Sarah Books: Review

Since entering the world of reviews, I’ve learned that most of the producers/writers of products for homeschoolers are delightful people who are a blessing to work with.  Jim Baumgardner author of the “Sarah books” is no exception.  All of his email and correspondence has been witty, interesting and very personable.  He even autographed each book personally to the Crew members.  He also autographs all books sold through his website.

When one of the Crew members lost her envelope to order more books and asked him for the correct address, he responded to all of us with this comment, “Please do not be concerned about that envelope. Although those are Kansas envelopes and they know their way home to me; I have been reassured by the postal folks that envelopes purchased in other states can be sent across state lines.”  This wonderful sense of humor shines through in “Sarah’s Wish”.  Mr. Baumgardner is a direct descendant of Dr. Baumgardner who plays a prominent role in “Sarah’s Wish”.

“Sarah’s Wish” is an exciting, entertaining story suitable for children and adults of all ages.  Mr. Baumgardner wrote this books for his 9 homeschooled grandchildren, so objectionable language and situations are completely absent and his Christian faith comes through clearly.

Sarah is the 12 year old protagonist in this fictional story about the underground railroad in pre-war Western Ohio. “Sarah’s Wish” grabs the readers attention from the first instant.  Wagon crashes, slave hunters, secrets and a search for a family are set in a rich historical backdrop as Sarah strives to keep the secret her mother left her and protect the “packages” from those who would bring them back to captivity.

In addition to an exciting story, “Sarah’s Wish” includes cursory information on a variety of topics (wheelwrights, traditional Indian games, the orphan train, underground railroad, etc.) and would make a good starting point for a unit study covering this time period.  All this mixed with faith in the one true God who can be trusted to provide and care for us merges together to form a delightful story about a brave little girl who is waiting on God to fulfill her greatest wish.

When you purchase “Sarah’s Wish” you also purchase the rights to download an audio version that you may store on your computer or iPod or burn onto CD.  I thought that this was a lovely feature.  In our home we enjoy having a real book to snuggle up with and read, but we also use a lot of audio books while our hands are busy with something else.  This gives us both options in one purchase.

“Sarah’s Wish” is first in the Sarah books series.  Mr. Baumgardner has already written and published two sequels, “Sarah’s Promise” and “Sarah’s Escape” with plans of more to come.

What we thought:

I thought that some sections of “Sarah’s Wish” were difficult to read aloud because the character’s thoughts are portrayed with italics rather than any written clues that the character is thinking.  Perhaps it is just me, but I generally try to read aloud to the children about 2 hours every day, so I am accustomed to a variety of writing styles, this one just seemed a bit difficult.  However, the reader on the audio version does not seem to have these difficulties and it is not something that would dissuade me from purchasing the book.

For mothers and fathers who believe that one of the highest callings for their daughter is to stay home and raise her children, I want to make you aware of this.  I have not read the sequels, however Sarah does not share these goals.  Sarah says that she wants to be a school teacher when she grows up and that is followed by this dialogue,

“Shore nuff. Ya want to teach – so there ain’t nuttin’ gonna be a stoppin’ ya,” Granny agreed, crossing her arms.  She appeared to dare anybody to disagree.  “Ya can be what yer a mind to be, and the men cain’t keep ya from it.”

Sarah…understood girls certainly couldn’t be wheelwrights, blacksmiths or even a barber.  But she could and would be a schoolteacher.

“Sarah’s Wish” was a fun, exciting read that I would recommend.  I enjoyed the fact that throughout Sarah’s struggles she goes back to the fact that God, her Father, loves her.     Mr. Baumgardner says it better than I could, “The books have been referred to as Christian fiction. I prefer to describe them as Young Adult fiction written by a Christian author. Sarah’s faith is important to her and she lives by it, but the books do not try to convert the reader to anything. The stories do teach Christian principals of living a good life and treating others as you would have them treat you. I do not ignore the evil in the world and Sarah must confront it at times just as we all do.” I completely concur with his statement.

We are very thankful for the audio version of “Sarah’s Wish” and will be burning it onto CD and adding it to our collection of audio books.   I hope that this will be the wave of the future in book publishing.  This feature adds so much value to the book and gets an A+ from our house.

These books are good reads with good content and a good message  are definitely a consideration for Christmas gifts for our family.

An autographed copy of “Sarah’s Wish” is available for $9.99, “Sarah’s Promise” $13.50 and “Sarah’s Escape” $17.50 all with free shipping at  Sarah’s Web.

You may read more of my homeschool reviews on the Raising Olives Review Page or you may want to read about why we homeschool or how we homeschool to better understand my perspective on homeschooling.

“Sarah’s Wish” was sent to our family free of charge to enable me to write this review.  All opinions expressed are my own and I am not otherwise reimbursed for any reviews here on Raising Olives.

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