NaBloPoMo Special Feature - Heroes

If I asked you to name a well known Christian author, who would it be?

The author I am thinking of is a man who has written more than 175 books and assisted Billy Graham in writing his memoirs, Just As I Am. He owns a filmmaking company and a guild for Christian writers, and he also wrote the nationally syndicated sports story comic strip, Gil Thorp from 1996-2004.

As if all that isn't enough, he collaborated with another popular Christian author and speaker on a sixteen-book Christian fiction series that has sold 70,000,000 copies.

Who is this literary hero?

Dr. Jerry Jenkins.

I might never have heard of the name Jerry Jenkins had it not been for my family being so enthralled with a new Christian fiction series that told of a world in chaos when family, friends, and loved ones suddenly disappear. Pilot Rayford Steele loses a son and a wife in the Rapture as believers are taken up and the rest are Left Behind.

This fictional series uses the Book of Revelation to depict what happens in the End Times for Rayford Steele, Buck Williams, Bruce Barnes, and many others.


The Book of Revelation has long been a favorite of mine, but the symbolism can sometimes be hard to understand. The Apostle John wrote the Book of Revelation as an elderly man while he was a prisoner of Rome. In the Bible, John is referred to as "the disciple who Jesus loved", and it is into John's care that Jesus placed his beloved mother Mary right before His death. John's love for Jesus was so strong that he defied the Roman magistrate's order to no longer proclaim Jesus as Messiah, Savior and Lord; even while a prisoner.

It is, therefore, fitting that John should be the one to receive this vision of the End Times. The opening line of Revelation says, "1The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John,2who testifies to everything he saw–that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.3Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near." (NIV)

On the Left Behind website, one can read the mission for this series: "This fictional account of life after the Rapture delivers an urgent call to today's readers to prepare their own hearts and minister to others."


In addition to the Left Behind series, Jenkins and Tim LaHaye collaborated on The Jesus Chronicles, a four-book series that focuses on the writers of the Gospels. So far, Mark's, Luke's and John's stories have been released. Matthew's story is yet to be released.

Jenkins has also written numerous non-fiction titles and many books on marriage and family. He is also the author of several children's series. It seems that there is no stopping him.

Writing for the Soul: Instruction and Advice from an Extraordinary Writing Life was released in 2006. I own this book and often refer to it.


If you go to Jenkins's website, you'll be able to read chapters 1 and 2 of Riven, the book he says he always wanted to write.

For his unlimited talent, for all that he does to mentor aspiring authors of all ages, and for the inspiration that his long career provides others, Dr. Jerry Jenkins is our next featured literary hero.

June NaBloPoMo Special Feature - Heroes

One of the great things about living in Massachusetts is its wealth of history. From the landing of the Pilgrims in Plymouth in 1620 to the infamous Salem Witchcraft Trials; from the first shot of the Revolutionary War in Lexington to Massachusetts becoming the sixth state in the Union (1788); and from Massachusetts troops being the first to die for the Union Cause in the American Civil War, to the election of Edward Brooke as the first black elected to the United States Senate since the Civil War era, if you live in Massachusetts you have many historical sites and museums to visit.

The Bay State has also been home to many famous leaders, poets, and authors: John Quincy Adams, Susan B. Anthony, Clara Barton, Emily Dickinson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, Edgar Allan Poe, Dr. Seuss, and Henry David Thoreau, to name a few.

The Orchard House at 399 Lexington Avenue, in historic Concord was the home of another famous author.


Louisa May Alcott wrote Little Women while her family resided at The Orchard House.

By the time Alcott was 15, she was determined to make something of herself, but the times in which she lived offered very little to women seeking employment. Not easily deterred, Alcott did any work she could find.

In 1854, her first book, Flower Fables was published. During the Civil War, Alcott was a nurse stationed in Washington, D.C.. Her letters home became the basis for her book, Hospital Sketches, which was first published in 1863.

At the age of 35, Alcott was approached by her publisher to write a book for girls. Set in Civil War New England, Little Women told the story of the March sisters. Alcott based the March sisters on herself and her own sisters: Anna, Elizabeth, and May. Not surprisingly, the character of Jo March is very much like Louisa May Alcott.


