“People fall in private, long before they fall in public. The tree falls with a great crash, but the secret decay which accounts for it, is often not discovered until it is down on the ground.” — J. C. Ryle
“If you don’t fear God, you’ll fear everything.” — Dan Horn
“You don’t have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.” — C. S. Lewis
“Music is a discipline, and a mistress of order and good manners, she makes the people milder and gentler, more moral and more reasonable.” — Martin Luther
“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.” — Sir Richard Steele
“[T]he ministry of Satan is employed to instigate the reprobate, whenever the Lord, in the course of his providence, has any purpose to accomplish in them...” — John Calvin (Institutes 2.4.5)
“Drag and Drop for Windows users: DRAG your peecee off your desk, and DROP it in the trash.” — some forum member’s tagline
“Man does not need to know exhaustively in order to know truly and certainly.” — Cornelius Van Til
“The very familiarity of blessings sometimes makes us insensible to their value."— J. C. Ryle
“Luther once said, ‘The devil hates goose quills,’ and, doubtless, he has good reason, for ready writers, by the Holy Spirit’s blessing, have done his kingdom much damage.” — C. H. Spurgeon
“People will not look forward to posterity who will not look backward to their ancestors.” — Edmund Burke
“Non-Christian investigators of nature are as successful as they are because they work with stolen capital.” — Cornelius Van Til
“Heaven is eternity in the presence of God through a Mediator. Hell is eternity in the presence of God with no Mediator.” — Tony Reinke
“Be as careful of the books you read as of the company you keep, for your habits and character will be as much influenced by the former as by the latter.” — Paxton Hood
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." — Edmund Burke
“Dreams don’t work unless you do.” — John C. Maxwell
“Some people get an education without going to college; the rest get it after they get out.” — Mark Twain
“I find television very educational. Every time someone turns it on, I go in the other room and read a book.” — Groucho Marx
“[N]ot one particle remains to man as a ground of boasting. The whole is of God.” — John Calvin (Institutes 2.3.6)
“Every post is honorable in which a man can serve his country.” — George Washington
“The glory of great men should always be measured by the means they have used to acquire it.” — La Rochefoucauld
“The world is a book, and those who do not travel, read only a page.” — St. Augustine
“One proud, surly, lordly word, one needless contention, one covetous action, may cut the throat of many a sermon. Take heed to yourselves, lest your example contradict your doctrine.” — Richard Baxter
“Paul’s life was a prophetic book for Jews to read and see how to be saved, so our lives should be an easy to read book for the lost on how they can easily be saved.” — Ken Ham
“I have enough money to last me the rest of my life, unless I buy something.” — Jackie Mason
“People who have time on their hands will inevitably waste the time of people who have work to do.” — Thomas Sowell
“We should never do what we cannot pray God to bless.” — James Smith
“I’m not lost.” — Frank Churchill
“A ship in the harbor is safe—but that is not what ships are built for.” — John Shedd
“I began my education at a very early age—in fact, right after I left college.” — Winston Churchill
“Thanks, modest girls. Appreciated by a male whose time studying the ground is proportional to each degree of rising temperature.” — Unknown
“My dear friend, when grief presses you to the dust, worship there.” — C. H. Spurgeon
"When a Christian shuns fellowship with other Christians, the devil smiles. When he stops studying the Bible, the devil laughs. When he stops praying, the devil shouts for joy." — Corrie ten Boom
“When she married you, she gave you her life to spend. Are you spending your life wisely?” — Dan Horn
“A lot of men have a wishbone where they ought to have a backbone.” — Unknown
“Self-righteousness is being more aware of and irritated by the sins of others than you are conscious of and grieved by your own.” — Paul Tripp
“Even if you are on the right track, but just sit there, you will still get run over.” — Will Rogers
“Question everything but Scripture.” — Geoff Botkin
“I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.” — Martin Luther
“The measure of a great teacher isn’t what he or she knows; it’s what the students know.” — John C. Maxwell
“What is the best safeguard against false doctrine? The Bible regularly read, regularly prayed over, regularly studied.” — J. C. Ryle
“I will keep the ground that God has given me and perhaps in his grace, he will ignite me again. But ignite me or not, in his grace, in his power, I will hold the ground.” — John Knox
“TV. If kids are entertained by two letters, imagine the fun they’ll have with twenty-six. Open your child’s imagination. Open a book.” — Unknown
“Television is an invention that permits you to be entertained in your own living room by people you wouldn’t have in your house.” — David Frost
“The cold water of persecution is often thrown on the church’s face to fetch her to herself when she is in a swoon of indolence or pride.” — C. H. Spurgeon
“True education is not giving in the answer, it’s in showing them how to find it.” — Kelly Crawford
“The happiest people don’t have the best of everything, they simply make the best of everything they have.” — Unknown
“Good government generally begins in the family, and if the moral character of a people once degenerate, their political character must soon follow.” — Elias Boudinot
— July 24th, 2012 —
Book Review: “A Cry From Egypt,” by Hope Auer
“‘Girls, get back!’ Ezra shouted.
