Arthur Yeomans

The Bobtails go to France!

Tue, 11 Mar 2025 17:57:15 -0700

So, the latest book is out! The Bobtails go to France has gone to Press!

The Bobtails are just starting to settle down with their new mother, new father, new farm, and new friend ... when their new mother gets a telegram, from France! Soon the whole family is off on trains and boats, staying in hotels, hostels, and boarding houses, on their way to visit their cousins in France and get some cheese!

Of course they meet new friends and see new places. But they also need to adjust to a new language and new cultures, all the while learning to obey their new father in difficult circumstances. And taking responsibility for each other even when lost on the streets of Paris.

The Bobtails series is set in Vermont in 1889, and concerns the lives of four children left orphaned by a gas explosion, and adopted by their aunt and brand new uncle. It teaches values of obedience, hard work, and taking responsibility.

https://wisepathbooks.com/collections/children/products/the-bobtails-go-to-france

The Galactic Gourmet

Thu, 07 Dec 2023 07:00:41 -0800

Personally, when I come to a book, I have a whole range of desires, some of which are contradictory, and some of which are merely divorce, but all of which are hard to cram into the same book. So I am always thrilled with a book that satisfies not just one but several of my desires. The Galactic Gourmet, by James White, is one such book. How did I love it? Let me count the ways…

First of all, it is part of a great series. When I looked at my shelf in order to get a book to review, I had several James White books, several in this series and outside of it, to choose from. So if you like this book, if you get hooked, you will be able to satisfy your cravings for a good while.

Secondly, it is very funny. Situation comedy where a lot of the comedy is in the situation, and even more in the characters, and still more in the situations. That’s a lot of comedy.

But it is also very, very serious. Not ‘sad’ serious, not ‘people dying everywhere’ serious, but ‘important issues of character development’ serious. The main character comes on screen with high ambition, an excellent work ethic, and a mountain of hubris. The ambition propels him to conquer the difficulties that the book presents; the work ethic gives him the tools; and the mountain is pared down to a molehill, a very loveable molehill.

Scripture teaches us that we each have ‘gifts differing’, and this book celebrates this in spades. The series is about an interstellar hospital, treating patients of vastly different alien races. And in the various books, we have heroes which are doctors, nurses,...Read More

Cindy Navarro Reviews The Bobtails

Mon, 27 Nov 2023 09:00:15 -0800

The blogger Cindy Navarro has reviewed the Bobtails series so far: Preacher's Kid and Cousins. She writes:

I enjoyed reading both of these books. I love historical fiction (or books that were written before I was born) to learn more about what life was like... what was good, and what I am glad we have moved beyond.

The 4 children (Robert, Esther, Roger, and Ruth) are orphaned when both parents die, and during a meeting to decide who will raise them, the judge decides their Aunt Grace is in the best position to take custody. She is the children's least favorite relative, but they know there is no choice and prepare to move miles away from their hometown.... and you can read her whole review here:

https://cindynavarro.blogspot.com/2023/11/bobtail-adventures.html

Conflict of Love

Tue, 09 May 2023 07:04:29 -0700

This book presents an amazing conflict, and keeps it going through the whole book. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything quite like it.

The conflict is between the Biblical and unBiblical views of ‘love’ and commitment. None of the characters say this, and none of them have a Biblical view… instead each of them seem to have a conflicted view which contrasts, in their own thinking, the Biblical with the unBiblical view without ever being able to resolve either.undefined

The Christian view of love and commitment begins with commitment and works out its love in that context. So the woman who commits to marriage, is then committing to loving the man that she is committed to. The love that she is committing to involves both the love that she owes everyone (patience, kindness, not envious, not boasting, etc..) and the specific actions that she owes her husband: sexual access, sexual fidelity, submission, emotional fidelity, etc. A man who commits to a job similarly owes both the love commanded for all Christians, and obedience to the specific commitments that he has undertaken in that particular job.

This book shows the conflicted, failure of obedience to these precepts. A man and a woman, traveling together, both of whom have made commitments, fail to understand both the nature of the love that they owe and the commitments that they have undertaken.

The story, ignoring all of the bits that don’t concern the issue I am dealing with, is simple: a supposedly honourable man is asked to escort and guard a woman who is committed to marriage (far more serious than our modern ‘engagements’) along (what turns out to be) a difficult journey to the man she is to marry. So his commitment is to get her there, safely, ready to marry her husband. Her job is to get there, purely, ready to marry her new husband.