Little Women was originally published in two parts. The success of Little Women and her other children's books supported her family, something she had been determined for many years to do.

Her sister May married and died only a few weeks after giving birth to a daughter. May had asked that her daughter (Louisa May) be sent to live with Alcott, and she cared for the child for many years.

Louisa May Alcott died on March 6, 1888, only two days after her father.

On the same birthday that I received my treasured Anne of Green Gables three-book set, I received a beautiful six-book set of stories by Louisa May Alcott: Little Women, Little Men and Jo's Boys--all about the March family, Jack and Jill, Eight Cousins, and Under the Lilacs. This edition was printed in 1956 by Nelson Doubleday and was illustrated by Ruth Ives. Each leather bound edition is half cream and half green, with a color illustration on the inside cover and black and white illustrations throughout.

This set must have cost a pretty penny in the 1970's when it was bought. I've read all the books about the March family, but never ventured to read the last three books in the series. Strangely enough, Eight Cousins is included in this set, but its sequel, Rose in Bloom is not. It is still available at Amazon, so I might pick it up.

Little Women remains Louisa May Alcott's most famous work. Having been made into movies, mini-series, musicals and a couple of television series, Little Women even has a Little House on the Prairie connection.

In Season 3 of Little House on the Prairie, the episode "Little Women" aired. Walnut Grove's teacher, Miss Beadle, allows the students to put together skits based upon popular literature so that they can perform for their parents. Laura and Mary Ingalls team up with Nellie Oleson and Ginny Clark (a one-episode character) to act out the infamous scene where Jo presents Mrs. March with the money she earned from cutting off her hair and selling it to a wig shop so that her mother can visit their father, who is an ailing Civil War chaplain.

For the strong woman she was, for all she experienced, for how much she helped her family with her writing, and for the legions of fans who have been inspired by Little Women and her other works, Louisa May Alcott, is certainly a literary hero.


Information on historical events taken from Encarta. Famous Bay Staters taken from 50states.com. Information on Louisa May Alcott taken primarily from http://www.louisamayalcott.org/.

June NaBloPoMo Special Feature - Heroes

The Book Connection is once again participating in National Blog Posting Month. Blogging every day of the month can be challenging. Actually, it's only the weekends that are challenging because I have so much going on that sitting down at the computer is not easy to do.


This month's theme is HEROES. My favorite hero--as in superhero--has always been Wonder Woman. She's beautiful, strong, and smart. Gee, why couldn't have God made me like that? :) Wonder Woman also has some neat gadgets: a lasso that forces anyone it captures to tell the truth, bracelets that deflect bullets, a crown that doubles as a bommerang, and that cool invisible jet.

But, we talk books here, so unless we are talking comic books Wonder Woman really doesn't have a place. I do, however, have a few literary heroes that I would like to feature this month.

I've never been a huge fan of the classics. [GASP!] Honestly, I didn't think The Great Gatsby was all that great; Ivanhoe could have remained buried in his own time period and The Lord of the Flies gave me nightmares.

Proving once again that my heart and mind belongs to that of a child, most of my literary heroes wrote for young people. That doesn't mean I always appreciated them when I was a child; and actually, the first three authors I will feature this month wrote books I could barely sit still to read a chapter of until I was in my early twenties.

Until Harry Potter came along--I haven't read any of these books [another GASP!]--a woman who grew up on the untamed prairie had written some of the most beloved books in all of children's literature.


Laura Ingalls Wilder was an elderly woman by the time she sat down to write the first book in her now classic Little House series, Little House in the Big Woods. Had it not been for Rose Wilder Lane asking Mama Bess to put her childhood memories down on paper, the field of children's literature may never have known much about Laura Ingalls Wilder.

After losing their investments in the Stock Market Crash of 1929, and considering that so many of her family members including Ma, Mary, and her beloved Pa had passed on, Laura sat down to write the story of living in the Big Woods of Wisconsin. According to Donald Zochert's Laura, in 1931 when editor Virginia Kirkus from Harper's read the manuscript on a train ride home to Connecticut, she was so engrossed in the material she missed her station. She knew she held in her hands "the book that no depression could stop."

