"Amish Values for Your Family" Blog Tour & Contest

About the book:

For readers who long for strong families that know how to truly enjoy life together, there is much to learn from the Amish. Values like community, forgiveness, simple living, obedience, and more can be your family legacy--without selling your car, changing your wardrobe, or moving out to farm country.

In Amish Values for Your Family, bestselling author Suzanne Woods Fisher shows how you can adopt the wisdom of the Amish when it comes to family matters. In this inspiring and practical book, readers will find charming true stories interlaced with solid, biblical advice about parenting, marriage, and all aspects of family life. As readers get an intimate glimpse into the everyday lives of real Amish families, they will learn to prioritize what's truly important, simplify decision-making, slow down as a family, safeguard time together, and let go when the time comes.

About Suzanne:

Her interest in the Amish began with her grandfather, W.D. Benedict, who was raised Plain. She has many, many Plain relatives living in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, and travels back to Pennsylvania,as well as to Ohio,a couple of times each year for research.

Suzanne has a great admiration for the Plain people and believes they provide wonderful examples to the world.  In both her fiction and non-fiction books, she has an underlying theme: You don't have to "go Amish" to incorporate many of their principles--simplicity, living with less, appreciating nature, forgiving others more readily-- into your life.

When Suzanne isn't writing or bragging to her friends about her first new grandbaby (!), she is raising puppies for Guide Dogs for the Blind. To Suzanne's way of thinking, you just can't take life too seriously when a puppy is tearing through your house with someone's underwear in its mouth.

Suzanne can be found on-line at: www.suzannewoodsfisher.com.

My Take:

This book is arranged in four sections:  "Children Are Loved but Not Adored," "Great Expectations," "Daily Bread," and "Letting Go." In each section, a value is presented through an Amish proverb, a story from Amish life, a "Road Map" segment to show how we can apply the value to modern life, and an "In Their Own Words" section.

 

To me, Amish Values for Your Family could very easily just be called "Biblical Values for Your Family." While it was interesting to think of these values as they apply to the Amish life, these truths are straight from God's Word. I hope everyone who is involved in a church every week is taught these truths as I am at my church and through my study of the Bible.

One of my favorite stories in this book was related to the Amish proverb, "Keeping a neat house is like threading beads on a string with no knot on it." The story was about a young mother and her adventure one day with three young boys and a mud hole. I will leave you to imagine what happened! The point was that it doesn't really matter if your day goes as planned or your house is perfectly neat all the time. If you focus on those things (the neat house or the schedule), then you might be missing the bigger, more important thing. "The good is often the enemy of the best."

Even though these values are not strictly Amish, it was still fascinating to read this book and see how well the Amish apply these values to their lives. This book does help you to slow down and really think about what our priorities in life should be and how we desparately need to incorporate these values into our fast-paced, modern lives.

I will give Amish Values for Your Family ... 4 BookWorms.

You can follow this blog tour here:  http://litfusegroup.com/blogtours/text/13421895

The Contest

To celebrate the release of Amish Values for Your Family, Suzanne has teamed up her publisher Revell Books to giveaway a Kindle, and with Bill Coleman (the amazing photographer used on Suzanne’s book covers) to give away a signed Bill Coleman original.

One Grand Prize winner will receive an Amish Values Prize Package (valued at over $200) and includes:

* A brand new KINDLE
* A Signed Bill Coleman original
* Amish Values for Your Family (for KINDLE)

Click on one of the icons to enter. Winner will be announced on 9/2 at Suzanne’s blog. Be sure to stop by the blogs on Suzanne’s blog tour – many have copies of Amish Values for Your Family to give away.

But, wait there's more! Suzanne is running a Bill Coleman caption contest during the month of August on her blog. Title one of Bill’s gorgeous photos for a chance to win a print from Bill’s Amish Photo site and/or a copy of Amish Values for Your Family.

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received this book free from Revell/Baker Publishing Group and LitFuse Publicity. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this is accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255:  “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”