Willow Creek Summer

Rating:
Summary: Compelling, but...
Review: 14-year-old Tina Wiens has been growing up uncomfortably in her Mennonite community in Homer, Ontario. She has never been comfortable with her neighbor's narrow-mindedness, bigotry, hypocrisy, racism and disregard for the environment, and the older she gets, the less she can feel for the religion that they themselves can't explain or defend. When her sister becomes pregnant by a migrant worker from Jamaica, and has no intention of getting married, the whole problem comes to a head. Tina's family is quietly ostracized, and disapproval seems to follow her wherever she goes.

That is, until she goes to spend the summer with her Tante (Aunt) Tina. Tante Tina is different than the Mennonites: she laughs and takes breaks from her work, and seems to genuinely enjoy life. As the women of Tina's family move away from Christianity, they learn that there is an exciting world out there, one filled with color and joy, and unlike anything found in the world of the Mennonites.

First of all, I must say that I found this book to be compelling and powerfully written. The book kept me up reading at night, unable to put it down. The author has a way of making you care about her characters, and their trials and tribulations.

But, did I like the book? In a word: No. Perhaps Kathleen Wiebe was involved in a Mennonite community just like the one she describes, I can't say. However, I must say that the Mennonites I know are warm, caring people who are passionate about the world around them. The fact that the book conveys so much minutiae of Mennonite life leads me to believe that the author was intimate with it, but apparently something happened to turn her against it.

I've been told that in 63 B.C., the Roman general Pompey entered Jerusalem, and marched into the Temple. He came out disgusted, announcing that it was dark and empty. And yet, this was the same temple in which the Prophet Isaiah had seen the glory of the Lord. I believe that the difference was not in the temple, but in the observer. When Kathleen Wiebe looks at the Mennonite church, she finds it dark and empty. When I look at it I see many godly, loving people.

So, if you want a dark view of the church, and one girls transcending of its darkness and backwardness, then you *will* like this book. If, however, you don't see groups as entirely of one stripe, but composed of different kinds of people, some good and some bad, then you will find this book tragically one-sided.

Rating:
Summary: Strongly recommended for young readers ages 12 and older
Review: Fifteen year old Tina Wiens has been raised in the rural community of Homer, Ontario within a strict Mennonite tradition of hard work, no dancing, no dating, and a strong devotion to the church. Now that she is coming of age, Tina is beginning to resent such a restrictive existence. When her older sister becomes pregnant out of wedlock and is shunned by the church, Tina questions the beliefs she has clung to all her life. Tina escapes the tensions in her family and community by spending the summer with her father's aunt, Tante Tina, who has a farm along the Niagara Escarpment. There she works and carves out her own sort of independence and understanding of the world. But before she can be fully an adult she must confront a dark secret from her past that threatens to tear apart her family and her community. Willow Creek Summer is a superbly written novel strongly recommended for young readers ages 12 and older.