by Jason Joyner | Oct 19, 2006 | Blog, Uncategorized
This week’s blog tour for the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance involves best-selling Karen Kingsbury and her new novel, Like Dandelion Dust. Just a FYI: Since the CFBA is doing a book a week now, I don’t have time and don’t get to read every book. However, by our highlighting one book, it raises its profile on the web to help it. Tune in next week for my personal review of the next tour book. I know you can’t wait…
And for this week’s tour.
About the Author:
USA Today and New York Times bestselling author Karen Kingsbury is America’s #1 inspirational novelist. There are nearly 5 million copies of her award-winning books in print, including more than two million copies sold in the past year. Karen has written more than 30 novels, nine of which have hit #1 on national lists, including award-winning Oceans Apart, One Tuesday Morning, Beyond Tuesday Morning, the Redemption Series and Firstborn Series, and several other bestsellers, one of which was the basis for a CBS Movie-of-the-Week and Gideon’s Gift, which is currently in production as a major theatrical release for Christmas 2007.
Karen lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, Don, and their six children, three of whom are adopted from Haiti.
About the Book:
A PEACEFUL TOWN…
AN IDYLLIC FAMILY…
A PHONE CALL THAT THREATENS THEM ALL.
Jack and Molly Campbell enjoyed an idyllic life (great house in a fancy neighborhood, high-paying job, and a beautiful little boy) in their small hometown outside Atlanta with their adopted 4-year-old, Joey. Then they receive the phone call that shatters their world: a social worker delivers the news that Joey’s biological father has been released from prison and is ready to start lifeover with his son. (It’s discovered that Joey’s birth mother forged the signature of Joey’s birth father, making it a fraudulent adoption.) When a judge rules that Joey must be returned to his father (a man who cannot separatee love and violence), the Campbells, in a silent haze of grief and utter disbelief, watch their son pick a dandelion and blow the feathery seeds into the wind.
Struggling with the dilemma of following the law, their hearts, and what they know to be morally right, the Campbells find that desperation leads to dangerous thoughts. What if they can devise a plan? Take Joey and simply disappear….LIKE DANDELION DUST.
Review by Mimi Pearson
by Jason Joyner | Oct 19, 2006 | Blog, Uncategorized
This week’s blog tour for the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance involves best-selling Karen Kingsbury and her new novel, Like Dandelion Dust. Just a FYI: Since the CFBA is doing a book a week now, I don’t have time and don’t get to read every book. However, by our highlighting one book, it raises its profile on the web to help it. Tune in next week for my personal review of the next tour book. I know you can’t wait…
And for this week’s tour.
About the Author:
USA Today and New York Times bestselling author Karen Kingsbury is America’s #1 inspirational novelist. There are nearly 5 million copies of her award-winning books in print, including more than two million copies sold in the past year. Karen has written more than 30 novels, nine of which have hit #1 on national lists, including award-winning Oceans Apart, One Tuesday Morning, Beyond Tuesday Morning, the Redemption Series and Firstborn Series, and several other bestsellers, one of which was the basis for a CBS Movie-of-the-Week and Gideon’s Gift, which is currently in production as a major theatrical release for Christmas 2007.
Karen lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, Don, and their six children, three of whom are adopted from Haiti.
About the Book:
A PEACEFUL TOWN…
AN IDYLLIC FAMILY…
A PHONE CALL THAT THREATENS THEM ALL.
Jack and Molly Campbell enjoyed an idyllic life (great house in a fancy neighborhood, high-paying job, and a beautiful little boy) in their small hometown outside Atlanta with their adopted 4-year-old, Joey. Then they receive the phone call that shatters their world: a social worker delivers the news that Joey’s biological father has been released from prison and is ready to start lifeover with his son. (It’s discovered that Joey’s birth mother forged the signature of Joey’s birth father, making it a fraudulent adoption.) When a judge rules that Joey must be returned to his father (a man who cannot separatee love and violence), the Campbells, in a silent haze of grief and utter disbelief, watch their son pick a dandelion and blow the feathery seeds into the wind.
