Heaven is for Real for Kids by Colton Burpo

I had heard a lot about the adult version of this book Heaven is for Real.  So when I saw the opportunity to get a copy of this book free to review I was excited.  I was hoping this kid's version would summaize what was in the adult version.

The story is basically about a 3 year-old boy Colton who is really sick and breifly dies, goes to heaven, but is eventually revived.  When he comes back he tells his parents about what happened while he was "dead".  It is a true story. 

Apparently he meets his sister that he never met (his mom had had a miscarriage that he never knew about it).  He also tells his parents of other things he had no prior knowledge of.  He meets Jesus and experiences different aspects of heaven that for the most part line up with what scripture says.

This book is written by Colton (now 11) for kids.  The language used is simple and easy to understand and there are illustrations to show the story he tells.

I really wanted to love this book, but I didn't.  I don't have kids so I don't know for sure, but I feel like this book would raise more questions than it would answer.  And it is just a little boy's story of heaven, not necessarily truth (which I believe can only be found in the Bible and will never be fully known until we get to heaven).  I also thought some of the illustrations were kind of creepy.

I don't know that I would read this book to my kids (if I had kids).  I am going to show it to my friend to see if she wants it for her 5 year old though. 

I give this one 2 out of 5 stars.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255 : "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos

When I first started reading Love Walked In, I didn't like it too much. I couldn't get in to the characters, parts of it were too wordy with nothing really happening, and she was constantly referring to movies I had never heard of or seen to create analogies to her life. But by the fourth or fifth chapter I was in to it.

Basically once the two narrators paths meet, things start to get good. The first narrator is Cornelia, a twenty or thirty something coffee shop barista that falls for Martin Grace. The second narrator is Claire a 9 year old girl whose mother is seemingly loosing her mind, while Claire tries to keep it a secret from everyone.

I don't want to give away any of the plot line, but this book is about love. Maybe not in the way you first might think it will be, but in a much better and more realistic way. I really like the main characters and liked that I didn't always see what was coming next. I still hated her references to movies that I didn't know, but that was easy to overlook. In the end they all get an unexpected happy ending that they weren't even looking for.

I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

Come Back by Claire and Mia Fontaine

I'm not too far from my teenage years so I remember some of what it was like, but I have matured enough to recognize my sometimes crazy decisions and behavior during that time. Come Back: A Mother and Daughter's Journey Through Hell and Back brought back some of those memories. It is the story of a mother trying her hardest to protect her daughter from herself as she goes through a painful and difficult time in her life.

The book is alternates narrating from the mother's perspective and the daughter's perspective. Mia, the daughter is going through a tough emotional time and trying to find her own way in life. She runs away from home and gets caught up in drugs. All the while this seems like a nightmare for her mother Claire as she tries to find her daughter and get back the Mia she knows.

I could relate to both the mother and the daughter's thoughts. When Claire does find Mia, she sends her to a "boot camp" type of school two continents away. Mia and Claire go through a rigorous program to find out how they wound up at this point and how to fix it.

It was a good story and one any mother or daughter should read.

I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

Little Beauties by Kim Addonizio

This book was very interesting! Little Beauties by Kim Addonizio is written from the perspective of three characters- Diana, a childhood beauty queen now in her thirties suffering from OCD and her husband just left her, Jamie a seventeen year old girl who gives birth to Stella the third perspective we see. The first chapter I read from Stella's perspective made me cry and I am NOT a crier. But it was so sweet. Jamie was planning on giving Stella up for adoption and thinking bad thoughts about the baby so she won't get attached and then you read Stella's thoughts about how much she already loves Jamie.

These three characters lives become intertwined throughout the book and they each support and learn from each other. Diana has really bad OCD and sees contamination everywhere so it was really interesting to take a peek inside an OCD brain. Jamie is just a kid when she has Stella so it is interesting to peek inside a teenage mother's brain. And Stella inside Jamie and as a newborn baby was a very interesting perspective.

The overlying theme of the book though is motherhood. You see the relationships of various mothers and daughters- Jamie and Stella, Jamie and her mother, Diana and her mother, and even Diana and Jamie and Stella.

I really enjoyed this book and it took me no time at all to get through.

I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

The Girls by Lori Lansens

Lori Lansens novel The Girls is the story of Rose and Ruby Darlen who are the oldest surviving craniopagus twins (they are 29 year old conjoined twins who are joined at the head.) I chose this book because I thought it was such an interesting perspective. I wondered how they did everyday things and what kind of adventures they would have.

When I read the first paragraph I thought it was one of the best things I have ever read:

"I have never looked into my sisters eyes. I have never bathed alone. I have never stood in the grass and raised my arms to a beguiling moon. I've never used an airplane bathroom. Or worn a hat. Or been kissed like that. I've never driven a car. Or slept through the night. Never a private talk. Or a solo walk. I've never climbed a tree. Or faded into a crowd. So many things I've never done, but oh, how I've been loved. And if such things were to be, I'd live a thousand lives as me, to be loved so exponentially."

I love these words. How the dance together and ring so true and leave you with a deep sense of what really matters when you strip everything else away from life.

I was so excited to get in to this book after I read that paragraph. But I think my expectations were set too high. Don't get me wrong I loved the story. I loved reading about their life and all the twists and turns from their perspective. Most of the story is told from Rose's perspective but there are a few chapters sprinkled throughout from Ruby's perspective. There are some very unexpected twists and turns and I did care about the characters.

I just never fell in love with them. I wasn't dying to get home to read. I didn't find myself longing to know what happens next very often. But it was a good story and Lansens does sprinkle some more poetic, moving paragraphs like that first one, but it just didn't grab me as much as that introduction.

I give it 3 out of 5 stars.