2016 Book Favorites

This year I read 116 books ( a healthy number of those where juvenile fiction books). Here is a list of my favorite books and book quotes from 2016. There were so many good ones this year, that I couldn't shorten the list! I hope to carry the wisdom I gained from these books with me into 2017.

Best book quotes of the year

“The areas where we are wise are meant to intersect with someone else’s questions.” –Giddy Up, Eunice: Because Women Need Each Other by Sophie Hudson

“‘I do not see as well without her. I do not hear as well without her. I do not feel as well without her. I would be better off without a hand or a leg than without my sister.’” –The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

“A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.” –Oscar Wilde

“We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.” –C.S. Lewis

“God can’t give us peace and happiness apart from Himself because there is no such thing.” –C.S. Lewis

“Stories are light. Light is precious in a world so dark.” –The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo

“We can glorify God by doing our work in such a way that we make the invisible God visible, by what we do and how we do it.” –Garden City: Work, Rest, and the Art of Being Human by John Mark Comer

“To be here, in this room…with her: it is like medicine.” –All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

“The evening air is a benediction.” –All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

“The Church is not supposed to be a society of perfect people doing great work. It’s a society of forgiven sinners repaying their unpayable debt of love by working for Jesus’s kingdom in every way they can, knowing themselves to be unworthy of the task.” –Simply Jesus by N.T. Wright

“I was strong from losing them, maybe, but any goodness in me came from having them.” –Some Kind of Courage by Dan Gemeinhart

“We’re all desperate to anchor our souls to something we can trust won’t change….Things of this world all eventually reveal what incapable anchors they really are.” –Uninvited: Living Loved When You Feel Less Than, Left Out, and Lonely by Lysa Terkeurst

“Today’s disappointment is making room for tomorrow’s appointment.” -–Uninvited: Living Loved When You Feel Less Than, Left Out, and Lonely by Lysa Terkeurst

“‘People lie all the time, and it’s nothing. But one little lie from you makes me feel so small.’” –Walk on Earth a Stranger by Rae Carson

“‘Living so that you beautify your name, even if it wasn’t beautiful to begin with…making it stand in people’s thoughts for something so lovely and pleasant that they never think of it by itself.’” –Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery

“In this world you’ve just got to hope for the best and prepare for the worst and take whatever God sends.” - Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery

“calming every fear, reducing everything to love.” –Wilderness Essays by John Muir

“real spiritual growth happens as we look up to Christ and what he did, out to our neighbors and what they need, not in to ourselves and how we’re doing.” –Jesus+Nothing=Everything by Tullian Tchividjian

“If He wants your hands free, He has something to put in them.” –Audacious by Beth Moore

“it was a common misconception that booksellers looked after books. They look after people.” –The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George

“This season is about becoming….Now is your time. Become, believe, try. Walk closely with people you love, and with other people who believe that God is very good and life is a grand adventure. Don’t spend time with people who make you feel like less than you are. Don’t get stuck in the past, and don’t try to fast-forward yourself into a future you haven’t yet earned. Give today all the love and intensity and courage you can, and keep traveling honestly along life’s path.” - Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist

“Perhaps there is some secret sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers. How delightful if that were true.” - The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer

“‘Red hair is my life long sorrow.’” –Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

“‘I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.’”–Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

“A book is like a garden carried in the pocket.” -Letters from Skye by Jessica Brockmole

“If God simply overlooks sin, then he would be neither holy nor just.” -Counter Culture by David Platt

“He wants His people to provide for the poor, to value the unborn, to care for orphans and widows, to defend marriage, to war against sexual immortality in all its forms in every area of our lives, to rescue people from slavery, to proclaim and practice truth regardless of the risk, to love our neighbors as ourselves regardless of their ethnicity, and to proclaim the gospel to all nations.” -Counter Culture by David Platt

“God-the same God who created everything…saw fit to become like me in order to win my heart. To win our hearts. He squeezed light-years’ worth of glory into a human body and became a man. For us…He died. And He lives. So that we can really live.” -I Don’t Wait Anymore by Grace Thornton

“that’s how people know we belong to Him-by our love.” -I Don’t Wait Anymore by Grace Thornton