Struggling with the dilemma of following the law, their hearts, and what they know to be morally right, the Campbells find that desperation leads to dangerous thoughts. What if they can devise a plan? Take Joey and simply disappear….LIKE DANDELION DUST.
Review by Mimi Pearson
by Jason Joyner | Oct 18, 2006 | Blog, Uncategorized
Make sure you read yesterday’s post, because today really is a follow up to this. We’re discussint the idea of “the art work as an art work”. Seems pretty self-explanatory, until we think of the baggage that is often put on art. We can’t just have Christian novels, comic books, or music. They have to be evangelistic. If we aren’t reaching people with the gospel of Christ, then art has no value.
Obviously that is extreme, but we can have art for beauty’s sake. But concerning the nature of a work of art, what perspectives can we have?
1. Art for art’s sake. “This is the notion that art is just there and that is all there is to it”. People may say there is no meaning to an art work, that it just is. However, there is always meaning to something we do, it just may not be apparent. Everything speaks of where we come from. We’ll talk more on this next time.
2. Art is only an embodiment of a message. Basically it is a vehicle for propoganda. But Schaeffer says that if either the Christian or non-Christian reduces art to just the vehicle for the message, then art is only intellectual and loses its intrinsic art value. If we use a work of art only to get a message across, it is little more than a tract.
3. The artist makes a work of art, and then the body of his work shows his world-view. Schaeffer argues that this is the possibility that holds out that something can be a great work of art. Sometimes we can produce something that is more message driven, and another time we do a work that is more towards pure artistic. Over time, these works will show where the creator is coming from. I think of novelist Brandilyn Collins, whose books have a variety of levels of spirituality. Some are very blatant, as God gives visions to her protagonist. In her newest book, Violet Dawn, the topic of God is lightly touched. Brandilyn has shared on her blog that the story drives the spiritual content, and she’s not going to force it in there just to speak an evangelistic message.
Schaeffer has this to say:
How then should an artist begin to do his work? I would insist that he begin by setting out to make a work of art. He should say to himself, “I am going to make a work of art.”(emphasis original)
by Jason Joyner | Oct 18, 2006 | Blog, Uncategorized
Make sure you read yesterday’s post, because today really is a follow up to this. We’re discussint the idea of “the art work as an art work”. Seems pretty self-explanatory, until we think of the baggage that is often put on art. We can’t just have Christian novels, comic books, or music. They have to be evangelistic. If we aren’t reaching people with the gospel of Christ, then art has no value.
Obviously that is extreme, but we can have art for beauty’s sake. But concerning the nature of a work of art, what perspectives can we have?
1. Art for art’s sake. “This is the notion that art is just there and that is all there is to it”. People may say there is no meaning to an art work, that it just is. However, there is always meaning to something we do, it just may not be apparent. Everything speaks of where we come from. We’ll talk more on this next time.
2. Art is only an embodiment of a message. Basically it is a vehicle for propoganda. But Schaeffer says that if either the Christian or non-Christian reduces art to just the vehicle for the message, then art is only intellectual and loses its intrinsic art value. If we use a work of art only to get a message across, it is little more than a tract.
3. The artist makes a work of art, and then the body of his work shows his world-view. Schaeffer argues that this is the possibility that holds out that something can be a great work of art. Sometimes we can produce something that is more message driven, and another time we do a work that is more towards pure artistic. Over time, these works will show where the creator is coming from. I think of novelist Brandilyn Collins, whose books have a variety of levels of spirituality. Some are very blatant, as God gives visions to her protagonist. In her newest book, Violet Dawn, the topic of God is lightly touched. Brandilyn has shared on her blog that the story drives the spiritual content, and she’s not going to force it in there just to speak an evangelistic message.
Schaeffer has this to say:
How then should an artist begin to do his work? I would insist that he begin by setting out to make a work of art. He should say to himself, “I am going to make a work of art.”(emphasis original)
by Jason Joyner | Oct 17, 2006 | Blog, Uncategorized
Back to our regular programming (for a bit, at least). I had to count my “art” posts to figure out what day we were on.
