When I realized that I wanted to teach the girls to keep nature journals, I also realized that I needed to keep one myself-the habit wouldn’t take if I didn’t. Montgomery novel set in the English countryside, with an protagonist not in the dawn of life but in its twilight, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what’s to love about The Scent of Water. I already look forward to rereading it. I read and adored Goudge’s Eliot Family Trilogy last year, but this book was even better. It is worth noting, though, that she doesn’t do this just to rile people up: her arguments are firmly rooted in Scripture, and her concern is loving, if direct. I’m sure she’ll offend every reader at least once, but in a good way, a way that means she’s prodding at something that needs examination. One of my favorite features of the book was a chapter in which Byrd quotes passages from well-known books marketed toward Christian women and trains readers to ask pointed questions of the text. She both points church leaders to Scripture passages that press us to revisit some of the habits we’ve settled into within the church, and she encourages women to be knowledgeable about Scripture and quick to spot false doctrine.

The air was clear and invigorating, the grueling travel to a story’s end worth the work.Īimee Byrd’s vision of women in the church is a challenging and uncomfortably convicting one.

It was wild and a little terrifying at times. No civilized folk to protest, “But it didn’t happen like that!” No sheriff.īut my last quarter of college, I needed to pad my schedule with a few extra classes, so along with Martial Arts 101, I took a fiction writing class. There was too little structure, I thought, too few rules. Fiction seemed too much like the Wild West to me: people went there and died of starvation, or in a bar fight. I am glad I did, because creative nonfiction is what I do these days, both for this blog and for Deeply Rooted. Nonfiction seemed civilized: one could draw on one’s own life, one’s own actual experiences.

Here is what you should know about me and writing fiction: in college, I played it safe and studied poetry and creative nonfiction*. But I also learned to tend flowers, to keep a nature journal, and I took to writing fiction. Good portions of it were given to reading curriculum samples, blog posts, and books about homeschooling.

Best books to read 2017 women