This book is one of the many, many, many works of Patricia St John that blend Quality Kids' Writing with depth-charged rocket-fuelled evangelically Christian propaganda. I say this not to be derisive - its doctrine is sound, and its storytelling far slicker than other similar efforts - but to a non-Christian reader whose experience of the faith has been less than 100% A-Okay I'm pretty sure it would just come off as disingenuous and twee.
What St John does do very well is literary diveable portraiture of life as a "third culture kid" and it being an unpredictable impact on these youths; and while much of the decolonization of the Western Christendom mindset that I think is essential to the ongoing successes of a western missionality, the characters draw up workable examples from the story itself - of the Gnosis of Christ, of the beauty of salvation through faith and the humanized power of raw, friendly forgiveness: on these fronts, St John's book makes fantastic uses of living metaphorical touchstones that root the story heavily in Christian ethics and thought, and while it in places does certainly come off as "twee" - it never bonks the reader over the head with strict dogma, and its subtext is as generous as I could have hoped to expect from Christian literature.
One for the bookshelves if you're a Christian family with children who Read Stuff - especially the secret stuff. Whose boat are you in? Do you own it or is it a rental, borrowing, theft kind of boat? And most importantly do you know how to handle the rudder and mainsails when the waves get choppy?
What St John does do very well is literary diveable portraiture of life as a "third culture kid" and it being an unpredictable impact on these youths; and while much of the decolonization of the Western Christendom mindset that I think is essential to the ongoing successes of a western missionality, the characters draw up workable examples from the story itself - of the Gnosis of Christ, of the beauty of salvation through faith and the humanized power of raw, friendly forgiveness: on these fronts, St John's book makes fantastic uses of living metaphorical touchstones that root the story heavily in Christian ethics and thought, and while it in places does certainly come off as "twee" - it never bonks the reader over the head with strict dogma, and its subtext is as generous as I could have hoped to expect from Christian literature.
One for the bookshelves if you're a Christian family with children who Read Stuff - especially the secret stuff. Whose boat are you in? Do you own it or is it a rental, borrowing, theft kind of boat? And most importantly do you know how to handle the rudder and mainsails when the waves get choppy?
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