The Amish Adventure

"Watch out!"Ian yelled. The car wheels screamed with skidding. Suddenly the front bumper thudded into something large and brown directly in front of the car. Ian cringed. The impact jarred him and his bones felt shaken from their sockets as the good of the Volkswagen crumpled towards the windshield. "We've hit a horse!"Jack Turner's voice was thin and reedy. "It's a horse and buggy!" Jack Turner's reckless driving that cold, wet night was to have eventful consequences for Ian McDonald. It brought him into contact with the Amish--a gentle, peaceful people who farmed their land in the traditional way-- and made him realize the dangers and difficulties they faced. When disastrous news came for them, Ian was determined to stay to help--but his family had other plans...

Amish Adventure is a captivating story of a young twelve year old boy, named Ian McDonald from Chicago who, because of a tragic accident, spends an extended stay with an Amish family in Waterloo County near Kitchener, Ontario. Novel by Barbara Smucker. Reproducible chapter questions, plus comprehension questions, a story summary, author biography, creative and cross curricular activities, complete with answer key. 69 pages.

As America is thrust into utter chaos with no apparent end in sight from all the destruction brought about by its angry and uncontrollable youth, Jacob Berkemeier reflects on his Amish upbringing, and how it helped shape him the way it did. It wasn't a picnic by any stretch of the imagination, but it had its benefits through the rigid structure it provided. Follow along as Jacob recounts tales of his childhood, and how his brothers would stop at nothing to win. Whether it was horse racing, playing pranks on dad, or competing on the ice, it was in the Berkemeier blood to win. As winter comes to an end, there is a rivalry on the ice that hasn't yet been settled, and the Berkemeier brothers find themselves on thin ice for one last game to decide who the winner is. Will it be the west, the side of the hot-blooded Berkemeiers, or the east, the side of those pesky Frys? And will the ice be strong enough to hold them for one last hoorah? Only time will tell.

When the car he is riding in collides with a horse and buggy, twelve-year-old Ian has to spend the night with an Amish family and finds he prefers the "uncivilized" rural life to the modern society of Toronto.

This volume features 21 Amish-inspired quilts by some of today's top quilt designers—with simple patterns showing off beautiful solid fabrics. Thirty years after Roberta Horton’s classic, An Amish Adventure, introduced quilters to the joys of Amish quilting, the editors at C&T Publishing are proud to bring you the adventure's next chapter. Along with the 21 featured quilt projects, this volume includes a gallery of 17 more beautiful quilts and an introduction by Roberta herself on what makes a quilt Amish. Some of the quilt projects in this volume use traditional 19th-century patterns. Others offer distinctly modern takes on Amish ideas. They all celebrate the simplicity, the bold geometry, and the rich dark fabrics that give Amish quilts their ageless appeal.

The author of five bestselling books on quiltmaking now takes readers on a trip through Amish country to find out what makes Amish quilts so hauntingly beautiful and universally appreciated. Horton then shares her insights into Amish design in a series of lessons for making eight of the traditional patterns. 40 color photos.

"Of all the religious groups in contemporary America, few demonstrate as many reservations toward the media as do the Old Order Amish. Yet these attention-wary citizens have become a media phenomenon, featured in films, novels, magazines, newspapers, and television - from Witness, Amish in the City, and Devil's Playground to the intense news coverage of the 2006 Nickel Mines School shooting. But the Old Order Amish are more than media subjects. Despite their separatist tendencies, they use their own media networks to sustain Amish culture. Chapters in the collection examine the influence of Amish-produced newspapers and books, along with the role of informal spokespeople in Old Order communities.".

Winner, 2011 Dale Brown Book Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Anabaptist and Pietist Studies. Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College Holmes County, Ohio, is home to the largest and most diverse Amish community in the world. Yet, surprisingly, it remains relatively unknown compared to its famous cousin in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Charles E. Hurst and David L. McConnell conducted seven years of fieldwork, including interviews with over 200 residents, to understand the dynamism that drives social change and schism within the settlement, where Amish enterprises and nonfarming employment have prospered. The authors contend that the Holmes County Amish are experiencing an unprecedented and complex process of change as their increasing entanglement with the non-Amish market causes them to rethink their religious convictions, family practices, educational choices, occupational shifts, and health care options. The authors challenge the popular image of the Amish as a homogeneous, static, insulated society, showing how the Amish balance tensions between individual needs and community values. They find that self-made millionaires work alongside struggling dairy farmers; successful female entrepreneurs live next door to stay-at-home mothers; and teenagers both embrace and reject the coming-of-age ritual, rumspringa. An Amish Paradox captures the complexity and creativity of the Holmes County Amish, dispelling the image of the Amish as a vestige of a bygone era and showing how they reinterpret tradition as modernity encroaches on their distinct way of life.