Darling children's book for your Christmas kid

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Book Summary

Benny's Angel Who stole the flowers in God’s Secret Garden? When Ella Eagle discovers that the flowers in God’s Secret Garden have wilted, she alerts Mayor Benny Bunny. The main suspect in the case is evil Count Slime, who is jealous of the joy the animals have in the garden. Mayor Benny calls in Oliver Owl, the captain of the Owl Force Wisdom Watchers, but the owls have not seen Count Slime during their patrols of the garden. Mayor Benny suggests the animals pray for an answer. God hears their prayer and sends Marietta the angel to help them solve the mystery. This delightful tale uses animals, nature, and a visit from an angel to teach children the importance of prayer and the value of trusting God.     Author Bio

Laura Allen Nonemaker’s desire to write took root as a child in Bermuda. Since then, Laura has written in a variety of genres and her work has appeared in Essence Treasury: Celebrating the Season, Alive! and Kentucky Monthly Magazine. Laura has been involved in short-term missions, including trips to Russia, Poland, and the University of the Nations in Kailua Kona, Hawaii. Three years ago, her interest in the arts motivated her to join the planning team for Artful Missions, which conducts juried art shows and donates to outreaches in the U.S. and India to rescue women and children from human trafficking. Feel free to contact Laura at lauranonemaker@gmail.com Connect with Laura at These Social Networking Sites: facebook: Laura Allen Nonemaker twitter: @DigInGodsGarden Linkedin: Laura Nonemaker Blog: www.diggingingodsgarden.com Q & A with Laura: Why did you write Benny’s Angel? Benny’s Angel was the result of an occurrence in my “secret garden.” While seated on my garden bench praying, I noticed a rabbit hopping through the garden. The Benny’s Angel scenario came to me. I sensed it was significant and in about ten minutes, I developed the basic storyline. Why do you think reading is important for parents to emphasize with children, both by reading to them and fostering a healthy reading appetite as they develop their own reading skills? I believe the time to instill a love for reading in children is when they are toddlers and beginning to experience the power of communication in their relationships. Children are ready to absorb whatever they see and hear going on around them, whether it is good or bad. It is important to read them stories that ignite their imagination and plant the seeds of sound moral principles. What issues do you address in Benny’s Angel, and why do children need these sorts of stories to help them through life? In the story of Benny’s Angel, the animals in God’s Secret Garden encounter a problem. They are unable to solve it themselves and pray to God for an answer. God answers their prayer by means of an angel. Benny’s Angel teaches the importance of prayer and of trusting God to answer our prayers. These principles filter naturally through the storyline and without the need for sermonizing. Children will face all kinds of problems and challenges as they grow up and stories based on sound biblical principles lay a strong foundation for their future. Tell us about the next book you have coming out after Benny’s Angel. The next book in the God’s Secret Garden Adventure Series is about a little frog. Through some misadventures, he learns the importance of obedience.   Grand Prize Giveaway

1 Vivitar Camcorder with Camera and 2X Zoom 1 Benny's Angel Picture Book 1 Benny's Angel 3-D Book 1 Benny's Angel Coloring Book 1 Benny's Angel Audio Book 1 Benny's Angel T Shirt 1 Benny Christmas Ornament 1 Marietta Christmas Ornament 1 96-Count Crayola Crayons

LeAnne Hardy and Glastonbury Tor

Meet LeAnne Hardy, author of Glastonbury Tor. I feel like I've met a sister after learning some of her history and a fellow Mary Stewart fan. I first met LeAnne when she was on my group site, theBarnDoor.net on July 6. Read her touching story behind the picture, left. She'll also be on ReflectionsInHindsight on August 23, talking about her great wealth of stories.

LeAnne says:

I fell in love with King Arthur my freshman year in high school by way of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s romantic poetry (Idylls of the King) and Lerner and Loewe’s delightful Broadway score (Camelot—give me Julie Andrews over Vanessa Redgrave any day!) Someone loaned me a copy of Mary Stewart’s The Crystal Cave, and I was hooked for life on the Matter of Britain, that cycle of stories passed down from the Middle Ages about ancient British Kings, fighting to save civilization after they had been abandoned by Rome.

I am a librarian by training. My husband and I have served for many years in several countries as missionaries in theological education. Once when we needed to be in Oxford, England, for a week of meetings, he suggested we take a few days of vacation and explore some of the Arthurian sites.

We drove out to the coast of Cornwall where the winds sweep over the cliffs at Tintagel and the waves crash on the rocks below. It is Arthur’s birthplace if you believe Tennyson. Of course, if you believe the archeologists, there was no castle in that location until long after Arthur’s time. I prefer Tennyson.

We drove back toward England and Somerset—the “Summer Country,” so low it was under water during winter rains until monks at Glastonbury Abbey began the work of digging drainage ditches. Today’s towns were all once islands that rose just a few feet above the surrounding bogs in the Vale of Avalon, where the Lady of the Lake took King Arthur in a barge to be healed of his wounds. From there he will return in England’s time of greatest need (if you believe the stories.)

Glastonbury sits on three hills rising above the Somerset Levels—Wyrral Hill, where Joseph of Arimathea and his party are said to have rested, “weary all”, after fleeing the first century persecution of Christians in Jerusalem; Chalice Hill, above the spring that runs red with iron where folk say Joseph dipped the Holy Grail he had brought; and the Tor, whose conical shape seen from the Mendip Hills that rim the vale was once believed to cover the entrance to the ancient Celtic underworld.

But amidst the tangle of ancient tales that undergirds every inch of this town, it was the violent dissolution of the abbey under King Henry VIII that most caught my imagination. I was beginning to think like a writer (although I would never have publically claimed that title) when I stood in the museum, reading the placards about how the abbot defied the king and suffered for it. I thought, Now THAT would make a good story.

I had started writing in my spare time when Ben Bradley, a hockey player who wanted to learn to jump and spin, popped into my mind. His story later became Crossovers, but that day when I stood in the abbey museum Ben’s story was locked in a computer file lest someone discover that I had the audacity to try to write a novel for young people. I was reading a book about writing and publishing fiction, and trying to do the exercises on my own. I had even started a second manuscript, but I knew I couldn’t begin yet another project. So I typed the opening paragraphs to capture my idea, filed them under “future projects”, and went back to plugging away at learning my craft.

I finally broke into publishing when we moved back to the US for a few years for my husband to work as a consultant for theological schools in various parts of the world. The Wooden Ox was published first (about an American family kidnapped by rebels during the Mozambican Civil War.) It was followed by Between Two Worlds (about a girl raised in Brazil and stuck in the States the year of her important fifteenth birthday) and a picture book set in Africa, So That’s What God is Like. Contracts signed, I began looking at my “future projects” file. Those opening paragraphs leapt out at me. I wanted to read that book! The trouble was, I had to write it first.

I’m not a fast writer. Glastonbury Tor was several years in the making. Meanwhile Donna Fletcher Crowe came out with her book Glastonbury, and I nearly cried thinking my story had already been told.  But a place that rich in legend has many stories to tell even about the Dissolution and early Reformation.  I traveled back to Somerset to spend a couple weeks with new friends who loaned me a bike, a map and a pair of Wellington boots and sent me out to explore my setting.

I was back in Africa writing for children affected by HIV&AIDS when Glastonbury Tor was nominated as a Christy Award finalist. These last few years I have been busy with short stories and a novel about HIV in South Africa, but I think Glastonbury has more stories to tell. Someday I will hope to tell them.