MIXED MEDIA
Holiday Reading: Turning the Pages from Harvest’s Bounty to the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’
The Sound the Sun Makes
Chasing Shadows By Lynn Austin
By Buck Storm
Reviewed by Ann Byle
Reviewed by Trevor Denning
Lena de Vries is content to be a farmer’s wife, but her faith is tested when the Nazis threaten her family and her way of life.
Suspended for punching a man who wouldn’t cross the street when he saw him coming, the usually happy-golucky Early Pines is depressed. Since his old friend Gomez Gomez died, Pines hasn’t been the same. Now the best detective in Paradise, Ariz., is just sitting on his back porch listening to the sound the sun makes as it scrapes across the sky. While Buck Storm’s yarnspinning skills are as delightful as ever in this sequel to The Beautiful Ashes of Gomez Gomez, one can’t help missing the cast of characters and slice of small-town life provided in the previous novel. Even so, this novel is laugh-out-loud funny and encouraging in all the right ways. (Kregel)
NOVEMBER 2021
Lena’s daughter Ans must juggle her resistance work with her feelings for a Dutch policeman working with the Nazis.
Kindness Is My Superpower: A Children’s Book About Empathy, Kindness and Compassion
Tomatoes for Neela
By Alicia Ortego
VanderVeen Feddema
Reviewed by Li Ma
Young Neela loves to cook
Kindness and care for others
On Saturday, Neela and
is perhaps the most important social skill a child can learn. This rhyming story book, a No. 1 bestseller in Amazon’s Children’s Christian
Miriam Jacobs flees Cologne, Germany, with her father to escape Nazi persecution and makes her way to Leiden, where she meets Ans.
Social Issues Fiction category, is packed with engaging details and inspiring insights into a child’s emotional life. A boy named Lucas teases his
Lynn Austin weaves a thought-provoking tale of heroism, fearlessness, and faith in the face of great evil. Her many fans will love this new book, and she’s sure to draw new readers with her latest historical fiction set in her beloved Netherlands. (Tyndale)
classmate Lisa for wearing glasses but later is haunted with regrets. The author uses Lucas as a model to show how an ordinary boy who sometimes makes mistakes can spread kindness. Included are simple exercises for prac-
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By Padma Lakshmi, illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal Reviewed by Sonya
with her amma—her mother. Amma go to the farmers market and buy tomatoes. They return home and set to work making tomato sauce. As Neela works with Amma, she thinks about Paati, her grandmother, and feels close to her. Neela sees the fruit of their labor and knows that “cooking tomatoes in summer would make her happy in the winter, too.” She prepares for Paati’s next visit from India by placing a special jar of tomato sauce at the back of the cupboard so they can share the lovely flavors together when she arrives.
ticing kindness. The author
Illustrator Juana Martinez-
stresses intentionality: “Any
Neal’s gentle, peaceful illus-
act of kindness, no matter
trations bring to life author
how big or small, can make
Padma Lakshmi’s celebra-
a difference—especially
tion of food, family, love, and
when done intentionally.”
meaningful labor. (Viking
(Independently published)
Books for Young Readers) THEBANNER.ORG
