Ten Girls Who Changed The World (Lightkeepers)

The stories retold in this book are mostly, in their original form, inspiring. They could have been so here, but they are not.

The way in which the tales of these ten girls and women are told is not a good one.

The writing style is disjointed, often with pointless and irrelevant paragraphs inserted simply - it appears - to prolong the section to make it something other than a textbook. (For example, two-thirds of a page are devoted to Catherine Booth's way with her father's horse and her sadness at her dog's death, never referred to again!)

It would have read better and more easily as a textbook. I wouldn't give this to any child to read, as extensive jumping about in place and time made it confusing even for me at times. It is also painfully ungrammatical on many occasions.

What content there is is filled with unexamined racism and other prejudices. I understand the presence of certain deliberately omitted references as this was published by Christian Focus Publications for 7-12-year-olds, but it does contain some blatant racism that is occasionally the product of the writer's imagination.

The disclaimer in the metadata reads like this:

"All incidents retold in these stories are based on true situations. Where specific information about childhood incidents has been unobtainable the author has written these paragraphs using other information concerning family life, hobbies, homelife, relationships freely available in other biographies as well as appropriate historical source material."

Which basically means that what she couldn't find, she made up from what things were like at the time. It shows.

Then you have the "fact files", "keynotes", "think" and "prayer" at the end of each section. Nothing wrong with the keynotes, thoughts and prayers, though I have little interest in them and don't identify with their content, for various reasons. But the so-called "fact files"... good grief!

The file on Amy Carmichael is all about the eye - based on one prayer and a comment that Amy wished as a child to have blue eyes but realised her brown fit her better for not looking out of place in India. It could have said something about parents, disability, what happened when her broken leg didn't heal right and would have been much more suited, but...That isn't even the weakest link.

Gladys Aylward's fact file focuses on air travel. I can see the link, but it's a tenuous one as Gladys made her great journey by train. But the fact file for Jackie Pullinger? Outer space! Completely irrelevant. Why make such a choice?

Honestly, the state of this book gives away the fact it was not published by a mainstream professional publishing company. Errors abound--and to top it all off, the whole book (bar meta, the covers and the ad for the publishing company on the last page) is printed in Comic Sans. I cringed just seeing that. It's never a good sign.

I'm going to put this book on BookMooch to swap. I'm sure I can find many better sources from whom to learn about the featured women - though some of them were simply missionaries and I question their inclusion in a book of this kind. (Or I would, had it not been published by a religious group.) In any case, I don't wish to read this again and I don't even recommend it to my Christian friends. I shall also be avoiding any other books by this "author". ( )

Isobel Kuhn questioned whether God even existed. Mary Slessor grew up in a slum with an alcoholic father. Joni Eareckson broke her neck during a diving accident and Corrie Ten Boom just lived with her family in a little watch shop in Harlaam, Holland. What is so special about these girls and how did they change their world? Isobel Kuhn believed in God and then obeyed his call to travel to Asia to tell the Lisu people about God. Mary Slessor, put herself through evening classes and eventually became one of the first white women to venture into the interior of Africa. Joni Eareckson struggled through her treatment and endless hospital visits to become the inspiration to many Christians. Corrie Ten Boom spent most of her life just living in Holland until the Nazis started killing the Jews. Corrie Ten Boom put her life on the line to save the lives of many Jews in the hiding place, a hidden room behind her wardrobe in a little watch shop in Haarlem, Holland.Mary Slessor (Missionary in Africa), Corrie Ten Boom (hid Jews in Nazi Germany), Granny Brand (Missionary in India), Joni Eareckson, Gladys Aylward (Missionary in China), Jackie Pullinger (Missionary in Hong Kong), Amy Carmichael (Missionary in India), Elisabeth Fry (Worked among the sick, prisoners and homeless), Catherine Booth (Co-Founder of The Salvation Army) and Isobel Kuhn (Missionary in Asia).

Corrie ten Boom, Mary Slessor, Joni Eareckson Tada, Isobel Kuhn, Amy Carmichael, Elizabeth Fry, Evelyn Brand, Gladys Aylward, Catherine Booth, and Jackie Pullinger