“A faith without some doubts is like a human body without any antibodies in it…they…will find themselves defenseless against either the experience of tragedy or the probing questions of a smart skeptic. A person’s faith can collapse almost overnight if she has failed over the years to listen patiently to her own doubts…” - The Reason for God by Timothy Keller

“Once you realize how Jesus changed for you and gave himself for you, you aren’t afraid of giving up your freedom and therefore finding your freedom in him.” - The Reason for God by Timothy Keller

“if you don’t live for Jesus you will live for something else.” - The Reason for God by Timothy Keller

“The very thing that makes you you, that makes you great, that makes you different from everyone else is also the thing that, unchecked, will ruin you.” - Present over Perfect by Shauna Niequist

“Sometimes the darkest parts of us can be our teachers in ways that our sweeter qualities never could.” - Present over Perfect by Shauna Niequist

“The kitchen is bright and smells like coffee, and at this moment I cannot remember what it is to feel afraid.” - Some Kind of Happiness by Claire Legrand

“If you are afraid, sad, tired, or lonely, if you feel lost or strange, if you crave stories and adventure, and the magic possibility of a forest path-this book is for you.” - Some Kind of Happiness by Claire Legrand

“God was there to hold what was too heavy to carry.” - Lizzy and Jane by Katherine Reay

“There was a moment, one brief moment, where the act of disobedience hung in the air like a buttered crumpet, waiting to be fetched and gobbled up.” - Nooks and Crannies by Jessica Lawson

“When hope has left your side, carry on with the assumption that it simply went to fetch a quick bite to eat and will return shortly.” - Nooks and Crannies by Jessica Lawson

“God put his love for you in the depths of time, and he will never remove it from you…” - Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God by Timothy Keller

“if you love anything at all in this world more than God, you will crush that object under the weight of your expectations, and it will eventually break your heart.” - Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God by Timothy Keller

“In our plugged-in, 24/7/365 world drumming to an insistent, unvarying beat every single day, we are prone to miss the cadence of eternity. God has built his own rhythms and restoration and celebration into our days…” - Moments and Days: How our Holy Celebrations Shape our Faith by Michelle Van Loon

“Sabbath invites us into a discipline of rest…Advent…simplicity. Christmas…generosity. Epiphany…mission. Lent…fasting. Holy Week…contemplation. Easter…celebration. Pentecost…community. Ordinary Time…service.” - Moments and Days: How our Holy Celebrations Shape our Faith by Michelle Van Loon

“We are wild and free women. We can hold love and truth equally in our hands. We can be passionate and tolerant; we can be truth tellers while being loving and patient like Jesus is. We can walk with Jesus and watch how He loves.” - Wild and Free by Jess Connolly and Hayley Morgan

“She didn’t understand how anyone could only love a part. Her greedy heart didn’t work that way.” –Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson

“To love someone…was like falling from somewhere high up and breaking in half, and only one person having the secret to the puzzle of putting her back together.” -–Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson

“What if we saw Scripture as not to be memorized for the sake of apologetics, but for the sake of giving language to the beauty of this God-saturated world?” - Out of the House of Bread by Preston Yancey

“Trust that the One who formed you will not abandon you, that the One who guides you does not guide you unsafely. God may not be a God of our comfort, but God is a God of our good.” - Out of the House of Bread by Preston Yancey

“the Scriptures are a tuning fork for adjusting our ears to the tone of God’s voice….to the character that his voice expresses, so that we can identify his true voice over false ones.” - The Listening Life by Adam S. McHugh

“I wanted to avail myself of creation’s pulpit, to sit in rocky and sandy and grassy chapels that I might hear their sermons.” - The Listening Life by Adam S. McHugh

Favorite books of the year

(bold titles-Top favorites; *-books I reread this year)

