The Words Between Us

by Erin Bartels
Dakota County library paperback 355 pages
genre: Christian realistic fiction

Super excited to go to book club tomorrow night! Erin Bartels is a wonderful storyteller. I really enjoyed this story about Robin Windsor / Dickinson and her journey from a wealthy life to striving to hide her family connections to running a bookstore by herself. The author uses "then" and "now" at the start of each chapter as we alternate between present time and Robin's teenage to young adult days. Beautifully written!

Pg. 46 - "I want to be alone. I'm best alone. But sometimes you do things you don't want to do in order to please your friends. People think that once you're an adult, stuff like that stops. It doesn't. It just changes."

As Robin concedes to Sarah's and Dawt Pi's insistence that she needs to get out of the bookstore, she recognizes that maturity doesn't always bring what one expects of life.

Page 83 - "Beneath it all ran the ragged sound of something else - that thing that all dead things are missing - leaving that dog's body. At the moment of impact, Farley looked me in the eye where I sat on the front lawn, and I could swear it wasn't a dog at all looking at me. It was whatever left that dog. It was there, Then it wasn't."

Throughout the book, the author describes death and life and that intangible essence of life in many different scenes and situations. This one just seemed to capture that moment of transition between life and death particularly well.

Page 141 - "I don't want to tell you what to do, Robin, but most people don't know what kind of time they have left with someone. You might." The "then" Peter was trying to convince Robin to visit her parents in prison, especially her dad before he was executed.

Life is precious! Reconcile differences. Hug the people you care about the most. Spend time with loved ones.

Page 178 - "Most of these books are not alive. They have not stood the passage of time. They do not still burn in the hearts of those who have read them. . . . They are merely inert paper and ink, and I doubt very much they could live again."

Comparing the books that were used to build their giant dinosaur (Dreadnoughtus) with great literature, Robin alludes to the physical life and death she has already talked about.

Page 252 - "Too much time has passed. Too much unspoken grief. All the letters I never wrote. But I can't go home with nothing to show for the miles this time. I can't keep going on this way, swept along by the winds of rumor and regret. Time moves in only one direction. I can't get back the time I've squandered. I can only move forward."

This is probably the absolute best "message" in the book!

Page  297 - "I'm looking for Dawt Pi. Because of all the people I know, she's the only one who has ever made me wonder if perhaps GOd must be real despite everything."

This gave me chills! People recognize when we truly live our lives for the Lord. I want to be like Dawt Pi, faithfully being "real" to the people around me, ready to share my faith.



This is a book I would consider purchasing, re-reading, highlighting, sharing, . . . it is a great book for book lovers. 

We Hope for Better Things

by Erin Bartels
Scott County Library paperback 392 pages
genre: Christian historical fiction

This was our February book club title, but I didn't get a copy of it until the night of the discussion! I wish I'd gotten it earlier - I love this book! I marked lots of pages, but will start with some of my character notes.

Elizabeth Balsam - journalist, Detroit, modern day, also Lapeer house, sister Grace (a doctor, much older), parents are missionaries in the Amazon, meets Mr. Rich (James) and his son Linden (pro NFL)

Nora Balsam - Eleanor, Elizabeth's dad's aunt, Detroit 1963, then Lapeer County house, married William Rich, quilted, sewed, grew up privileged, had a falling out with her parents, Tyrese (not William) mows her lawn

Mary Balsam - Nora's great-grandmother, Lapeer County, 1860s, married to Nathaniel, abolitionists, made Crazy Quilt (and others), died 1875, had Bridget as her serving girl, wrote letters, George, three sons and a daughter . . .

Page 91 - When Nora says she would never use the N-word, William says, "Don't matter if you'd never say it. It's what's in your heart that matters." I love his direct way of challenging her preconceived notions about herself and her attitudes throughout the book.

Page 131 - When Mary is describing the reason behind Independence Day and explaining the Revolutionary War, young Angelica asks "That the war going right now?"
"Mary shook her head. 'No, child. This was almost one hundred years ago. It was a different war.'
'Don't seem different.'
'Quiet, girl.' Martha said. 'You get outside and let me and Mrs. Balsam get to work.'"
Out of the mouths of babes! A war for liberty and the right to be in control of your own life . . . Revolutionary or Civil or both?

Page 227 - I love that George answers "You know this cannot be anything more than it is" when Mary confesses her love to him. I have to admit, this part of the story was the hardest to accept. I just can't picture this relationship at this point in history. Propriety was such a huge part of most people's expectations. George behaved much better than Mary, for the most part!

Page 301- When Nora interviewed her very elderly relative Margaret in the 1960s, she thanks her for the visit and the stories. Margaret replies with ". . . I do like talking. When you're busy living life, everything's a blur. It's not until you get to be my age and you've got nothing more to do than think that you start to see it for what it was." I love the idea of contemplation and slowing down.