His face was pale, but his eyes kindled with indignation as he stood in front of the girls protectively. Ezra dropped the pitchers in the sand and his hand flashed to a dagger, concealed under his tunic. Jarah’s eyes grew wide. He could be killed for carrying a dagger!
Jarah was a slave in Egypt. It was a dangerous place to be.Her work was exhausting and her family was torn between the gods of the Egyptians and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And her brother…would his Ada be given in marriage to an Egyptian in the palace? Would they ever be free?
Adventure, excitement, love, and faith come together when Jarah and her family find themselves at the culmination of four hundred years of history.” — from the back cover
I approached this book with a bit of mild skepticism. Regrettably, novice Christian writing has gotten a bad rap for being preachy and poorly written; and here was a young Christian authoress who was deeply concerned about the state of young peoples’ reading, and was determined to offer something else, an alternative, to the fluff and trash that is out there. Though such a motivation is admirable, to be sure, I was still skeptical.
But I was in for a pleasant surprise.
Hope Auer has done a great job, in my opinion, of combining biblical historical events as recorded in the book of Exodus with the story of a fictional family living under the tyrannical Pharaoh’s rule. Not only was her writing cohesive, but it was engaging: even though this book was written for a younger audience of boys and girls, it held my attention—as a nineteen-year-old! While Hope communicated a number of important messages very well, nowhere did her writing seem “preachy.” (One of the subplots included a “romance,” but Hope handled it in a wonderfully biblical fashion.)
A book like this is a breath of fresh air. Hope has done a great job, and I can say with complete honesty that I can’t wait to read book two.
Highly recommended.
INDECENCY: None.
LANGUAGE: None.
AGE RANGE: Any age, but it’s written for young boys and girls.
— June 10th, 2012 —
Movie Review: “The Adventures of Tintin”
Tintin. Comparatively few Americans know the name, but in Europe, he’s very well known: Tintin is a young man, a journalist, who travels the world with his dog, Snowy, and his sea-captain sidekick, Captain Archibald Haddock. Written in the early/mid 20th century, Tintin’s escapades are presented in comic-book form by the Belgian author Hergé—and this film, directed by Steven Spielberg, is a combination of three of those stories.
After purchasing a beautiful model of a ship, Tintin is thrust into a mystery of three brothers, three ships, and lost treasure. Kidnappings, escapes, gunfights, and crash-landings—the entire film feels very much like an Indiana Jones film (without the language, occultism, and adult content, thankfully). From picturesque Middle-Eastern cities and adventures on the high seas, to car chases and messages written with blood—it’s all in here. Not to mention the fact that young Tintin is also an excellent example of a responsible young man who seizes a situation and takes control.
And oh, the music! John Williams’s score for The Adventures of Tintin is epic, loud, and adventurous, and yet at the same time maintains a precise delicacy and subtlety in the orchestration and performance that brings a wonderful balance to everything. It’s really a beautiful work of art—not unlike a auditory dance where all the instruments step, flit, leap, and fly gracefully around each other to create a beautiful experience. All elements are masterfully unified, but nowhere is such a unity a muddy one.
The Adventures of Tintin is an action-packed film for the family—and I’m eagerly waiting the second installment! Isaac Botkin has written a far more in-depth review here.
INDECENCY: Other than perhaps one or two innuendos (I couldn’t tell), none.
LANGUAGE: One “swear to God”, one use each of “hell” and “damned”. Also, some odd exclamations like, “Ten thousand thundering typhoons!” and “Great snakes!” and the like.
VIOLENCE: Punching and gunfire mostly. There is destruction of private property both during a chase through a city and at a climatic battle towards the end between two enemies. A man is shot to death (we hear gunfire) and he dies on someone’s doorstep, after writing a message with his blood on a newspaper.
OTHER NEGATIVE ELEMENTS: Captain Haddock is a drunkard for the first portion of his screen time, until he appears to overcome his addiction with the help of Tintin. In another scene, in order to save an airplane from crashing into the ocean, a man belches very loudly into the fuel tank of the plane—causing the engine to quite literally “run on fumes.”
