Book Awards Reading Challenge

after reading William Henry is a Fine Name earlier this summer for The Christy Challenge...which was selected as the winner for this year's "young adult" category...I decided to read a few more Christy Award winners for the Book Awards Reading Challenge...

so...my first read for the Books Award challenge is Unashamed by Francine Rivers...which won the 2001 Christy Award in the "international historical" category...

I'd never read a Francine Rivers book before...although I did recently see the movie The Last Sin Eater based on her novel by the same name...and if all of her books are this good...I can't wait to read them all...

Unashamed is the second of five books in the Lineage of Grace series...each story is a historical fiction account of five women in Christ's family tree...they include Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba and Mary...

Unashamed is the story of Rahab...a prostitute living in the city of Jericho...who helped save the lives of Israelite spies...

and I don't really know what more to say than I loved this book...and have ordered the others in this series from the library so I can read them all...in fact, my moms Bible study group will be doing the book on Mary just before Christmas...I can't wait!

Francine does an amazing job of expressing what Rahab's thoughts and emotions might have been while she waited for her hometown to be attacked...she helped me understand how the politics and religion in this culture may have affected her faith in God...and how her faith in God may have impacted her relationships...

I think it's amazing that a person can take an event that happened thousands of years ago and still make it relevant to my life today...of course you can't go wrong when you start with Scripture!!!

in the back of the book is a study/discussion guide that can be used for personal study or group discussion which helps the reader dig a little further into the Scripture and apply it to their life...

the book is short and easy to read...and I would encourage anyone who doesn't consider themselves a "reader" to read this...I think the length will not seem daunting and the story will keep you motivated to complete it...and you may even want to read the rest of them!

blessings, mamabright :-)

This challenge intrigued me from the first moment I saw it...and I joined immediately...I knew that this challenge would stretch me to read some books I wouldn't normally pick up...

I've selected eight that I'm for sure going to read...ones that I probably would have picked up...and then another eight that I'm interested in reading...but I probably wouldn't have picked up...and I'll select my final four from this list depending on what I'm in the mood for when the time comes...

here are the 8 definites...

• Unashamed by Francine Rivers (Christy 2001)


• Arena by Karen Hancock (Christy 2003)


• Songbird by Lisa Samson (Christy 2004)


• Whence Came a Prince by Liz Curtis Higgs (Christy 2006)


• Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski (Newbery 1946)


• The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pene du Bois (Newbery 1948)


• The Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli (Newbery 1950)


• Ginger Pye by Eleanor Estes (Newbery 1952)

here are the 8 alternates...

• The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (Pulitzer 1939)


• Lonesome Dove by Larry McCurtry (Pulitzer 1986)


• The Color Purple by Alice Walker (Pulitzer 1983, National Book Award 1983)


• Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres (Commonwealth Writers' Prize 1995)


• Joseph and His Brothers by Thomas Mann (Nobel 1929)


• Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann (Nobel 1929)


• something by Rudyard Kipling (Nobel 1907)


• something by Ernest Hemingway (Nobel 1954)


• something by John Steinbeck (Nobel 1962)

I haven't read any of these books...so I'm really looking forward to this challenge...thanks, 3M!

blessings, mamabright :-)