and then set the table in the proper manner with spoons on the right and forks on the left. They thank God for their food and then dig in. Everyone eats politely, no one even burps.  It's a cute story about eating veggies and being mannerly at the table. The message is subtle, it's not preachy, but it's cute. The illustrations are soft, and not totally life like, but still cute and colorful. You can tell they are dinos. It would make a fun book if you are trying to...

By Tremper Longman III and Mark L Strauss Compact, think a small paperback size with 209 pages. So obviously, this is not going to encompass all the words and their meanings that are in the Bible or related to Biblical studies.  Tremper and Mark developed the book primarily to help beginning students in an academic setting. They also hope that it can help others as well, particularly pastors and regular people like me who want to read and benefit from "biblical scholarship". I'm not entirely sure what that means, biblical scholarship, but to mean it means those people who want to know more about the Bible and need a definition of some of the words. The book is in alphabetical order, just like any other dictionary. It contains definitions from "abomination of desolation" to "Zoroastrianism" and a lot of things in between like "immigration model" "Sinai, Mount", and "carbon dating". I didn't read the book, I'm ...

Part of the Daughtry House Series This is the first book I've read by Beth White, at least that I remember. I will be looking for the next books in this series. The book takes place about five years after the Civil War in a small town in Mississippi. Selah, the heroine of the story, had come to an anti-slavery viewpoint before the war even started, which is a nice little side note that doesn't hugely matter, but I found interesting. I enjoyed reading the book. It's a fairly typical girl meets boy story, but there is an element of intrigue involved, like the first meeting taking place at the scene of a train crash where their car is suspended above a ravine in a rather precarious position. I like Beth's style of writing. She uses some rather large words that I don't even really know what they mean except in the context of how they were used, but I liked that. I will say the story felt a little disjointed maybe. I'm not sure how to describe it, but the p...