Well, not many people can say a mother of 10, married to a lawyer, is “just like me,” but I appreciated her transparency in showing her lack of perfection.

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I’ve started a new page, describing what I’ve read this year. At least the stuff I’d recomend to others. I think this is my first book review on this blog.

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The first book I’ve finished this year is A Mom Just Like You. A gift from an older woman in my church who knows I plan to homeschool.

This is a delightfully not-dictating, how-we-did-it book of a home-schooling mother of 10.

It’s not strictly a homeschooling book, but more the requested “testimony” many homeschool-conference attendees had asked for from her, as the wife of a prominent speaker.

It has all the expected chapters from an “older woman” book, including:

• Finding time for God ( “There are times when we must make the conscious choice to set something else aside in order to get the fellowship with God we need.”)
• Putting husband second only to God
• Sticking with homeschooling (even when you’re sick of dealing with the children’s sin-natures all day) because you remember why you’re doing it.
• An answer to the What-about-time-for-me? question.

But the best thing for me in all of this book was the gentle patient tone of the writing.

There has been a lot of talk among bloggers about the book Created to be His Helpmeet (I’ll reserve most comments about that one). But one of the main complaints I have personally heard is the the author’s tone is somewhat… demanding.

It is written by an “older woman” that you really believe knows what she’s talking about, and she probably has a lot of good advice, but she’s hard for me to “hang out” with.

Vickie Farris, whose voice is projected in this book (it was largely ghost-written by her daughter Jayme), comes across as more gentle in her approach. She is settled in her convictions but equally aware of the journey she had to take to reach those convictions.

Farris seems gracious enough to realize her readers may be on similar journeys, and will reach their destinations as God leads their open hearts.

Maybe I can read it this way because when I read her story about their journey away from birth-control I’m not impelled to follow. ;) Others may perhaps find it unsettling or convicting, and complain about the time she spends describing that journey.

Through the journey Farris describes in this book, I felt she had found contentment in the life God has called her to, and from her story an interested listener might glean a few ideas to apply to her own life.

It covers some of the same ground as Created, but it is one I can recomend without reservation.