AGE RANGE: While not graphic, some sequences are tense and may cause a discomfort to very small children.
— May 5th, 2012 —
Movie Review: “Hugo”
After his clockmaker father perishes in a museum fire, Hugo goes to live with his Uncle Claude, a drunkard who maintains the clocks at a Paris train station. When Claude disappears, Hugo carries on his work and fends for himself by stealing food from area merchants. In his free time, he attempts to repair an automaton his father rescued from the museum, while trying to evade the station inspector, a World War I veteran with no sympathy for lawbreakers. When Georges, a toymaker, catches Hugo stealing parts for his mechanical man, he recruits him as an assistant to repay his debt. If Georges is guarded, his open-hearted ward, Isabelle, introduces Hugo to a kindly bookseller, who directs them to a motion-picture museum, where they meet film scholar René. In helping unlock the secret of the automaton, they learn about the roots of cinema, starting with the Lumière brothers, and give a forgotten movie pioneer his due, thus illustrating the importance of film preservation, a cause to which the director has dedicated his life. If Scorsese’s adaptation of The Invention of Hugo Cabret isn’t his most autobiographical work, it just may be his most personal.” — from Amazon.com
Hugo had me from the beginning. Hugo Cabret is a young boy, an orphan, who lives alone in a train station in Paris. He’s intrigued with and enjoys fixing mechanisms—gears, springs, teeny screws; and his father, before tragically passing away, obtained an old automaton—a mechanical man—and spent time with his son working to restore the robot.
But a terrible disaster happens, and now Hugo is alone—until a young book-loving girl, Isabelle, befriends him and they work together to repair the automaton. Neither Hugo nor Isabelle know it, but one of the great pioneers of movie production is living right under their noses. Together the two uncover the wondrous history of this man and bring the proper recognition to him that he deserves.
From a production standpoint, Hugo is an astonishingly colorful film. Blues and yellows, turquoise, reds, silver: every single frame from the film is a beautiful tapestry. The cinematography is excellent as well, and the storyline and characters are compelling and endearing.
Hugo is, in short, a visual treat and a wonderful story.
INDECENCY: Very little. Some of the very old films pictured have rather immodest women. A man makes a comment regarding possible infidelity—but this is so quick that, unless you have subtitles on, it will likely be missed by anyone not looking for it—especially children.
LANGUAGE: Surprisingly, none.
AGE RANGE: Family-friendly.
— April 24th, 2012 —
Book Review: “Pride and Prejudice,” by Jane Austen
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
It is also a truth no less-universally acknowledged that this book is extremely famous, popular, admired, and acclaimed. Upon finishing the book, however, I am left with no palpable reason why. The book is entertaining enough; but not, to my mind, of such heights as to merit the degree of attention it has received far and above those which some of its contemporary novels have enjoyed. It certainly didn’t strike me as such (though perhaps the fact that I had to read it for schoolwork had something to do with it…). When I mentioned my opinion to a friend, she replied that its popularity is due to the wit and dramatic irony in the book. Perhaps this is the case.
The story chronicles the matrimonial endeavors and adventures of the Bennet family: Mrs. Bennet; Mr. Bennet; and their five daughters—Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia (oldest to youngest). Elizabeth, as we see through the twists and turns of the plot, develops rather quickly a stiff prejudice against one Mr. Darcy, who is so very proud and haughty and cold to everybody. In the end though, she realizes how her prejudice was unfounded, that Mr. Darcy has overcome his pride and really is a wonderful fellow after all; and they are married, and the story ends.
Mr. Darcy was not particularly memorable; not, at least, to me. I suspect from what a friend once told me that the Darcy-worship in culture today is a reaction to the screen presentations of that character—in other words, Colin Firth-worship—but I can’t say for certain one way or another. What I can say though, is that Darcy is a decent enough fellow once he overcomes his pride. (Honestly, though, I think there are other fictitious men who have stronger characters than Mr. Darcy: Colonel Brandon, for one, or perhaps Dickens’s Arthur Clennam.)
I think Pride and Prejudice is overrated. Like I said above, it’s an enjoyable enough story, but ultimately I thought it somewhat underwhelming (though interesting to be sure at times). Right now at least, while the book may indeed have its well-deserved merits, I don’t see them yet; and regardless, my children would at least need to have the necessary underlying grasp of emotional purity (and likewise the emotional maturity) for me to even consider letting them read it.
INDECENCY: None.
LANGUAGE: I think there are probably five or less examples of blasphemy sprinkled throughout.