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery *

Arrowood by Laura McHugh

At the Water’s Edge by Sara Gruen

Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin

Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist

Bread and Wine by Shauna Niequist

Catching a Storyfish by Janice N. Harrington

Circus Mirandus by Cassie Beasley

Counter Culture by David Platt

Curious Faith by Logan Wolfram

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton *

The Girl You Left Behind by Jo Jo Moyes

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer *

I Don’t Wait Anymore by Grace Thornton

Letters from Skye by Jessica Brockmole

The Listening Life by Adam S. McHugh

Looking for Lovely by Annie F. Downs

Maybe a Fox by Kathi Appelt

Me Before You by Jo Jo Moyes

Moments and Days: How our Holy Celebrations Shape our Faith by Michelle Van Loon

Nooks and Crannies by Jessica Lawson

Out of the House of Bread by Preston Yancey

Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God by Timothy Keller

Present over Perfect by Shauna Niequist

The Reason for God by Timothy Keller

Some Kind of Happiness by Claire Legrand

Summerlost by Ally Condie

The Trouble with Goats and Sheep by Joanna Cannon

The War That Saved My Life by Kimberley Brubaker Bradley

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin

Wild and Free by Jess Connolly and Hayley Morgan

2015 Book Wrap-up

This year I kept track of all the books that I read and wrote down my favorite quotes from them. I did this same thing last year and it brought me so much joy to look back at all the books I read that year and all the things they taught me. This year I read 121 books, and that seems like a lot but most of them were required as part of my weekly assignments for my library science classes. A lot of them were also children's and young adult books, not that I'm complaining because children's books are my favorite to read. I took a young adult literature class this year and I read more young adult books in a semester than I have in my entire life. I felt very angsty by the end of the semester. When I went through all the books, I realized that I really don't read a lot of regular fiction. And the ones I do read normally aren't my favorite. These books usually just remind me how icky being an adult is. Never grow up, never surrender! So that is why there is only one regular fiction book on my list...my bad. 

This year I tried to pick my favorites in each category that I read a lot of (fiction, nonfiction, children's, young adult, and Christian living), as well as my favorite quotes from them. I also included some of my favorite quotes from books I've read that weren't necessarily my favorite books, but that had certain ideas that really stuck with me. Then I made a list of the books that were my ultimate favorites of the year. Looking back, I probably went a little overboard with the lists because, let's be honest, nobody cares but me. But lists are wonderful and books are wonderful, so why the heck not. 

Best Children’s Books

·      The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend by Dan Santat- “And together they did the unimaginable.”

·      The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus by Jen Bryant and Melissa Sweet

·      The Biggest Story by Kevin DeYoung, Illustrated by Don Clark- “Death had no claim on him. The Devil had no case against him. And sin had no wages for him that he couldn’t pay.”

·      How the Sun Got to Coco’s House by Bob Graham- “The sun tumbled end over end. It was caught briefly in the eye of a whale.” “Then the sun leaped whole countries, chasing the night.”

·      Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan- “‘Music does not have a race or a disposition!...Every instrument has a voice that contributes. Music is a universal language. A universal religion of sorts…. Music surpasses all distinctions between people.’”

·      An Elephant in the Garden by Michael Morpugo- “When you are sixteen you feel things very immediately, very strongly, very certainly.”

·      The Marvels by Brian Selznick- “That’s what life is, Joseph realized, miracles and sadness, side by side.”

·      The Librarian’s Adventure by Allison Bass J

·      Serafina and the Black Cloak by Robert Beatty- “everyone knew something. And everyone was a little different…. It made her think that maybe God intended for them to all fit together, like a puzzle made whole.” “Our character isn’t defined by the battles we win or lose, but by the battles we dare to fight.”

·      Greenglass House by Kate Milford- “He was just a kid who didn’t know where he came from and hadn’t had any say in where he’d ended up. But, he told himself, he did get to decide what he was going to do from here….He got to choose who and what he was going to be from now on.”

·      Nest by Esther Ehrlich- “‘Mmmm, you smell like fresh air. You smell like stars.’”  “‘Let’s put peanut butter on his head and see what the squirrels do.’”

·      Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling- “Alas! Earwax!” “It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.” “To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.”

·      Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling- Of all the trees we could’ve hit, we had to get one that hits back.” “What exactly is the function of a rubber duck?”

·      Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling- “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.” “Mischief managed.” “Don’t let the muggles get you down.”

·      Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling- “If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.” “It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be.”

·      Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling- “‘You’re a prefect? Oh Ronnie! That’s everyone in the family!’ ‘What are Fred and I? Next door neighbors?’” “‘Don’t worry. You’re just as sane as I am.’”

