Friday, January 10, 2014

Review: Plain Answers About the Amish Life by:Mindy Starns Clark

 Plain Answers About the Amish Life
About the Book:
For Amish fiction readers, young and old alike, Plain Answers About the Amish Life provides a glimpse into an obscure, fascinating world--what the Amish believe and how they live. An engaging question-and-answer format showcases fun and fresh facts about the people who abide by this often-misunderstood faith and unique culture.

This updated and revised guide by Mindy Starns Clark (more than 250,000 Amish-themed books sold), covers a wide variety of topics, such as:
beliefs and values clothing and transportation courtship and marriage shunning and discipline teens and rumpsringa children and the elderly education and work
Presented in an easy-to-read style, these Plain answers to questions about the Amish are a great resource for anyone interested in Amish life. Formerly titled A Pocket Guide to Amish Life.


About the Author:
 Mindy Starns Clark is the author of many books (more than 450,000 copies sold), which include A Pocket Guide to Amish Life, Shadows of Lancaster County, Whispers of the Bayou, and The Amish Midwife. In addition, Mindy is a popular inspirational speaker and playwright.

My Review:
 All you wanted to know and then some are all collected in this handy guide to the Amish. Mindy Starns Clark collected and answered more than 300 questions on the Amish people and their lifestyle. The entire book gives us in site into all things Amish. Things that maybe you wanted to know but had no way of finding out the true answers.

 My favorite part of the book is undoubtedly the section on their lifestyle. A few of the questions asked were, "Why can the Amish men have beards but not mustaches?" And the answer appears to have something to do with the military. "Do the women diaper their babies with cloth diapers?" And the answer is yes they do, they don't use disposables.

 In recent years alot of different rules about dress, technology, etc. just depends on the district an Amish family resides in. Most if not all districts have the Amish common threads weaving through them but some have slightly different observances. A few of those would be women's clothing, undergarments, and appropriate attire for Sunday services.

 My love of the Amish is because it is so simplistic in nature. The author has a chapter dedicated to this thought called "What the Amish Can Teach Us". Simply put she points out that while we basically see their lifestyle appealing that very few of us would last say in sweltering heat with no air conditioner. Some of the ways we could adopt some of the same rituals is to turn the television off after a certain time each night and eat by candle light. Or give ourselves a vacation from all technology for a week and channel our "inner Amish".

 These days we get so wrapped up in the advances of our current era that we forget to teach our children about the simple things in life. Maybe let them enjoy a dance in the summer rain or what its like to chase fire flies. We have so much more to learn from these simple folk, more than we realize.

**Disclosure** This book was sent to me free of charge for my honest review from Harvest House.

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