Jonathan Edwards

  I don’t take much time for myself.  That’s the point I’m at in my life and I am contented with it.  So, when I go to pick out a history book, I’m kind of picky.  History is my thing.  Well, its kind of our family thing, with a mom as a historian and a dad as an archaeologist, there’s no escaping it.  So since I don’t have a lot of time to read all the stuff I want to and I’m always on the look out for things to make history alive to my kiddos, books in our household have to fit these two criteria: 1) teach me something new and challenging but in a short format 2) make it easy to understand and interesting for my kids too.  Bonus points for using a Christian perspective.

  That’s why I like Christian Biographies for Young Readers series.  Being a purchaser for our church library I have bought some before.  I hadn’t delved into them beyond general perusal, but knew they were chalked full of absolutely wonderful illustrations, historical pictures and manuscripts as well as side notes explaining some items in more detail. That is very important for me in non-fiction kid books, if you don’t have an interesting format, you’re losing them right off.

  I didn’t know much about Jonathan Edwards beyond him being one of those fire and brimstone preachers of the Great Awakening, so I was looking forward to this review.  From a historian’s perspective, Ms. Carr did an excellent job drawing in many facets of colonial history: Plymouth, the Deerfield raid, Isaac Newton, the French and Indian War and other characters of the Great Awakening, George Whitefield & David Brainerd. 

  The book takes a very different turn than I was expecting.  It focuses on his upbringing and how it and his other life experiences contribute to his ministry, but it primarily focuses on how he incorporated God’s handiwork of his natural environment into his ministry.  How he used the wonder of God’s creation to over come such fears as those of thunderstorms, which were a menace during that time.

This was a wonderful segue into his eventual work with the Native Americans at Stockbridge.  

  Tidbits I loved about this book: how detailed it was down to the illustration of George Whitefield which showed him with his lazy eye (something that was not covered in the book, but it was cool to see it come out in the illustration).  The appendix at the back of the book with the timeline of Edwards’ life and a “Did you Know” section, things that I could see the author thinking really interesting and while they did not fit into the flow of the story, she wanted to share with us. 

  I’d definitely recommend this book on one of the great theological minds of early America!
  I received this book free from the publisher and the thoughts and comments are my own and was not required to write a positive review.