·      Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling- “‘Let us step into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure.’” “‘I am not worried, Harry,’ said Dumbledore, his voice a little stronger, despite the freezing water, ‘I am with you.’”

·      Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling- “‘Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?’” “‘Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all those who live without love.’” “‘After all this time?’ ‘Always…’” 

Best Young Adult Books

·      Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly- “There is only one thing I fear now-love. For I have seen it and I have felt it and I know that it is love, not death, that undoes us.”

·      Does My Head Look Big In This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah

·      I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson- “I’m over being a coward. I’m sick of being on pause, of being buried and hidden, of being petrified…. I don’t want to imagine meadows, I want to run through them.”

·      Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier

·      The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson- “All her knowledge is gone now. Everything she ever learned, or heard, or saw…. I heard this expression once: Each time someone dies, a library burns.”

·      Matched by Allie Condie 

Best Nonfiction Books

·      The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman- “Love makes requests, not demands.”

·      Rising Strong by Brené Brown- “The most dangerous stories we make up are the narratives that diminish our inherent worthiness. We must reclaim the truth about our lovability, divinity, and creativity.” “To love with any level of intensity and honesty is to be vulnerable…to love is to know the loss of love. Heartbreak is unavoidable unless we choose not to love at all.” Empathy is the antidote to shame and it is the heart of connection.”

·      I Work at the Public Library by Gina Sheridan- “The circus only comes to town once a year, but the library is always there to amaze and entertain.”

·      Food: A Love Story by Jim Gaffigan- “I wouldn’t trust them skinnies with food advice.” “When I talk about bacon, I’m talking about the American version of bacon, which is pork belly bacon, the kind Jesus ate.” “If I went to a shaman for help with this problem, he would never tell me what my spirit animal was for fear I would eat it.”

·      If You Find This Letter by Hannah Brencher- “‘Our hearts are restless until they rest in you.’ I loved that. I loved knowing a restless heart wasn’t an accident. I loved the idea of finding the sort of God who would just let you rest in Him.”  “And if you’ve ever loved someone in a way where it seems the oxygen is rushing out of the room when they walk in, then you know certain truths. Certain unchangeable truths about love: You want to give them everything in your world…everything outside of your orbit. And if they need the morning to come, you want to be that morning for them. And if they need the stars, you want to be those fragments of light too. And you just want to sit by them. And you just want to know they’re doing well. And you just want to witness their greatness, the moment they’re finally shining out. You want to be right there next to them for that. And you want that honor of being in their life.” 

Best Christian Living Books

·      How to Worship a King by Zach Neese- “Your Father is your audience. And He just loves to hear you sing.” “A worshiper comes because of love. When love is the motivation of your heart, everything you do becomes worship.”

·      For the Love by Jen Hatmaker- “God created an entire package. It all counts. There are no throwaway qualities…. Nothing is wasted; not a characteristic, preference, experience, tragedy, quirk, nothing. It is all you and it is all purpose and it can be used for great and glorious good.” “Condemnation is a trick of the enemy, no the language of the heavens.”

·      Searching for Sunday by Rachel Held Evans- “We all long for someone to tell us who we are. The great struggle of the Christian life is to take God’s name for us, to believe we are beloved, and to believe that is enough.”

·      An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor- “Test the premise that you are worth more than what you can produce- that even if you spent one whole day being good for nothing you could still be precious in God’s sight.”

·      Nobody’s Cuter Than You by Melanie Shankle- “A person who loves us for exactly who we are, yet teaches us to be better because of who they are…” “It was a proud moment for me to realize that my best friend has a two-whoopee cushion home. I mean, anyone can have one whoopee cushion, but to have a spare? That’s just dedication to a lost art form.” “And that’s the key that makes certain friendships deeper than others-when those friendships are formed in God’s name. There are those people God brings into our lives and uses as iron sharpens iron to refine us and shape us and help us become more like the person he created us to be.”

·      Simply Tuesday by Emily P. Freeman- “We need a rescuer to come and save us from the bondage of the lie that whispers we have to build and grow and be known by all. The good news is we have one. The better news is he’s already come. And the best news is he keeps showing up on our everyday Tuesdays…” “Celebrate your smallness.”

