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Rating: 
Summary: A uplifting story of human kindness and love.
Review: If your belief in the goodness of mankind has become a little battered recently, then you simply must read Dr. Duffy's book. I read it through cover-to-cover in one sitting and gave it to my husband who was likewise absorbed. It is the wonderful story of Dr. Duffy's parents, who were living in China during the Revolution while Rev. Starratt taught at Huachung University in Central China. The Starratts were separated by the war, and through their letters and the family stories Dr. Duffy recalls, we learn of their bravery, their sense of purpose in the world, their selflessness and their love for one another, their children and China. It is a story to warm your heart and lift your spirits!
Rating:
Summary: A uplifting story of human kindness and love.
Review: If your belief in the goodness of mankind has become a little battered recently, then you simply must read Dr. Duffy's book. I read it through cover-to-cover in one sitting and gave it to my husband who was likewise absorbed. It is the wonderful story of Dr. Duffy's parents, who were living in China during the Revolution while Rev. Starratt taught at Huachung University in Central China. The Starratts were separated by the war, and through their letters and the family stories Dr. Duffy recalls, we learn of their bravery, their sense of purpose in the world, their selflessness and their love for one another, their children and China. It is a story to warm your heart and lift your spirits!
Rating:
Summary: a sweet tale in despairing times
Review: Penelope Duffy has written a sweet tale, the story of her parents' time as Anglican missionary workers in China in the late 1940s, when the Communist revolution occured. The account is liberally sprinkled with quotations from her father's letters to her mother when they were separated, she safe in Hong Kong with three very young daughters, he at the mission. Duffy's tone is never preachy or overly pious, but the essential goodness of her parents, dedicated to a life of service, shines through strongly. So does their love for one another. Duffy's book is an antidote to despairing thoughts about our world, which has always been troubled, but where people like her parents look beyond themselves to exercise faith, hope, and charity toward all.
Rating:
Summary: a sweet tale in despairing times
Review: Penelope Duffy has written a sweet tale, the story of her parents' time as Anglican missionary workers in China in the late 1940s, when the Communist revolution occured. The account is liberally sprinkled with quotations from her father's letters to her mother when they were separated, she safe in Hong Kong with three very young daughters, he at the mission. Duffy's tone is never preachy or overly pious, but the essential goodness of her parents, dedicated to a life of service, shines through strongly. So does their love for one another. Duffy's book is an antidote to despairing thoughts about our world, which has always been troubled, but where people like her parents look beyond themselves to exercise faith, hope, and charity toward all.
Rating:
Summary: A delightful book!
Review: This is a delightful book about family, faith, adversity and life. A simple book! An uplifting book. This charming book should be read by anyone who cares about living well, coping with difficult situations,and maintaining their humanity. While the cover depicts this as a "holiday" book, I believe readers will agree with me that this is much more than simply a tale of holiday happenings. Rather, this is a tale of love, of faith, and of hope. I am giving this book to all of my friends this holiday, and suggest that everyone else do the same! My thanks to the author for telling this wonderful, uplifting tale. You have made my life better!
Rating:
Summary: A memorable account of a family's adventure
Review: This is a story of a family during the span of a fulfilling, yet harrowing few years as New England missionaries in Central China before and during the time of the Chinese Revolution. It is a story of family strength and devotion, unmitigated faith, and human loyalty and courage. The sequence of events is reconstructed from a series of letters, and the author's own formative experiences in her early life. No doubt family oral history contributes as well. Where memories of events would fade without a written account, the letters provide the details, not only of the larger events, but also of the smaller events that were committed to paper because they resonated with symbolism at the time--they become even more so with recounting. The language is richly descriptive and gives the reader a solid sense of location. The story begins in New England in 1946, as a young minister, Alfred Starratt and his wife Anne, set out on a journey to China, a journey that is to lead them to a life of meaningful work with students and families at a university and mission compound. But times are desperate in post-war China and civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communists for political control eventually sweeps over the lives of all at the mission. Duffy skillfully sets the historical stage so that we feel, with Alfred, the longing for political stability and social equity together with a unified recovery following the atrocities visited by the Japanese. We feel with him the frustration at the discord that reigns and feel sympathy for the political activity of the students. We share the disbelief that the loyal missionaries would be suspended from their humanitarian work. So it is that we are led to the same sense of betrayal that Alfred feels when the red army marches in and dashes hopes of continuing work under revolutionary change in an array of special rules and restrictions. We share the implicit protest that his loyalty to the Chinese people should place him as an enemy. It is at this point in the book that our own knowledge of history intrudes as we remember the extreme devastation that was the result of the new economic and social order. With this knowledge, our hopes fade and we fear for Alfred's life. It is the Starratts' profound belief in the essential goodness of human nature that fosters hope for organized change. This belief does not die and is vindicated in the profound acts of heroism and kindness that is shown by ordinary people during the events that follow them from Wuchang to Stockbridge. These acts loom large against the background of the local situation and even larger against the backdrop of our knowledge of history. As