A well-crafted and engaging Christian devotional.
Frank provides devotional readings for every season of a Christian’s life in this debut nonfiction book.
“Knowing that God is in control, and that everything happens at the appropriate time,” writes the author, “doesn’t change the fact that we don’t always understand what He’s actually doing.” Despite these uncertainties, Frank argues, Christians have the hope that Jesus will be with them in “every season of our lives.” While this book of 101 concise devotionals doesn’t shy away from the difficulties and pains of life, it does offer an optimistic message centered on the author’s belief in God’s innate goodness and love. Organized around the theme of “seasons,” the book has a dual structure common to the devotional genre. For readers interested in reading the book chronologically within a year, the book separates chapters to be read each month, from January to December, encouraging slow, methodical reading to allow for ample reflection on its spiritual messages. Simultaneously, the book is organized thematically, with chapters grouped by “the seasons we go through” during the course of our lives, from periods of grief and suffering to those of peace and joy. This structure intentionally affords readers the option of reading the devotionals out of order to best match their current circumstances. An immigrant to Canada from Trinidad and Tobago, with a master of divinity degree from the Tyndale Seminary, Frank adds a pastoral touch to his devotions, which blend learned theology with pop-culture references and charming anecdotes from his own life experiences. A former engineer, the author similarly understands the perspective of lay Christians, and he’s careful to avoid religious jargon. While distinctly Protestant in his doctrinal approach (ignoring, for instance, the liturgical nature of Catholic and Orthodox calendars, which offer a similar approach to “seasons”), the author is generally ecumenical in his conception of Christianity. He avoids hot-button social issues such as reproductive rights, which readers may view as either refreshing or as a cop-out, depending. Each devotional is accompanied by inspirational quotes, Bible verses, prayers, and reflective questions for contemplation.
A well-crafted and engaging Christian devotional.Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2023
ISBN: 9781039195004
Page Count: 258
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
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