I'm so excited to be sharing some book suggestions by a wonderful RFOA lady, Lana over at
Walking the Off-Beaten Path, in a new installment of Saturday Book Club!
She picked a couple of books to share with us that have strong women in the spotlight in honor of our lovely friend, Leontien, who needs all of our love, support and prayers as she continues her battle with cancer. Visit the
Love for Leontien page over at Facebook and leave a note of support for her.
I'll turn it over to Lana...
Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill
My first take away from this book is that I find it hard to
believe that a man wrote this story about such a strong
woman. Aminata Diallo’s sense of family, heritage,
self-knowledge, education, and bravery is remarkable. This character’s
almost insatiable drive to return home takes her on a life’s journey that spans
two continents and many countries.
Aminata’s story starts as a young girl
growing up with two loving parents, but all of that is shattered with coming of
the slave traders. A pre-Revolutionary war story, Hill takes us through
the life of a free young woman becoming a slave and then regains her freedom
during the war.
With this journey comes incredible experiences with a
variety of people who are both color-minded and color blind. Her final
desire is to tell her story so others will learn about her and her
people. You will be inspired by this character’s sense of family, home,
and her desire to hang on to all the lessons her parents taught her.
The Secret Holocaust Diaries by Nonna Bannister
This book is a true account of a young girl’s experience during
World War II. She grew up the granddaughter of a wealthy Russian widow;
her grandfather was a Cossack who served the last Czar of Russia.
There are
tales of a fairy tale life and a memorable family Christmas before their world
came to a shattering halt. At one point in her life, she was a neighbor
to Alexander Solzhenitsyn,
future Nobel Prize winner in Literature.
Thanks to her father’s desire to
educate her, Nonna was fluent in six languages and wrote journal entries of her
life before and during WW II in all of these languages. She kept them,
along with pictures she was able to save, with her inside a pillowcase hidden
under her clothing throughout her perilous journey through the Ukraine, Poland,
and Germany.
Maybe the most amazing part of Nonna’s story is that she kept it all a secret,
even after coming to America,
marrying, and raising three children. Her story begins as she goes up to
the attic to begin translating her journal entries so that she can finally
share them with first her husband. Later, after her death, her children
learn of the courageous life their mother lived before she became their
mother.
This book tells her story through her translations and
looking back over the memories she tried so hard leave locked in a trunk in her
attic.