Story Warren Reviews Bobtails

Fri, 21 Apr 2023 18:36:30 -0700

Well, K.A. Ramstad over at 'Story Warren' has written a review of The Bobtails meet the Preacher's Kid; and I must say I really enjoyed reading it. She really drilled down, not so much on the plot (which is, as she says, 'tame') but on the character's and how they came across to her.

Her review is exactly the kind of thing I would like in a beta reader. Only, of course, for a Beta Reader I would like it right after I wrote the chapters, and would like to be able to go back and forth with questions and re-writes. But she really gets at what she sees as what the book is saying, the audience, etc. My kind of review, definitely!

She says she is looking forward to reading the next Bobtail's book, and I am defintely looking forward to her reviewing it!

Before I was born

Wed, 19 Apr 2023 12:37:03 -0700

This review might seem like it comes from left field for this blog... but it doesn't. My writing is about family, and family starts... well, family started with God, who created Adam, and then created Eve, and vive la difference and the rest is history.

Except to our children who need to be taught about Adam and Even and Birds and Bees and the like. A subject which has reduced generations of parents, at least modern parents, to quivering imbecility.

The book "Before I was born" is an excellent help (not an answer, a help) to parents struggling with this subject. And one of the ways it will help, if you will take its advice (and my advice) is that it says to start the talk... early. Like, seriously early before there is even the hint of embarassement (by the kids, can't help you) on the subject. This book helps you walk through the issue and begin the conversation.

Let's remember that God created Adam, God created Eve, and God created... what Adam and Eve did together to multiply and replenish the Earth.

And in today's age our children desperately need an antidote to what the world will try to teach them. So start this book, and the conversation, early. Repeat every year. And by the time your kids find it embarassing, they will practicaly have the book memorized, and will be able to participate much more naturally in the conversation.

Fallacies

Sat, 15 Apr 2023 08:29:30 -0700

“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”
– Illustrated London News, April 19, 1930

Learning

Sat, 15 Apr 2023 08:28:36 -0700

Wise people learn when they can; fools learn when they must.

If you haven't heard of Librivox

Sat, 15 Apr 2023 03:50:07 -0700

As a homeschooling grandfather (meaning we homeschooled our kids and our kids are now homeschooling theirs) I am always interested in resources for homeschoolers. One resource that we learned about years ago, and that is still incredibly valuable, is Librivox.org. What Librivox does is take public domain books from gutenberg.org (another great resource) and, using volunteer readers, puts together audio books. Free to download audio books. Free, free... no in app purchases or the like. Free to listen to, cut apart, send to your friends, etc etc.

Besides the obvious incredible value of getting to listen to books while doing the dishes etc; Librivox is also great for language learning! They have books in all sorts of languages and listening to them over and over is great for helping learn a language.

So, I can't recommend it too highly. Like everything in life, make sure you do your homework. You can't just listen to everything on the site! Even public domain books contain a lot of trash. But there is a lot of great stuff there, and a lot of great readers. Message me for more specifics.

(You may note that sometimes when I recommend a book, I also give a link to Librivox! You're welcome.)

The Blessings, and dangers, of Historical Fiction

Fri, 14 Apr 2023 17:24:42 -0700

Historical fiction can be a marvelous medium for the Christian writer. So much that happened in history can be brought forward to help communicate the Christian story. But at the same time writing, or reading, historical fiction can lead to some dramatic lies.

When one writes about today's age, then one is stuck either going along with today's attitudes, today's opinions, or today's way of acting... or one is forced to try to stand against them in a way that makes the whole story into one long diatribe. If one tells a story where children obey their father, call everyone 'sir' or 'ma'am', and are seen but not heard... those behaviors can come out as a seamless part of that society... if that society is in 1880. But written in today's age and one would have to explain the weirdos.

This means that if you wish to teach honoring one's father, one can do it subtly when writing about the 1880's, but you have to shoe horn it in to a story about the 2020's.

But there lay dragons as well. Because the modern writer, if he is not very, very careful, may place his story in the 1880's, yet place the behavior and attitude of his characters in the 2020's! Or at least the 2000's somewhere. If one wishes to have a character that is in favor of treating handicapped people naturally, then one can either do it subtly in 2023, or make it the point of the whole book in 1790. But all too often we read historical fiction with feminists in 1452... and no one seems shocked by their feminism!

If one writes historical fiction but gets the history wrong, then one is not only not writing historical fiction, one is rewriting history! And for Christians this kind of untruth should be even more forbidden than it is for the general masses.

So by all means write historical fiction. And it's OK to get a couple of dates or places wrong. But don't rewrite history . "Whatsoever things are true..."