The Printed Page

Title: The Silent Gift
Author/website(s): Michael Landon Jr & Cindy Kelley
362 pages
Publisher: Bethany House
Publication date: October ’09
Genre: Historical fiction by faith-based authors
Review book or pleasure reading: Review book
New-to-me author(s): Yes
Would I recommend this book: Definitely
Would I read more from this author(s): Definitely
Journal notes: If I was wandering through a bookstore and saw you holding The Silent Gift in your hands I would stop and tell you how much I enjoyed the story. I’d tell you it isn’t a book to be left sitting on the bookstore shelf. Its a book to be taken home and read more than once. A book that will touch you deep down. A book to be shared with those you love.

I accepted this book with some trepidation and actually wrote that in my responding email the publicist. I don’t usually read books written by faith-based authors but I’m willing to make exceptions if a story sounds especially appealing to me. Such was the story of The Silent Gift. Frankly Michael Landon Jr as an author was a big draw for me. I adored his father watching Michael Landon Sr in both Bonanza and Little House on the Prairie (some of my favorite books as a young girl). Wanting a break from my usually fare of royal intrigue and suspenseful mystery I plucked The Silent Gift off the shelf.

The Silent Gift isn’t going to challenge your beliefs. It isn’t going to try and beat you into submission and convert you. The Silent Gift is going to warm your heart. Hopefully it will spark acts of kindness, giving and paying it forward. Even though it isn’t a holiday story I found it especially fitting to read this time of year. My print edition is going to a new home but I’ll be buying the Kindle edition so that I can re-read this wonderful story over and over again. Like Sarah from Sarah’s Key Jack will be with me for a very long time.

The 1930s were a decade of enormous uncertainty–for the world, for America, and in particular for one lonely, struggling mother and her disabled son. Their story is one of love and enormous sacrifices in the face of circumstances horrendous beyond belief. When her husband leaves her for someone whose time isn’t wrapped up in a silent, handicapped kid, Mary and little Jack are out on their own in a world that has no room for the poor and disabled. Especially not at a time when most Americans are simply trying to survive their economic woes and job losses. But then arrives The Gift…where has it come from, and why? How can a young boy who can neither hear nor speak provide comfort, direction, and sometimes challenges to seekers who learn of the special ability? Whatever the source, its presence brings a single shaft of light and hope to Mary and her beloved Jack. Will it be enough?

(The Silent Gift was provided to me by Eillott at Edify Media. I was not paid and this book is being passed along to the another book blogger through Read It Forward )