Two short books....

Abraham Lincoln the Great Emancipator by Augusta Stevenson:
This book is from the Childhood of famous Americans series for children. It was short and sweet. Interesting things about his life as a boy. He was strong, smart and brave. His mother and step mother played a huge part in his success from the beginning they believed in him and fought to make sure he got an education despite his father just wanting him to work on the farm.
Abraham Lincoln was a real American hero to me.

Four Perfect Pebbles a Holocaust Story by Lisa Perl and Marion Blumenthal Lazan:
This was an amazing true story about a family that survives the worst things bad people can do to other human being. Death Camps during World War II. The story really comes to life for me when I realize that the places and cities they are talking about I saw on my mission. I served in Celle for about 3 months. While we were there a gentlemen in our ward got permission to take us to Bergen-Belsen, a Nazi concentration camp. (I am so glad he did this for us, I will never forget the experience and feeling). It is now a monument with pictures and the stories of the thousands of victims that were murdered during Hitlers rein. It is also a cemetery. I cried so hard and will never forget the things we saw and the places we walked around. There were mass graves and gas showers, bunk beds stacked three high where women and children were stuffed. Back then it was dirty stinky and had lice and sickness everywhere. No food but maybe some moldy bread. Sometimes no hope, yet so many Jews never gave up on their Faith and God.

Amazing book...it is hard to believe it was real, yet it was. It is hard to believe that life goes on after something so terrible, yet it does and the little girl in the story, Marion, came to America, learned English, goes to school eventually gets married and has a family of her own. Marion has been giving talks and presentations at schools for the last 15 years and finally got her story in book form. She had to do a lot of research to put the pieces together from the worst 6 years of her life and she has been back to Germany and visited many of the places she thought she would never see again. Marion is an amazing person with a very strong spirit. I hope that if I ever have even the tiniest bit of trial in my life I can be as strong and stalwart as she.