Flight into Spring

Flight into Spring (Sally (Bethlehem Books)) by Bianca Bradbury
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Sally Day Hammond was a merry and spirited Southern girl who won the heart of a hardworking and reserved Federal soldier from Connecticut. The book tells of the life after their marriage, with his parents on their farm. Sally expected that everyone naturally thought and behaved the in the manner to which she was accustomed, and found it difficult to adjust to New Englanders and the life in Connecticut. She learns to give up things and learns how to love. This book made me cry in places, because I can identify with Sally, and learning to live with someone with a different personality, who hasn't grown up with the same customs. For example, the first morning in Connecticut, Sally was awakened much earlier that she was used to, and when she went to help set the table for breakfast was told, "We don't use napkins with breakfast here." Sally went on to explain to her husband's parents that she couldn't eat their kind of hearty breakfast, and would just have toast and tea. Her in-laws considered tea a special treat only to be served when the minister visited.

The book chronicles struggles, friendships, fights, and near the end, close to a town-wide scandal, all resulting from the turbulence of different lives and lifestyles brought together.

I was disappointed that the book didn't have more of a Christian perspective, with Sally in one place saying that she thought that hell was a real place, but that she thought that "most of the stories were made up to scare little children."

Younger children may think this book is boring, but older ones may find the telling descriptions interesting, and new wives may be able to identify with some of the adjustments.

Israel's Hope and Expectation

Israel's Hope and Expectation by Rudolf Van Reest
http://www3.telus.net/public/inhpubl/webip/prod03.htm
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With a name like Israel's Hope and Expectation I was thinking this book would have to do with Christ, and His people. Instead, it's more of a picture of the times and people in the years before and shortly after His birth. There is fiction, but only as much as needed to illustrate the people, the way they thought, they way they believed (or not) about God, the way they lived, the way the viewed their world. The narrative skips around between groups of people to show current events and what their hope and expectation of the Messiah was. We see Herod and the deadly political intrigue in the palaces; Herod is interested in Messiah only to make sure whoever He is, is not a threat to Herod's kingship. Herod must be the only king of the Jews. There are the Hellenized Jewish people who see the promise of Messiah as an old fable, a part of the outdated Hebrew beliefs. The religious leaders of the day are sure that if the Messiah comes, He will arise from their midst and throw off the hated yoke of Rome. Then there are the few, Anna, Zachariah and Elizabeth, Joseph and Mary, the common people, the shepherds, the wise men of the East, the outcast crippled beggars. They watch and wait and hope for a Messiah from the Lord, Who will be a sacrifice for sins, and end the stream of blood from the Temple. I enjoyed the insight into the times, the human heart, and the ways of God.