Harper published Little House in the Big Woods the following year and Laura Ingalls Wilder became an overnight success. The collaboration between Laura Ingalls Wilder and Rose Wilder Lane churned out seven additional titles: Farmer Boy (1932), Little House on the Prairie (1935), On The Banks of Plum Creek (1937), By the Shores of Silver Lake (1939), The Long Winter (1940), Little Town on the Prairie (1941), and These Happy Golden Years (1943). Roger Lea MacBride (Rose's heir) discovered Laura's final manuscript with Rose's belongings after her death in 1968. This manuscript became known as The First Four Years when it was published by HarperCollins in 1971.

A love of Laura's books and a desire to learn more about the girl who grew up on the prairie, survived the Hard Winter, married Almanzo James Wilder and left her family behind to start over in the Land of the Big Red Apple (Mansfield, MO), led fans flocking to the sites mentioned in her books. Many of the Little House sites from Laura's books have been turned into historical sites that continue to attract fans every year.

In 1954, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award was created by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association. This bronze medal honors an author or illustrator whose books, published in the United States, have made, over a period of years, a substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children.

In September of 1974, Michael Landon and Ed Friendly brought the Little House books to life in a new way. With Landon starring as Charles (Pa) Ingalls, Little House on the Prairie ran until 1983 and helped catapult Melissa Gilbert, who played Laura Ingalls Wilder, to small screen stardom.

Other televised productions of Laura's life would come in 2000 and 2002 with Beyond the Prairie: The True Story of Laura Ingalls Wilder and Beyond the Prairie, Part 2: The True Story of Laura Ingalls Wilder, with Meredith Monroe (Andie McPhee, Dawson's Creek) playing Laura. Ed Friendly would team up with ABC/Disney in 2005 to create a Little House on the Prairie mini-series, with the hopes that it would be picked up by a network for a regular series. Unfortunately that didn't happen, but the actors who portrayed Charles, Caroline, Laura and Mary Ingalls have continued to be in demand in the entertainment industry.

The popularity of the Little House books also led to numerous other titles being written about or by Laura Ingalls Wilder and her family. In addition to Donald Zochert's Laura, biographers William Anderson and John E. Miller have written numerous titles about everyone's favorite pioneer.

Demand to know more about Laura's family led to Roger Lea MacBride writing a series of books about Rose. Originally published under the umbrella of Little House The Rocky Ridge Years in 1993, by the time Book 7 - On the Banks of the Bayou and Book 8 - Bachelor Girl came out in 1998 and 1999 respectively, the series was titled The Rose Years.

There have also been books written about Caroline Quiner, who would grow up to become Caroline Quiner Ingalls (Laura's Ma), and four books written by Melissa Wiley about Martha Morse Tucker, whose daughter Charlotte would end up marrying Henry Quiner, Caroline's father. Charlotte Tucker has her own series as well. Unfortunately, when HarperCollins decided to abridge the Charlotte, Martha, and Rose series, Wiley discontinued working with them, so Martha's and Charlotte's stories will remain incomplete. She has stated at her website that all the Little House prequels will go out of print.

More recently, Dean Butler, who portrayed Almanzo Wilder on Landon's Little House on the Prairie, brought Laura's book, Farmer Boy--the only book of her Little House series written about Almanzo's childhood--to life in a new direct-to-DVD documentary from Legacy Documentaries. Almanzo Wilder: Life Before Laura is available exclusively at the Wilder Homestead in Burke, NY. You can order the DVD online at www.almanzowilderfarm.com.

New readers continue to be drawn to the books that Laura wrote about her childhood. Educators still use her books to share history and to encourage a love of reading and writing in their students.

I don't know if Laura Ingalls Wilder ever realized the impact her books would make on the world; but I do know that they have foster in me a great love of the time period in which she grew up, a desire to continue learning, and they have motivated me to follow my own writing dreams.

For all that she has meant and still means to the world of children's literature, Laura Ingalls Wilder is my first featured literary hero.