Book Review: Notes from a Spinning Planet, Ireland

I read the book Notes from a Spinning Planet, Ireland by Melody Carlson. In this book 19 year old Maddie goes on her first trip out of the country with Aunt Sid and Ryan. They are going to Ireland so Sid can work on her latest article for the magazine she writes for. Maddie, Sid, and Ryan make it to Ireland and right away Sid starts telling stories from when she worked in Ireland for a semester in college and stayed through the summer to help at a summer camp. As time passes Maddie finds that although Ireland is so beautiful, it has many dark secrets and a scary past. Many years ago two distinct sides of the country had a huge disagreement as to whether they should break away from Great Britain or not. It was a very violent time for Ireland, bombings, shootings, and hostage situations happened weekly. While on the journey Ryan finds more out about his Irish father's past. His father was in a dangerous group called the IRA, and was killed in a car bombing. Ryan and Maddie get closer as the trip gets closer to a close. In the last week and half Sid finds her long lost love who was supposedly killed in a car crash over 10 years before. The story ends with Aunt Sid, Maddie, and Ryan agreeing to go on another trip in the near future.

In this book I saw many examples that support my theme. I saw the theme of teamwork. Not just cheesy teamwork, truly trusting one another, having each others backs, and supporting every member of your tightly knitted team. One of the examples that I saw in the book was when Sid tells both Maddie and Ryan about a conversation that she heard while eavesdropping, even though it didn't really affect them, she knew she needed to be completely honest. Another example of teamwork is not in their success of teamwork, but actually a fall through. Ryan and Maddie kept information to themselves, without telling Sid, they learned their lesson and worked together from then on.

Throughout the book Maddie definitely matured. Toward the beginning of the book Maddie had a problem with judging Sid and Ryan for drinking small alcoholic beverages while at the Irish family friendly pub. In the book Maddie says "I know I'm judging them, like somehow I think I'm better than them because I'm not drinking." At the end of the story she accepts that its okay to drink a little bit of alcohol as long as you don't go over board and she doesn't have a problem with judging them.

I would recommend this book to any christian teenage girl. I think this because it brings up a lot of christian values and many issues that are commonly discussed by christians today. One of those issues was; is it acceptable to drink alcoholic beverages? The book encourages praying and patience and always telling the truth. Maddie, Sid, and Ryan are all christians, so their personal beliefs and bible references are stated.

 I got my picture from: http://www.mapsofworld.com/images/world-countries-flags/ireland-flag.gif