Our Best Reads For December

Gerard's Best of the Month and the Year is Final Salute by Jim Sheeler
I give this book 50 Stars for each state in the country represented in this war! It's so powerful!!

Hard to know where to begin about this book. I thought "Dewey, The Library Cat" was my book of the year, but this is now my book of the year. This is about Major Steve Beck who is a casualty notification officer. The book tells the story of the men who paid the ultimate price for our freedom and the families they left behind. "Final Salute" is so filled with emotion that at times I just had to stop reading. It got to me. You will not forget the men and the families you read about in this book. I hate to admit it, but I read about men killed and forget all the people it affects. This jolted me back to reality! I'll never look at death causalities like I did before. My heart goes out to their families who are now in my prayers. I salute all our service people. Maybe Christmas is not the time to read about this, but then again, it probably is to know that people are out there especially hurting at this time of celebrating our Savior's birthday. You must read this book. God bless the USA and thank you service men and women!! May God bring you home safely.

Karen's is Love Your Life by Victoria Osteen. This book moves right along and gave me the feeling that Victoria was a friend chatting with me. It is packed with lots of good advice and is very encouraging and uplifting. I liked that she included summaries of “anchor thoughts” at the end of each chapter.

One thing that especially made an impact on me was the suggestion to keep a list of everything I like about my husband and everything he does to make my life easier. Instead of keeping track of his mistakes, or things he did that made me mad, this will help me stay focused on his good points and help me not to forget these things.

I also read the Sonshine Girls-Summer Secret by Rene Morris who is also a blogger. Although the idea is to just pick a favorite of the month for this post, I want to mention this book too because I did enjoy it and think it's great for young girl readers. This is the first wonderful Christian fiction book in the Sonshine Girls series which is geared to tweeners and young teens. Issues that are raised include friendship, bullying, forgiveness, Chrisianity, cliques and peer pressure. There are four main characters that make up the Sonshine Girls. As I read, I could closely identify with Kristin and Charli. The author has done a fantastic job of capturing the moodiness and general camaraderie that girls often demonstrate. In the back are tips for dealing with bullies which could be helpful someone who is being bullied. The book moves right along and is a very enjoyable read. You may want to visit the author's blogs, who is a mother of six, at The Sonshine Girls and Cheaper by the Half Dozen.