Pace, " Focused: Keeping Your Life on Track, One Choice at a Time" (reviewed by Kristie Wilkins)

Review
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Title: Focused: Keeping Your Life on Track, One Choice at a Time
Author: Noelle Pikus Pace
Publisher: Deseret Book Company
Genre: Inspirational Nonfiction
Year Published: 2014
Number of Pages: 137
Binding: Hardcover
ISBN10: n/a
ISBN13: 978-1-60907-946-8
Price: $18.99

Reviewed by Kristie Wilkins for the Association for Mormon Letters

From the moment this book arrived at my door a struggle of Olympic proportions ensued. Who would get to read "Focused" first? My biggest challenge in reviewing the book was keeping it in my possession long enough to finish reading it! I believe this is a powerful statement  about the impression Noelle Pikus Pace has left upon people of all ages the world over.

Throughout "Focused" Noelle's incredible spirit and determination leap from the page. It is very apparent to the reader that her extraordinary self control and ability to *focus* are the keys to her ability to attain her Olympic dreams.   However, at the same time, the author speaks to her readers as equals,  challenging us to see through her eyes and daring us to take key steps toward attaining greatness in our own lives.

In ten chapters, Noelle Pikus Pace shares the keys to the way she thinks and approaches her life. She illustrates these keys  by sharing examples of the triumphs, challenges and even tragedies she has experienced along the path to attaining her dreams.  As a society we view Olympic athletes as superhuman.  Their accomplishments are so extraordinary that these athletes often seem larger than life. A very human tendency is to think "I can't even begin to relate to her. She is amazing and I am ordinary.  I could never do what she does."  By allowing her readers to hear her thoughts during key moments in her life Noelle demonstrates in a powerful way just how human she is. Then as Noelle shares her hard won wisdom, readers are thrilled to find that the keys to her success are actually very familiar principles and truths that can be applied to their own lives.

Scriptures and religious leaders are quoted throughout the book; however, it is not a strictly religious or LDS text and will appeal to readers of varying faiths. This book is beautifully bound and illustrated with photography and artwork in a way that will appeal to readers of all ages as well.  Specific thoughts and quotes are highlighted, enabling readers to easily go back and reference key quotes and insights.

Here is a summary of each chapter:

Chapter 1:  You Always Have A Choice.
Noelle shares her devastating experience of being run over by a bobsled and seriously injured at the height of her career and the choices she made to overcome that great challenge.

Chapter 2:  Where You Look Is Where You Go.
The author takes an opportunity to explain the dynamics of the sport of skeleton and how the seemingly simple act of where she looks can affect her outcome both in the sport and in life.

Chapter 3: My Competition
Comparing herself to others in her sport Noelle finds only discouragement and frustration. She encourages her readers to "Be yourself and love yourself for who you are."

Chapter 4: Can I Sit Here?
In one of the most powerful chapters for teenage readers we find that even great athletes can feel left out and alone.   Noelle offers great wisdom on friendship.

Chapter 5: Dare to Stand Alone.
In a world where integrity is a rare commodity Noelle shows just how much of an influence a person of integrity can have on those around her.

Chapter 6: A Model of Perfection.
In dealing with the media frenzy surrounding the athletes in the lead up the Olympics, Noelle confronts a struggle common to most, if not all, women- body image and the world's idea of perfection.

Chapter 7: A Well-Balanced Life.
Noelle shares great insights from a time in her life where she and her husband were struggling to balance their lives and the effects that imbalance had on their family and her career.

Chapter 8: One Foot in Front of the Other.
Prior to a World Cup race Noelle is given powerful advice from a fellow Olympian and role model.

Chapter 9: Useless Runners.
How often do we disregard things or undervalue things or people in our lives? Noelle reminds us that "once we fill our minds with positive thoughts about ourselves we will be able to more clearly see the good in those around us."

Chapter 10: The World is Watching.
In her final chapter Noelle details her final race at the 2014 Winter Olympics and gives is a final push toward greatness with her closing statement, "It is our time to  be courageous. It's time to become our best selves and set an example for the world to follow so that when all is said and done we can exclaim together, "We did it!"

While I thoroughly enjoyed reading "Focused" I felt the book suffered for a lack of an introduction.  For a reader unfamiliar with Noelle Pikus Pace and her achievements it would be difficult to get the context of her opening chapter. Also, for someone who has not followed her career, the fact that the book is not written chronologically  would be confusing at times. This book was a great teaser for a biography I hope is the works for the future. I would love to hear more detailed versions of the stories shared in "Focused" and the story of her journey to the 2014 Olympics in a more chronological narrative.
 

Jorgensen and Wilson, "Herstories: Ten Autobiographical Narratives of RLDS Women" (reviewed by Andrew Hamilton)

Review
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Title: Herstories: Ten Autobiographical Narratives of RLDS Women
Editor: Danny L Jorgensen and Joni Wilson
Publisher: John Whitmer Books  
Genre: Documentary/Autobiography
Year Published: 2013
Number of Pages: 338
Binding: Paper
ISBN10: N/A
ISBN13: 9781934901335  
Price: $24.95  

Reviewed by Andrew Hamilton for the Association for Mormon Letters

Father, thou hast made us women–
Given us a work to do.
Help us always to be faithful,
Honest, steadfast, ever true.
 - Hazel Chambers (see “Herstories” page 1)

Ever since I was a young child I have loved books and I have loved history.  Starting at a very young age I pretty much always had a book or two in my hands.  I loved science fiction and fantasy but I also loved history and biography.  In junior high and high school I signed up for all of the history classes that I could take and I always did all of the reading and then some.  With all of this reading I gained a lot of heroes and favorites: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Joseph and Hyrum Smith, Brigham Young, and many more.  From the time that I could pick up a book, until I was in my mid-twenties, pretty much all of my historical and biographical reading in history, especially in the history of the Joseph Smith Restoration movement, was about men.  This was mostly because the majority of the available and easy to find historical and biographical books that I could find were about men.