AGE RANGE: The reader at least needs to have the maturity and discernment to have a good understanding of the principles of emotional purity. Whether or not the girl has this maturity or not is best known by her parents.
— February 22nd, 2012 —
Book Review: “Banner in the Sky,” by James Ramsey Ullman
“It stands unconquered, the last great summit of the alps. Only one man has ever dared to approach the top, and that man died in his pursuit. He was Josef Matt, Rudi Matt’s father.
At sixteen, Rudi is determined to pay tribute to the man he never knew, and complete the quest that claimed his father’s life. And so, taking his father’s red shirt as a flag, he heads off to face the earth’s most challenging peak. But before Rudi can reach the top, he must pass through the forbidden Fortress, the gaping chasm in the high reaches of the Citadel [the mountain] where his father met his end. Rudi has followed Josef’s footsteps as far as they will take him. Now he must search deep within himself to find the strength for the final ascent to the summit—to plant his banner in the sky.” — from the back cover
I have mixed feelings about this book, so I’ll deal with the positive first, and then the negative.
The book is about a young man, Rudi Matt, who lives in the village of Kurtal, a small village at the foot of the Alps. Mountaineering is in the blood of every man in the village, and every nearby peak has been conquered…except for the last and greatest peak, the Citadel. No man has succeeded in climbing this one perilous peak that dwarfs all others around it. Josef Matt led an expedition fifteen years ago, but of the three men, two died in the attempt (including Josef) and the third was badly injured. Despite popular beliefs and fears about the mountain being cursed, Rudi dreams of conquering the mountain and fulfilling his father’s quest.
In the past fifteen years, no one has tried to climb the mountain—and anyone who gives any serious thought about doing so is considered crazy and foolish—and no one besides Rudi gives it serious thought. However, things change when renowned climber Captain John Winter arrives at Kurtal: he is determined to climb the Citadel, and Rudi is equally determined to go with him. Thus the catalyst for the adventure.
It’s a great read, and the literal cliff-hangers held my rapt attention, even though I’m nineteen. The trials and obstacles of mountain climbing are presented well, and the reader walks away (or should I say “climbs down”) from the book with a good sense of what it’s like to be a mountaineer. That is, as close as one can get to actually clinging to the near-vertical edge of a rock with a few fingers and the toe of one boot—with a yawning mile-deep empty space below.
The above praise aside, the book is nevertheless tainted to some extent. Rudi is obsessed with climbing the mountain, to the point where his attitude ultimately becomes, as I see it, mountain-worship—resulting, unsurprisingly, in lying to his mother (who specifically does not want Rudi to become a mountaineer because of what happened to her husband, Josef) on multiple occasions. And not just Rudi, either: other characters also lie to cover up the Citadel endeavor. Mrs. Matt’s wishes are not taken seriously, and are in fact blatantly disregarded in favor of Rudi’s desire to be a mountaineer.
Unfortunately, these issues are not resolved. I was holding out hope that somehow the author would deal with them, but as I drew nearer and nearer to the end I realized that even if there were going to be a reconciliation, it would be a rather shallow resolution (forced so because of the ever-shrinking remainder of the book), with a sort of “Oh, by-the-way, I’m sorry” afterthought effect—almost tacked on to the end.
Catholicism pops up two or three times, and at one point, Rudi prays to both the Lord and Mary. (The Catholicism really isn’t very prominent though; it’s scarcely present in the book at all.)
It’s unfortunate that all these elements taint the book. Were it not for them, I could wholeheartedly recommend the story as a great tale of manly mountaineering and adventures in exercising dominion over Creation. However, I won’t specifically not recommend it; I think there is a place for books like these in a library (though I won’t expound that idea here).
With all the preceding in mind, I recommend this book as a solid, manly, adventure story—with some negative elements worthy of discussion.
INDECENCY: None.
LANGUAGE: Three or four occurrences of d—n, and three or four instances of the Lord’s name being used carelessly.
DISCUSSION POINTS: As a parent (or an older sibling), you can talk with the reader about the lying that goes on in the book.—What does the Bible say about it?—Are there situations where lying is acceptable? You could also discuss the Catholicism which crops up a couple of times.
AGE RANGE: I’m nineteen, and I enjoyed it. That said, because of the language I’d let my children read this book somewhere around twelve years, at the youngest. (Ultimately, though, it boils down to the potential reader’s maturity.)
© 2012 Kyle Shepherd | All Rights Reserved | All images property of their respective owners
Body text set in Fanwood Text Regular & Italic; header set in Nevis.