Book Review:Ruth's Journey/The Authorized Novel of Mammy from Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind, by Donald McCaig
This book was sooo sooo good!!! I just finished it and I put off reading the last few chapters b/c I didn't want it to end! If you liked
Gone with the Wind, you will like this one. As it says, it is "authorized" by the Margaret Mitchell estate, and the characters all seem so true to what you would expect from reading GWTW. This author also wrote another authorized prequel,
Rhett Butler's People, which I have also read, and also enjoyed -- but
Ruth's Journey is better, I think.
It starts out when Ruth/Mammy is just a small child, orphaned in a revolution in Haiti. She comes to America with the French lady who will later become Scarlett O'Hara's grandmother... but her journey from Haiti to Tara is not quite as straight a path as you'd expect.
On the other hand, you see her growing into the exact character you expect. Aside from Melanie and Scarlett's mother, Ellen, Mammy is probably my favorite character. As I told someone who criticized the book for various reasons, I think the goodness and wisdom of those three characters outweigh the bad, selfish parts of Scarlett's character by a long shot.
Anyway -- if you have a GWTW fan in the family, or if you are one yourself, this is a GREAT Christmas gift idea.
Unfortunately, I have raved about it so much that now I find myself having to loan my copy to a dfriend.
DH says I'll never see it again.
Oh -- and a
Movie Review: Saving Christmas
This is the new movie from Kirk Cameron. It is maybe a little serious or slow, for children, but the message is wonderful. I left the theater feeling a little less Scrooge-like.
So often I am the one complaining about all the busy-ness of Christmas... the trouble of decorating, the hassle of shopping and choosing and wrapping... all that stuff. I love to look at my Christmas tree lights once it's all done, and I love being with (most of) my family, but all the social-ness of it sorta stresses me out, and the changes that are brought about by the loss of family members and familiar homes depresses me and makes me nervous.
However, after seeing this movie, I had the clear conviction that all the * stuff * we "have to" do for Christmas is just a small way of sacrificing for the people we love... and our sacrifice of time and energy and money is just NOTHING compared to Christ's sacrifice for us -- so all this busy-ness is just a way of showing our love, and being His hands and feet for the people we love, and hopefully for others who are less fortunate.
Also, the movie does a very good job of putting a Christian spin on the many decorations and may even give you a new perspective on some of the old ways of looking at things, even when you do try to keep a Christian perspective.
I really admire Kirk Cameron (and probably should say I admire his parents too), because he spent his youth as a child/teen actor and surely faced the temptations that Hollywood lifestyle offered, and apparently he has grown into a fine young man, dedicated to his family and devoting his life to making movies that have a message of leading others towards a Christian lifestyle.