My blurb …
| Genre | Amish, Reference |
| Pub. Date | 2 Aug 2022 |
| Pages | 191 |
| Publisher | Herald Press |
| Cover | Great cover for this book |
| Rating | 5 stars |
PLEASE, please, please — if you write Amish novels, stories, or novellas, BUY THIS BOOK. If you are an avid Amish story reader, you’ll want this book.
Why? For a decade, the author, a driver for the Amish, talked with the Amish women of Lancaster County, PA — married and unmarried. She joined in their tasks, what they thought, and shared about how they truly live as Amish. Not a boring textbook-type of read but a fascinating fresh view unlike anything out there.
My review …
What a fantastic resource book! Filled with interesting information about Amish women which includes their families, church, weddings, gardening, courting …
The book shows the lives of Old Order Amish women and their families; a high percentage of the Amish in Lancaster are of the Old Order sect.
I can’t help it. I absolutely LOVED this book. Finally, a book that told me things I really wanted to know about the Amish.
You see, I grew up near Jamesport, Missouri where the Old Order Amish settled in the early 1950s. My first school — a one-room schoolhouse attended by all eight grades, became the first Amish school also attended by all eight grades. Moved to a new location, of course. I would wonder who was sitting at my desk.
Being around the Amish from age 9 until I left for college, I feel like I owe portraying them in fiction books need to be accurately acceptable.
Now writers have a resource for even small details of Amish life. I want this book in my personal library for my own research. Right now it is only available in hardcopy even though I read it in e-ARC format.
The author, Judy Stavisky, tells us “real-life” stories of Amish life. I highlighted SO many passages that I wanted to revisit. One Amish mother tells her that the Amish know far more about the “English” than we know about them. Ms. Stavisky tells us that just because they dress the same does not mean they ARE the same. These are individual people with a common core of beliefs and values.
One of the things I enjoyed the most was …
… the memories it brought back. I was a farmer’s daughter so the gardening, caring for animals, and chores after school. The concept of “hard work starts early” when you are Amish. The same was true for us farmers’ kids. You played AFTER your chores were done. Some took most of the day. I remembered after reading about garden planning that my mother would plan her garden long before my dad ran the cultivator over the earth. One of the things I got to do was go with her to get the seeds.
The Amish help each other when someone is injured or dies. One of my great memories was driving the tractor pulling the hay wagon as bales were picked up by usually two men, one on each side, and tossed up. Then another man stacked the bales just right so a lot could be taken back to the barn to be stored BUT not tip and fall off. There’s a skill to that stacking. BTW, I was nine years old when I became a “haying” tractor driver. Oh — those other men? Our neighbors. And when the hay was put up on their farms, my dad would go to help them.
In many ways, I could identify with the true stories in In Plain View. One-room schoolhouse. Early responsibilities for animals. Washing hung outside. Like the Amish, my mother hung the “unmentionables” where they were not easily seen. If you came into our backyard, you STILL wouldn’t see them because we had a double line and those were at the back BEHIND the first clothesline. My mother did a LOT of canning. We had a huge garden.
So, I am going to repeat the first words of this post: PLEASE, please, please — if you write Amish novels, stories, or novellas, BUY THIS BOOK. If you are an avid Amish story reader, you’ll want this book.
I received a complimentary e-ARC copy of In Plain View via NetGalley from the publisher, Herald Press. A positive review was not required; the opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.
Rating: 5 stars — I’d give it 10 if I could.
#InPlainView #NetGalley #JudyStavisky