Then something happened. I got married and had a daughter, and another, and another.  I wanted my daughters to have heroes that they could look up to.  I wanted them to read about and engage in the history of the Restoration, and I wanted as many of those heroes and Restoration heroes as possible to be women.  So 17 years ago, I began looking for books about women that I could add to my family’s library.  It wasn’t always an easy hunt early on, especially as relates to the Restoration, but then many great books and series began to be released.  Some of these great book series on women in the LDS Restoration tradition include “The Life Writings of Frontier Women” (Utah State University Press, currently at 13 volumes), “Women of Faith in the Latter Days” (Three of seven projected volumes have been released through Deseret Book see http://www.ldswomenoffaith.org/), and more recently there has been the “Mormon Women Project” and its related volumes (see http://www.mormonwomen.com/).  Now, on the RLDS/Community of Christ side of Restoration history, the John Whitmer Historical Association has given us “Herstories: Ten Autobiographical Narratives of RLDS Women” edited by Danny L. Jorgensen and Joni Wilson.

The volume opens with a very important, informative, and well written scholarly introductory essay by Jorgensen titled “The Challenge of RLDS Herstories.” In it Jorgensen explains the history behind this project and the challenges that he has faced in bringing it together.  For instance, he once approached Herald House in an earlier stage of this project but they refused to publish because they felt that there would be a lack of interest and that too few people would buy the book.  He also explains that while the RLDS/Community of Christ has done a lot to advance the cause of women in their Church, including giving them the priesthood and calling them to the highest levels of the Church hierarchy, they have done little to preserve and promote women’s histories. He challenges them to do more about this, which I will cover in greater detail later.

The first herstory in the book is also the oldest.  Emma Locine Whiting Anderson was born in March 1853 and died in June 1922.  She was a true pioneer and lived a fascinating life.  Her parents and family were members of the original Restoration Church during the days of Joseph Smith and were involved in all of the goings on and occurrences during the Nauvoo period.  Some of them even had their houses burned by the mobs.  When Emma was born her family were involved with the Cutlerite faction and would be for many years.  Eventually they joined the RLDS church.  As Emma tells her family’s story, births, sicknesses, moves, school, holidays, building homes and lives, and of course deaths of family members, a fascinating window is opened to the past.  The once “ordinary” story of an “ordinary” life has become a treasured window to the past.

The last story, chronologically, is found in chapter 9.  It is the story of Berta Bennett Ruoff Nogel who was born in Utah in June 1920 and died in California in October of 2010.  In between Emma’s birth in 1853 and Berta’s death in 2010 the stories of these 10 women take the reader all over the map, all through the experiences of life, and through the entire history of the Reorganized Church as it was lived by its ordinary, everyday female members.  Their lives, their loves, their struggles, their triumphs all paint a fascinating and wonderful picture that will enrich the life of the reader of the book.

I absolutely enjoyed this book, but there are a few things that I would have liked to have seen done differently.  As I mentioned earlier, Jorgensen had a hard time getting the book published because it was feared that not very many people would buy a book such as this and that it would lose money.  I realize that John Whitmer Books is a small publishing house with a limited budget.  They did do an excellent job with this book (and do with all of their books -- I own several that they have published) but given the importance of this book I would have liked more.  If this book becomes a series, or if John Whitmer publishes similar books in the future, I hope that they are done in cloth instead of paper.  These stories and those that follow deserve the best presentation format possible.

I also would have liked to have seen some footnotes and more references in the book.  Jorgensen explains in the introduction that he wanted these women’s stories to stand on their own and did not want to interfere or muddy them up with analysis and interpretation.  But at the same time there were places where more information would have been helpful.  There were places where historical figures were mentioned, events referenced, and practices particular to the RLDS Church were discussed.  When this happened, some footnotes and explanations would make the book more accessible to non-historians and readers from outside the RLDS/Community of Christ tradition.

Finally, I want to end this review by stating one last hope.  This book is a great beginning.  In his introduction, Jorgensen states that these 10 stories present a threefold challenge.  This challenge is to 1) listen carefully to and empathize with the voices 2) analyze, consider, and interpret the voices and 3) take these stories and insights and use them to build a program that studies the lives of RLDS/Community of Christ women (see page 26).  I really hope that, if  in any way their resources ever permit, in some combination, John Whitmer Books, Herald House, and/or the Community of Christ will pick up the challenge that Jorgensen issues with this book, and put together a project similar to the “LDS Women of Faith” or “Mormon Women” projects.

The Community of Christ is full of women whose stories are just waiting to be told.  The book starts with Hazel Chambers asking God to help her to be “Honest, steadfast, ever true.” This excellent book presents the stories of 10 women who did all that they could to be just that.  I hope that this book is only the beginning and that the Community of Christ and its associated organizations will continue to preserve and tell their women’s stories.

Staheli, "Men of Destiny Abraham Lincoln and the Prophet Joseph Smith" (reviewed by Elizabeth W. Roach)

Austin, "Re-reading Job: Understanding the Ancient World’s Greatest Poem" (reviewed by Julie J. Nichols)

Crocheron, "Representative Women of Deseret" (reviewed by Greg Seppi)