Page 335 - Nora's return to her childhood home when she returns to Detroit, looking for William in the aftermath of the Detroit riots. "As much as she had told herself that William was all the family she needed now, that he was enough, he wasn't. She wanted the love of her parents too." This whole paragraph spoke to me about the value of close family relationships. I strongly dislike brokenness in families. (Though I also disliked how Nora's family spoke and acted.)

Page 338 - I love when William's mom cries out to God! "Hear us as we cry out to you. We know you know where our Will is right this moment. We know you see him, that you're looking at him even now. We're trying to trust you with him, but it's hard. We're trying to leave him in your hands, but it's so hard to do. Lord, bring him back to us. Bring him back even today, even this very hour. Hear our prayer as you heard your own Son's voice as he cried out to you on the cross. Amen."

Page 371 - When Elizabeth remarks on the difference between the huge Baptist church where she goes with Nora and the "simple hut" her parents were worshiping in in the Amazon, "What a strange and wonderful family we were all part of." Amen!

Page 376 - The trunk, the letters, the mice . . . not the ending I would have picked. But I like this observation: "Aunt Nora had been wrong when she said that history was written by the victors, for the victors in one generation may turn out to be the villains of the next. And the only way to get closer to the truth was to refuse to quit searching for it. All it took to lose one's history was a single generation that didn't take the time to learn it and pass it on."

I look forward to reading Bartels' next book. This was her first.

King Peggy: An American Secretary, Her Royal Destiny, and the Inspiring Story of How She Changed an African Village

by Peggieliene Bartels and Eleanor Herman
personal copy paperback 334 pages
genre: biography / memoir

My son Alex and his wife gave this book to me a few years ago. Now that I've finally read it, I need to ask them if they met either of the authors . . . I'm not sure what the connection was for them to get this book and then give it to me. My sister wanted to read it for her book club, so that motivated me to finish it and loan it!

Peggy Bartels was born in Ghana, but had been working and living in Washington D.C. at the Ghanian embassy for years when she received a call that her uncle had died. The "spirits" had chosen her as the new king. After getting over her shock and disbelief, she needed to decide if she would accept the responsibility or not.

Her odyssey (living in the U.S. for 10-11 months each year and then traveling to Otuam, Ghana for the other month or two) was expensive and arduous. Her royal advisors were crooked, stealing from the money that should have gone toward the betterment of the village. The book was interesting and worth reading, but I struggled with the descriptor of her as a "devout Christian" intermixed with her pouring libations to the ancestors and talking to the spirits of the stool for direction.

Here are some passages I noted that I really liked or reacted to as I was reading:

Page 48 - "An African wearing kente, or even regular cloth decorated with adinkra symbols, walked out into the world proclaiming what he or she stood for: strength, family, or forgiveness, powerful concepts that helped you get through your day. Peggy opened her closet and looked at the row of black and brown pantsuits she usually wore to the office. How sad, she thought, that we Americans dress like this. We walk outside every morning with no power, no symbolism, no added bit of spiritual heft to help us meet our challenges."

Page 159 - "My people have no running water, she thought, and bad schools, and minimal health care, and electricity only part of the time. Most have no cars, no television, and no radio, and the kids don't have games or toys. We are poor in gadgets, but rich in so many other ways. And America, despite all its riches , and despite all the buttons you can push there, is in some respects poor."

Page 166 - (When the door fell off the refrigerator and Cousin Charles fixed it with a piece of cork) "'There!' he said, satisfied. He looked at Peggy. 'I know that in America you go out and buy new things when something breaks. But this is African engineering at an African price.'" I love that!

Page 198 - I laughed when I read the section about Tsiami's virility, even though I mostly thought he was a jerk.

Page 260 - "Returning to Ghana had made Peggy more aware than ever before of the concept of African family, of the interlocking layers of support needed to ensure that the weakest do not falter."

Page 317 - When Tsiami explained what Isaiah and Baba Kobena had done, in agreement with Uncle Joseph's daughters, it was heartbreaking. "Those in the room lowered their heads in shame at the story, except for Peggy. Her head was high, and her eyes flashing. But they haven't won, Peggy thought. Because there is a God who doesn't approve of dishonoring corpses, especially that of the person who gave you life. They haven't won because there is a God who hates deceit and bribery and causing pain to innocent people, a God who will punish the wicked. Honor thy father and mother, God said, and he wasn't joking."

Page 333 - "When I first cheerfully got on a plane headed for Ghana I had no idea that the experience would be life-changing. There are many Americans - I myself was one of them - who live in big houses with every luxury money can buy and who are, nonetheless, stressed, depressed, and take for granted so much of what we have. Until my trip to Otuam, I was never grateful for the faucet that brought me clean water, hot or cold, at a touch. For flush toilets. For the ambulance that arrives at our doors within minutes of a 911 call. For food and clothing, heating and air-conditioning. Yet most of the people of Otuam, despite their poverty and their lack of water, health care, and educational opportunities, are grateful for every blessing and find joy in their faith, families, and friends in a way that those of us trapped in suburban depression can't imagine."