·      Longing for Paris by Sarah Mae- “When we are fully ourselves, He is fully glorified.” “‘Life doesn’t justify living. Only eternity does.’… I feel like eternity has to shape our dailiness.” “Even if I never have my longings fulfilled on this earth, He is good.”

·      Wild in the Hollow by Amber C. Haines- “God is everywhere. Yoga poses and Gregorian chant, buttermilk cornbread, the Grand Canyon, and the picture of a rainbow drawn by the hand of my two-year-old all speak of him if we’re looking.”

·      Introverts in the Church by Adam S. McHugh- “When she was young, she was surprised to hear her mother describe her as ‘quiet’ because ‘it was never quiet in my head.’” “Solitude is a way of creating space for the presence of Another, the voice of the One who called the world and us into existence.”

·      Scary Close by Donald Miller- “The more fully we live into ourselves, the more impact we will have.” “Souls of men will be healed and perhaps even made complete once we are united with God and not a second before…Jesus never offers that completion here on earth. He only asks us to trust him and follow him to the metaphorical wedding we will experience in heaven.”

·      Praying God’s Word by Beth Moore- “No love of the natural heart is safe unless the human heart has been satisfied by God first.” “Help me not have the sin of unbelief after all you’ve done to tell me you love me and demonstrate your love for me.” “You are defined by the love and acceptance of the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe. He happens to think you are worth loving… and keeping. Find your identity in Him.” 

Best Fiction Books

·      The Lake House by Kate Morton-“She remembered love, all-encompassing, young-people love, even though it had been a long time since she’d felt it. There was beauty in love like that, just as certainly as there was danger. Love like that made the rest of the world disappear.” “Love….We do not always have a choice in where and how and whom, and love gives us the courage to withstand that which we never thought we could.”

Other great books and quotes

·      Princess Academy: The Forgotten Sisters by Shannon Hale- “Think of learning as storing up supplies you may need for a harsh winter.”

·      Book Scavenger by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman- “Life is a game, and books are the tokens.”

·      The Night Gardener by Jonathan Auxier- “Don’t confuse what you do with who you are.”  “There’s no better place for writing than a rooftop- the fresh air makes your words come out like songs.”

·      Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse- “I know now that all the time I was trying to get out of the dust, the fact is, what I am, I am because of the dust. And what I am is good enough. Even for me.”

·      Absolutely Almost by Lisa Graff- “I know, at least I think I do, maybe, sometimes, definitely, what I’m worth. I know what I’m worth. I absolutely almost do.”

·      Abundant Simplicity by Jan Johnson- “Fall in love with God and let that decide everything…”

·      Jesus the One and Only by Beth Moore- “I trust who He is even when I have no idea what He’s doing.”

·      The Witch’s Boy by Kelly Barnhill- “Family. The word had weight and heft, like an anchor in a stormy sea.”  “A word, after all, is a kind of magic. It locks the substance of a thing in sound or symbol, and affixes it to the ear, or paper, or stone. Words call the world into being.”

·      Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott- “I guess it’s like discovering you’re on the shelf of a pawnshop, dusty, and forgotten and maybe not worth very much. But Jesus comes in and tells the pawnbroker, ‘I’ll take her place on the shelf. Let her go outside again.’”  “Courage is fear that has said its prayers.”

·      Why Not Me? By Mindy Kaling- “even though I wish I could be thin, I don’t wish for it with all of my heart. Because my heart is reserved for way more important things.”  “People who say breakfast should be the biggest meal are insane. You can’t have dessert at breakfast.”

·      Believing Jesus by Lisa Harper- “We must make Him the main source we draw from, because our Creator Redeemer is the only one with inexhaustible resources. He’s the only one who has the capacity to be our power grid. When we plug ourselves into anyone else, there’s bound to be a lost connection or a complete blackout.”   
·      The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin- “We agree to be disappointed sometimes so that we can be exhilarated every now and again.”  “We aren’t the things we collect, acquire, read. We are, for as long as we are here, only love. The things we loved. The people we loved.”  “My life is in these books…read these and know my heart.”

