Review
Title: Girls Who Choose God: Stories Of Extraordinary Women From Church History
Authors: McArthur Krishna, Bethany Brady Spalding. Illustrations by Kathleen Peterson
Publisher: Deseret Book
Genre: Church History/Biographies
Year Published: 2019
Number of Pages: 48
Binding: Hardcover
ISBN13: 9781629726274
Price: $18.99
Reviewed By Trudy Thompson for the Association For Mormon Letters
As a grandmother of four young children, including two granddaughters, I am constantly looking for resources to help encourage, teach, and uplift them. As I watch what is going on in the United States and around the world, I worry for their futures. How can any of us give hope and enlightenment to the children and youth in our lives? How can we show that faith, determination and example will help them to always be their best?
In this delightful and well researched and documented new book, the authors have laid out a road map of sorts, for families, teachers, and youth alike.
The authors have thoroughly searched church history to uncover faith-inspiring examples of eleven different women who had to choose faith over fear, courage over safety, service over fame and fortune, using spiritual gifts or ignoring them, and more.
I was fascinated by the story of Ellis Shipp. After settling in Utah territory, she and her husband had ten children, but only six survived. At that time many babies died, because there were not enough skilled doctors or midwives to care for them. This devastated Ellis. But, she turned that devastation into determination to make a difference.
Encouraged by her family and Brigham Young, she moved across the country to attend medical school She prayed she would be able to finish her studies, even though she had become pregnant while studying. Ellis gave birth the day after her final exam.
She became one of the first female doctors in Utah and would later start a nursing school in Salt Lake City, where she taught over five hundred midwives to safely deliver babies.
She was set apart by Apostles to be a midwife. During her fifty years as a doctor and midwife, she welcomed over five thousand babies into the world.
Each short and concise story shows the two choices each woman could have made. In the case of Ellis, those choices were: She could mourn that too many babies were dying or she could do something to solve the problem. Each story also includes a question that is asked of the reader. In the story above, that question was, “When have you been determined to solve a problem?”
Other stories center around the lives of Lucy Mack Smith, Emma Smith, Eliza R. Snow, Zina Young, Jane Manning James, and others.
I found this book uplifting, inspiring, and very meaningful. There are little-known stories here that illustrate the traits and positive attitudes that the authors are encouraging girls to emulate.
This book is an excellent companion volume to the other two the authors have penned, “Girls Who Chose God-Strong Women From the Book of Mormon,” and “Girls Who Chose God-Stories Of Courageous Women From the Bible. ”
Parents, grandparents, teachers, Young Women Presidencies and Bishoprics will find excellent teaching examples and stories. Girls from age seven and up will love the stories of these exemplary women and the wise choices they made. I can’t think of a more meaningful Christmas gift for girls. I am excited to give it to, and read it with, my two beautiful granddaughters.
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