Very thought provoking
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I read this book last year on the spur of the moment and couldn't put it down. It is a good modern read based on the real world with real people and doesn't use 'Christian' language that non-Christians (and some trad Christians!) might find offputting. But it does get its message across and I found it inspiring, thought provoking and want to send it to everyone I know. So this year I am, for Christmas.
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Great idea; poor execution
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I am a Christian. I have children. I love Christmas. I wanted to like this book as I read it to my two youngest sons in the rup-up to Christmas. And I did like it in parts.
An abandoned mother, Megs, lives with her daughter Alice and brother Sam and over the 24 days of advent the Alice and her Uncle Sam are transported into adventures through each of the doors in a mysterious advent calendar.
But they aren't really adventures. Alice and Sam meet people - sometimes Bible characters - and see things which allude to Bible themes, such as a new road being built. Sometimes the themes are explictly Christian: Jesus dying on the cross appears about half way through.
But these 24 'adventures' lead nowhere. They appear to be unconnected events. Granted, on the 24th day, Alice and Uncle Sam are taken to where you might expect them to be taken on Christmas Eve, but there is no sense that the previous 23 days were leading there.
Meanwhile in the real world things are happening - and the plot is a little more substantial there. It involves a romantic liason for Alice's mother Megs; a resolution of the situation between Sam and a woman he has been seeing; and Alice being involved in a prank at school. Also, through the 24 days Alice and Sam do change - although it is not quite clear how or why, it is certainly not explicitly through the transforming power of the gospel. Indeed, at the end of the book Alice and Sam are 'better' people, but is it this being better that will help them on that final day when we all have to stand before God?
And the church in the book's real world is dominated by women - and it is the women in Alice's family who have the stronger faith. While this is for much of the church on the UK it does not make for inspiring reading as the men are relegated to spiritual stereotypes and the message is subtly reinforced, to my sons and to others, that church is a 'women's thing'.
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Better Than Chocolate!
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My wife loves chocolate, so there's never a problem knowing what to give her for a treat - and the perfect treat for a chocolate lover in the run up to Christmas is one of those chocolate advent calendars. But this year she got an advent calendar with a difference: this book by Stephen Croft.
Fortunately for me, Sue loves books as much as she loves chocolate, and this one got her top rating: "even better than chocolate." It's a remarkable story about a remarkable advent calendar which, instead of doors with chocolate hidden behind them, features buttons at the bottom: every day Uncle Sam receives a code via his mobile phone, and when these codes are punched into the buttons, Uncle Sam and his niece, Alice, find themselves going off on all sorts of adventures.
And for Sue it punched all the right buttons: "It's like Sophie's World meets the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," she said. Highly recommended, perfect for daily advent reading... if you can resist the temptation to open the next door too early! Even better, it's non-fattening too!
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The true story of Christmas
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An amazing book - really exciting to read! Also much better than all the other 'advent' books around -this is the real story of Advent - but in a fun, subtle way.
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