a result, we fully share in the emotional relief and joy at the generosity of the citizens of Stockbridge when the family returns home. The reader is taken to a new state of appreciation and a celebration of human nature even with the safe knowledge of a setting where individual freedoms are cherished and protected, where reprisals for kindness are absent. Throughout the story, a thread of providence, expressed by way of human and natural events, gives a spiritual dimension that lends depth to the narrative. There is no analysis of the events as they are recounted and this reader was left with some sense of incongruence that, in a world of idealism and faith, acts of kindness are attributed to individual goodness and to an awareness of a loving God, while acts of violence, senselessness and cruelty are, indirectly, attributed to distant political machines and powerful militaries. There is no historical emphasis on the complicity that individuals share in the generation of these entities. Yet it is the idealism that urged Alfred and his wife to China in the first place and made it possible for them to enact the life that spoke to their deepest desires of charity and human commitment. The strength of the family, and of Anne Starratt, especially, shines through as they make a stable and loving home wherever they find themselves. The intense experiences with the Chinese students, the teachers and missionary families that worked with them in a setting of material simplicity and hardship, cultivated an experiential knowledge of the transcendence that human beings can attain in an environment of enquiry and study, fellowship and faith. It takes no more than a few hours to read this short volume, but it carries the reader through an intense and emotionally gripping account. We are left with the hope that worldly failures, disasters, and miseries can be more than matched by human love and loyalty.
Rating:
Summary: A memorable account of a family's adventure
Review: This is a story of a family during the span of a fulfilling, yet harrowing few years as New England missionaries in Central China before and during the time of the Chinese Revolution. It is a story of family strength and devotion, unmitigated faith, and human loyalty and courage. The sequence of events is reconstructed from a series of letters, and the author's own formative experiences in her early life. No doubt family oral history contributes as well. Where memories of events would fade without a written account, the letters provide the details, not only of the larger events, but also of the smaller events that were committed to paper because they resonated with symbolism at the time--they become even more so with recounting. The language is richly descriptive and gives the reader a solid sense of location. The story begins in New England in 1946, as a young minister, Alfred Starratt and his wife Anne, set out on a journey to China, a journey that is to lead them to a life of meaningful work with students and families at a university and mission compound. But times are desperate in post-war China and civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communists for political control eventually sweeps over the lives of all at the mission. Duffy skillfully sets the historical stage so that we feel, with Alfred, the longing for political stability and social equity together with a unified recovery following the atrocities visited by the Japanese. We feel with him the frustration at the discord that reigns and feel sympathy for the political activity of the students. We share the disbelief that the loyal missionaries would be suspended from their humanitarian work. So it is that we are led to the same sense of betrayal that Alfred feels when the red army marches in and dashes hopes of continuing work under revolutionary change in an array of special rules and restrictions. We share the implicit protest that his loyalty to the Chinese people should place him as an enemy. It is at this point in the book that our own knowledge of history intrudes as we remember the extreme devastation that was the result of the new economic and social order. With this knowledge, our hopes fade and we fear for Alfred's life. It is the Starratts' profound belief in the essential goodness of human nature that fosters hope for organized change. This belief does not die and is vindicated in the profound acts of heroism and kindness that is shown by ordinary people during the events that follow them from Wuchang to Stockbridge. These acts loom large against the background of the local situation and even larger against the backdrop of our knowledge of history. As a result, we fully share in the emotional relief and joy at the generosity of the citizens of Stockbridge when the family returns home. The reader is taken to a new state of appreciation and a celebration of human nature even with the safe knowledge of a setting where individual freedoms are cherished and protected, where reprisals for kindness are absent. Throughout the story, a thread of providence, expressed by way of human and natural events, gives a spiritual dimension that lends depth to the narrative. There is no analysis of the events as they are recounted and this reader was left with some sense of incongruence that, in a world of idealism and faith, acts of kindness are attributed to individual goodness and to an awareness of a loving God, while acts of violence, senselessness and cruelty are, indirectly, attributed to distant political machines and powerful militaries. There is no historical emphasis on the complicity that individuals share in the generation of these entities. Yet it is the idealism that urged Alfred and his wife to China in the first place and made it possible for them to enact the life that spoke to their deepest desires of charity and human commitment. The strength of the family, and of Anne Starratt, especially, shines through as they make a stable and loving home wherever they find themselves. The intense experiences with the Chinese students, the teachers and missionary families that worked with them in a setting of material simplicity and hardship, cultivated an experiential knowledge of the transcendence that human beings can attain in an environment of enquiry and study, fellowship and faith. It takes no more than a few hours to read this short volume, but it carries the reader through an intense and emotionally gripping account. We are left with the hope that worldly failures, disasters, and miseries can be more than matched by human love and loyalty.
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