mkPLANET Book Club: Announcing our Top 5

Here are our TOP 5 book selections, listed in alphabetical order. (Click "Read more..." below for descriptions of each book.)

• Burn-up or Splash Down: Surviving the Culture Shock of Re-entry
• by Marion Knell

• A Frances Hodgson Burnett book (see below for a note on these books)
• 'Little Lord Fauntleroy', 'A Little Princess', or 'The Secret Garden'

• Gods of Noonday: A White Girl's African Life
• by Elaine Neil Orr

• Minor Heresies, Major Departures: A China Mission Boyhood
• by John Jenkins Espey

• Ultimate Sacrifice: An Intimate Look into Missionary Boarding Schools and the Ultimate Sacrifice of the Children
• by Paul R. Friesen

• Members: don't forget to place your vote in our poll!
• Not a member? Create an account today, and vote for your first choice.
• Last day to vote: June 10

1) Burn-up or Splash Down: Surviving the Culture Shock of Re-entry
By Marion Knell

Description: Just like a space shuttle struggles and strains to reenter the earth's atmosphere, so those returning from living overseas can find themselves confused and in a state of panic at coming “home.” While people anticipate that going overseas will require major changes in their lifestyles and thinking, few anticipate the difficulties they will face upon return.

Intended to aid the reentry process, this encouraging, and insightful book deals with these important subjects

* adapting to the passport culture
* identifying areas of potential struggle
* dealing with the emotional challenges
* relocation—finding a new job, a new place to live, learning the social mores
* teenagers—returning is not coming home it is leaving home
* facilitating a smooth transition for those on the receiving end

Expatriates, missionaries, mission executives, mission pastors, mission communities, and supporters interested in easing the reentry experience will benefit greatly from this book.


2) A Frances Hodgson Burnett book (If one of Burnett's three books wins the most votes by June 10th we'll decide which one to read at that time.)

Little Lord Fauntleroy
Description: Young Cedric Errol doesn't know much about Earls, and he certainly never dreamt of becoming one. But when an unexpected visitor arrives to tell him he is to inherit a title and a fortune, he learns quickly what his new position entails. Whisked from the bustling streets of New York to an English country estate, the new Lord Fauntleroy must contend with his grumpy old grandfather and separation from his mother. Yet, despite the challenges of his new life, the little lord proves he has many lessons to teach those around him.

A Little Princess
Description: Sara Crewe, an exceptionally intelligent and imaginative student at Miss Minchin's Select Seminary for Young Ladies, is devastated when her adored, indulgent father dies. Now penniless and banished to a room in the attic, Sara is demeaned, abused, and forced to work as a servant. How this resourceful girl's fortunes change again is at the center of A Little Princess, one of the best-loved stories in all of children's literature.

The Secret Garden
Description: Frightened orphan Mary discovers the joyful wonders of life on the Yorkshire Moors with the help of two local boys and a mysterious, abandoned garden...where all things seem possible.


3) Gods of Noonday: A White Girl's African Life
By Elaine Neil Orr

Description: The daughter of medical missionaries, Elaine Neil Orr was born in Nigeria in 1954, in the midst of the national movement that would lead to independence from Great Britain. But as she tells it in her captivating new memoir, Orr did not grow up as a stranger abroad; she was a girl at home--only half American, the other half Nigerian. When she was sent alone to the United States for high school, she didn't realize how much leaving Africa would cost her.

It was only in her forties, in the crisis of kidney failure, that she began to recover her African life. In writing Gods of Noonday she came to understand her double-rootedness: in the Christian church and the Yoruba shrine, the piano and the talking drum. Memory took her back from Duke Medical Center in North Carolina to the shores of West Africa and her hometown of Ogbomosho in the land of the Yoruba people. Hers was not the dysfunctional American family whose tensions are brought into high relief by the equatorial sun, but a mission girlhood is haunted nonetheless--by spiritual atmospheres and the limits of good intentions.

Orr's father, Lloyd Neil, formerly a high school athlete and World War II pilot, and her mother, Anne, found in Nigeria the adventure that would have escaped them in 1950s America. Elaine identified with her strong, fun-loving father more than her reserved mother, but she herself was as introspective and solitary as her sister Becky was pretty and social. Lloyd acquired a Chevrolet station wagon which carried Elaine and her friends to the Ethiope River, where they swam much as they might have in the United States. But at night the roads were becoming dangerous, and soon the days were clouded by smoke from the coming Biafran War.

Interweaving the lush mission compounds with Nigerian culture, furloughs in the American South with boarding school in Nigeria, and eventually Orr's failing health, the narrative builds in intensity as she recognizes that only through recovering her homeland can she find the strength to survive. Taking its place with classics such as Out of Africa and more recent works like The Poisonwood Bible and Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, Gods of Noonday is a deeply felt, courageous portrait of a woman's life.


4) Minor Heresies, Major Departures: A China Mission Boyhood
By John Jenkins Espey

Description: An American boy, son of Presbyterian missionaries, was born in Shanghai early in this century. The boy lived two lives, one within the pious church compound, the other along the canal and in the alleys of a traditional Chinese city. There he faced the alley brats' Lady Bandit, heard the shrill screams of a child's foot-binding, learned rank obscenities from passing boatmen, and, while still in short pants, chewed Sen-Sen and ogled snake-charmers in the old Native City. He sailed up the Yangtze to attend boarding school, and along with his Boy Scout patrol, met Chiang Kai-shek. And when John Espey grew up, he wrote about his years in China.

This memoir is the story of those years, and while it is a wry, affectionate account, it also conveys an often overlooked picture of China in the years before communism. Seen through the eyes of a child, the interplay of religion, commerce, and American colonialism that took place during this period is revealed more tellingly--and more lightheartedly--than in many an analysis by an "old China hand."

Espey's bent is to use a "Chinese" approach to his subject, that is, to hide a second meaning within his words, to speak in parables. This he learned from both his single-minded missionary father and the family's Chinese cook. The result is that the reader of Minor Heresies, Major Departures will learn a great deal about the Pacific Rim while having a rollicking good time.


5) Ultimate Sacrifice: An Intimate Look into Missionary Boarding Schools and the Ultimate Sacrifice of the Children
By Paul R. Friesen

Description: Cross-generational pain, drive to serve, the fear of failure, and chronic systematic problems will grip your heart as the truth unfolds. The story of one Missionary family caught in a cycle of unresolved grief leading to a seemingly fateful ending of a marriage. But was it fateful or a reprieve to break the cycle?

Paul is a missionary child who exposes the truth about the Missionary family during the 60's and 70's. His personal experience will make you laugh and weep. The ignorance of the sending community to his plight can make you angry. He is not alone. There are many who do not have the energy to tell their story. Healing is a long road for those who have suffered abuse resulting in broken relationships. Break the cycle. Become informed.


Just a few comments...
* All of these books are available to buy at Amazon.com for under $10US and at Amazon.co.uk for under £5 (before tax + shipping).

* A Growing Plant: Reflections of an MK was among our top 5, but we haven't found a store that sells it yet. We've sent a couple emails, one to a pastor and another to a church who have this book in their libraries, asking where they found their copies. We'll see what this turns up. In the meantime, we've taken A Growing Plant out of the running this time around; once we find a place that sells this book we would like to re-introduce it for a future Book Club choice.

* It was a little difficult at first figuring out how to squeeze the three Frances Hodgson Burnett books into the list in a fair way, so they have been listed as one entry in the poll. Hopefully that's okay with everyone. If Burnett's books get the most votes we'll decide which one of the three to read at that time.