Book Review – Ten Girls Who Used Their Talents by Irene Howat

Ten Girls Who Used Their Talents

Ten Girls Who Used Their Talents by Irene Howat

Synopsis:

These ten girls all believed that God had given them given them special gifts, and they all put those talents to use. Helen used her skills as a doctor to bring the truth about Jesus to Africa; Maureen drove a bus and shared food with homeless communities; Mary cared for others even with her own disability. What are your gifts, and how can you use them to spread God’s kingdom? (Taken from Goodreads page)

Review

The first entry into the girls’ section of the series is just not as good as the boys and the flaw resides not in the subject matter of it being women but in how well the boys’ stories were structured and this girls’ entry were not.

In this volume, ten girls which include Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mildred Cable, Sarah Edwards, Annie Lawon, Maureen McKenna, Katie Ann Mackinnon, Selina Countess of Huntingdon, Helen Mackinnon, Patricia St. John, and Mary Verghese follow a similar story pattern of about 15 pages each. The sections start off with a childhood and family setting and move to either some early important events or through to teenage and college-age and then into adulthood of what they’re known for. The stories include mostly fictional conversations so as to give young readers more than just facts to remember. The conversation is in the spirit of learning about the person. Each person also has a focus on their Christian faith and it usually inspires the conclusion of the story as a way to glorify God. At the end, there is a “FACT” of the story expanded upon, a “KEYNOTE” that focuses on the aspect of the story to think about God, a “THINK” area in which a challenge question is presented for discussion, and a “PRAYER” section.

I really enjoyed the boys’ version of this entry. It had details from their childhood that built up into the career path or missionary work or what talents they would end up developing. Along the way, their coming to Christ was included and specific enough to also be built into the abbreviated storyline. The conclusion combined everything into what was the outcome of their lives using the talents talked about earlier. Howat fails to do that here for the most part. Other than a few medically trained women there aren’t really any talents developed within the storyline. The women chosen did some great things but it fails to build the talent and it comes off as “this girl did a thing”. That’s not the story in the boys’ section. The story of coming to faith feels very thrown in here as well and feels, for many of the stories, just a thing that the girls came to.

The positive aspect of this book is that it brings many unknown women from Church history to young readers. However, the impact of their lives and their talents just aren’t there. For example, Sarah Edwards (wife of Jonathan Edwards) is a pretty amazing woman who faced a lot of hardships in her life but her and her family’s life but her story doesn’t build her childhood into the overall story. She seems to just happen to come to faith in Christ. She lives a hard life but glorifies God in some sense. Then she dies. The story isn’t cohesive and it isn’t compelling like Ghillean Prance was with his botany. That was a perfect story written for the boys’ side.

Having the high task of writing about a group of people who were just important to Christ’s Kingdom but not always focused on, this really fell flat and it’s a shame that it did. It’s not a terrible book at all or terribly written. It just missed the cohesiveness of the boys’ version.

Final Grade

C-