Best Overall Books of 2015

·      An Elephant in the Garden by Michael Morpugo

·      For the Love by Jen Hatmaker

·      Nobody’s Cuter Than You by Melanie Shankle

·      Simply Tuesday by Emily P. Freeman

·      The Lake House by Kate Morton

·      I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

·      I Work at the Public Library by Gina Sheridan

·      Rising Strong by Brené Brown

·      Food: A Love Story by Jim Gaffigan

·      If You Find This Letter by Hannah Brencher

·      All the Harry Potter books…they somehow keep getting better

Favorite Books from 2014

This year for every book I read I wrote a quote from it that I liked. I put all these quotes in a tub. Today I went through all these quote slips. I read 130 books this year (mostly children’s chapter books from my children’s literature class). I read so many different kinds of books and I gained a lot of wisdom from them. So I thought I’d share my favorite books and book quotes from this year. 

My favorite book quotes from 2014

·      “ I hope that men will forgive me for not being Zooey Deschanel.”

-“Haiku for the Single Girl” by Beth Griffenhagen

·      “Yes, we are unworthy of this eternal love relationship, but we are not worthless. The worth of something is determined by the price someone is willing to pay for it. Look at the price that was paid to allow us to enter into this eternally secure relationship with God.”

-“A Woman and Her God” by multiple authors

·      “A good book is like a good friend. It will stay with you for the rest of your life. When you first get to know it, it will give you excitement and adventure, and years later it will provide you with comfort and familiarity.”

-“First Impressions” by Charlie Lovett

·      “I wanted so desperately to apologize for the many ways I had misrepresented the Lord.”

“Passion is tricky, though, because it can point to nothing as easily as it points to something.”

“The problem is not out there; the problem is the needy beast of a thing that lives in my chest.”

-“Blue Like Jazz” by Donald Miller

·      “Life is always uncertain…we cannot let the fear of what might happen stop us living as we choose.”

-“The Rose Garden” by Susanna Kearsley

·      “Lots of guys only give away their heart if they know they’re going to get a heart in return, so it evens out. But I think giving away your heart means more when you don’t know what’s going to happen, when you might get nothing back…what good is a heart if you keep it to yourself?”

-“Twerp” by Mark Goldbatt

·       “You are one of a kind, made on purpose, deeply loved, and called to be courageous.”

-“Let’s All Be Brave” by Annie F. Downs

·      “They say that lightning never strikes in the same place twice, but the same is not true for courage. As it turns out, when courage strikes, it almost always begets more courage.”

-“The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp” by Kathi Appelt

·      “We must dare to show up and let ourselves be seen.”

-“Daring Greatly” by Brené Brown

·      “Imagine, a Being with a mind as great as God’s, with feet like trees and a voice like rushing wind, telling you are His cherished creation.”

-“Searching for God Knows What” by Donald Miller

·       “Give me the wisdom to invest in things with eternal value.”

-“Love, Skip, Jump” by Shelene Bryan

·      “That’s what love does- it pursue blindly, unflinchingly and without end.”

-“Love Does” by Bob Goff

·      “We walk into the future in God-glorifying confidence, not because the future is known to us but because it is known to God.”

-“Just Do Something” by Kevin DeYoung

·      “One can’t learn much and also be comfortable.”

-“Chasing Vermeer” by Blue Balliett

·      “Open your arms to life! Let it strut into your heart in all its messy glory.”

-“Each Little Bird That Sings” by Deborah Wiles

Favorite Books of 2014

·      “Love Does” by Bob Goff

·      “Love, Skip, Jump: Start Living the Adventure of Yes” by Shelene Bryan

·      “Searching for God Knows What” by Donald Miller

·      “Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek” by Maya Van Wagenen

·      “Daring Greatly” by Brené Brown

·      “A Million Little Ways” by Emily P. Freeman

·      “The Gifts of Imperfection” by Brené Brown

·      “Blue Like Jazz” by Donald Miller

·      “A Snicker of Magic” by Natalie Lloyd

·      “The Winter Sea” by Susanna Kearsley

·      “Mariana” by Susanna Kearsley

·       “Through Painted Deserts” by Donald Miller

·      “Let’s All Be Brave” by Annie F. Downs 
·          “A Lineage of Grace” by Francine Rivers

·      “The Wednesday Wars” by Gary D. Schmidt

·      Allison’s book that she let me preview!

·      “The Amazing Adventures of Starr” that my family created for my nephew