In Art and the Bible, Francis Schaeffer started with explaining a biblical justification of art. The second part is entitled “Some Perspectives on Art”, and he lists 11 different perspective that he discusses. He admits this is not exhaustive, but they are helpful ways for a Christian to look at art. I intend to discuss some of them together, but the first one is important enough to discuss alone: The Art Work as an Art Work.
Basically, this is stated as “a work of art has a value in itself”. As I said in previous posts, art has intrinsic value just for beauty’s sake. It does not necessarily have to have external value. That is the biblical perspective: remember the pillar in the temple that was beautifully decorated, but had no utilitarian purpose.
Schaeffer has some advice for an artist, which I think is a key point for novelists/writers of fiction to keep in mind.
How should an artist begin to do his work as an artist? I would insist that he begin his work as an artist by setting out to make a work of art. What that would mean is different in sculpture and poetry, for example, but in all caases the artist should be setting out to make a work of art.
He goes on to discuss the fact that creativity is an act of worship because our God is the ultimate Creator. To create is one of the ways that we are “made in His image”, and just by creating something beautiful, we can honor Him.
Second, an art work has value as a creation because man is made in the image of God, and therefore man not only can love and think and feel emotion, but also has the capacity to create. Being in the image of the Creator, we are called upon to have creativity.
We all manifest this creativity differently. Some creatively solve math problems, or build houses. Creativity is not limited to the artist. We all walk in creativity, even if we all don’t feel that we create art. But art is an obvious act of creation.
Sometimes we do lose the the idea of art having value intrinsically. Schaeffer criticizes evangelicals when he says:
I am afraid, however, that as evangelicals we have largely made [this mistake]. Too often we think that a work of art has value only if we reduce it to a tract. This too is to view art solely as a message for the intellect.
Tomorrow I’ll talk about three perspectives regarding this idea of art as art.
by Jason Joyner | Oct 17, 2006 | Blog, Uncategorized
Back to our regular programming (for a bit, at least). I had to count my “art” posts to figure out what day we were on.
In Art and the Bible, Francis Schaeffer started with explaining a biblical justification of art. The second part is entitled “Some Perspectives on Art”, and he lists 11 different perspective that he discusses. He admits this is not exhaustive, but they are helpful ways for a Christian to look at art. I intend to discuss some of them together, but the first one is important enough to discuss alone: The Art Work as an Art Work.
Basically, this is stated as “a work of art has a value in itself”. As I said in previous posts, art has intrinsic value just for beauty’s sake. It does not necessarily have to have external value. That is the biblical perspective: remember the pillar in the temple that was beautifully decorated, but had no utilitarian purpose.
Schaeffer has some advice for an artist, which I think is a key point for novelists/writers of fiction to keep in mind.
How should an artist begin to do his work as an artist? I would insist that he begin his work as an artist by setting out to make a work of art. What that would mean is different in sculpture and poetry, for example, but in all caases the artist should be setting out to make a work of art.
He goes on to discuss the fact that creativity is an act of worship because our God is the ultimate Creator. To create is one of the ways that we are “made in His image”, and just by creating something beautiful, we can honor Him.
Second, an art work has value as a creation because man is made in the image of God, and therefore man not only can love and think and feel emotion, but also has the capacity to create. Being in the image of the Creator, we are called upon to have creativity.
We all manifest this creativity differently. Some creatively solve math problems, or build houses. Creativity is not limited to the artist. We all walk in creativity, even if we all don’t feel that we create art. But art is an obvious act of creation.
Sometimes we do lose the the idea of art having value intrinsically. Schaeffer criticizes evangelicals when he says:
I am afraid, however, that as evangelicals we have largely made [this mistake]. Too often we think that a work of art has value only if we reduce it to a tract. This too is to view art solely as a message for the intellect.
Tomorrow I’ll talk about three perspectives regarding this idea of art as art.
