Won’t You Be My … Spiritual Giant?

Won’t You Be My … Spiritual Giant?

Few Christian living books have a premise as unique as Lori G. Melton’s Journey with a Giant. The Allegan, Mich.-based spiritual director shares her formative journey with Mister (Fred) Rogers as she guides readers in choosing their own “giant” of the faith.Drawing from Hebrews 12 and the “cloud of

Mixed Media Roundup: January/February 2026

Mixed Media Roundup: January/February 2026

Social Media Reset: A 30-Day Guided Journey to Unplug, Reconnect with God, and Reclaim Your JoyBy Allie Marie SmithReviewed by Lorilee CrakerStart 2026 with a social media reset. Need help curbing mindless scrolling, toxic comparisons, and other phone traps? Allie Marie Smith’s book, a worthy and co

The Night Sparrow

The Night Sparrow

When author Shelly Sanders learned about the Central Women’s Sniper Training School, established in 1942 in Moscow during what the Soviets called the Great Patriotic War (WWII), she felt compelled to research the lives of the little-known, courageous women who attended the school and fought the Nazi

Daughters of Palestine: A Memoir in Five Generations

Daughters of Palestine: A Memoir in Five Generations

When author Leyla King, a Palestinian American Episcopal priest, was 14 years old, she began to be aware of her Palestinian heritage, something she had always been oblivious to. In the following years as she attended high school and college, she listened with avid interest to the recollections of he

David

David

The musical animated movie “David” charts the biblical character’s rise from a shepherd boy tending sheep to a young king over Israel based on 1 and 2 Samuel. 1 Samuel 13:14 serves as the backdrop: “The Lord has sought for himself a man after his own heart.”Young David doesn’t desire kingship becaus

The Clear Focus Bible

The Clear Focus Bible

This new edition of the Bible exists to make Bible-reading more accessible to readers of all ages and abilities. This Bible is ideal for people who get easily distracted, lose focus, or become frustrated during their quiet times. It is designed to be specifically helpful for those who have dyslexia

Dim Sum and Faith: How Our Stories Form Our Souls

Dim Sum and Faith: How Our Stories Form Our Souls

Author Jenn Suen Chen masterfully utilizes the metaphor of people gathering around a dim sum table in her gentle, engaging invitation to readers to awaken their hearts to God’s love and presence in their lives. Suen Chen envisions that, at the dim sum table, a steamed and baked meal of sweet and sav

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery

Wake Up Dead Man, the third Knives Out mystery, plunges us into an interesting faith conversation: Shall you know them by their love—or by their power?The story’s protagonist, young Father Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor), finds penance costly. A former boxer, he’s punched a deacon and is sent away to

Picking Tea with Baba

Picking Tea with Baba

When Baba wakes up his two sons early one morning, they are excited. Today is a special day because they will be accompanying Baba and Mama on a trek to their mountaintop tea garden to pick tea leaves. Usually Baba goes on his own, but today the journey will be a family affair.The boys’ loving paren

Deliver Me From Nowhere

Deliver Me From Nowhere

If you’ve ever wanted to peer deep inside Bruce Springsteen’s soul, his album Nebraska would be a good place to start. Nebraska is a stripped-down album written while Springsteen was struggling with his first huge dose of fame and also with the trauma of his childhood. The film Deliver Me From Nowhe

The Couch in the Yard

The Couch in the Yard

Set in the Appalachian Mountains, this whimsical, rhyming children’s picture book is rich with luminescent illustrations. It narrates the story of a mother and her three children who wait until dusk to prepare for their magical trip to the moon. Using the resources at hand—an old car, a discarded co

A Map to Paradise

A Map to Paradise

Susan Meissner, a Christian who writes for the mainstream adult fiction market, adds another timely, compelling novel to her collection, which includes The Nature of Fragile Things, Only the Beautiful, and As Bright as Heaven.In an author's note, Meissner shares the process by which she discovered h

Ella McCay

Ella McCay

I must admit I liked this film anyway. Despite its oddness and feeling of being overstuffed and underbaked, I fell for Ella McCay and her quirky sidekicks and offbeat villains. Call me sentimental—you wouldn’t be wrong. As the movie unspools, everything felt so familiar and comforting to me. Maybe i

Scattergood

Scattergood

In 1941, Peggy and her cousin Delia, farm girls in Iowa, often misunderstood each other because of their differing interests. Peggy, a math whiz, thinks every problem life throws at a person can be solved like a math equation. Delia is passionate about poetry and literature. She views the world meta

7 of My Favorite Faith-based Books of 2025

7 of My Favorite Faith-based Books of 2025

It’s a privilege to read a wide array of faith-based, nonfiction books for possible review in The Banner. I love sharing these books with readers! Here are a few of my favorites of 2025 that fit our Christian Reformed worldview.Journey With a GiantBy Lori MeltonFew Christian living books have a prem

Endless Sea

Endless Sea

Author Chi Thai was 3 years old when she and her family escaped Vietnam in a dilapidated boat. Forced to flee political oppression and to face a perilous future, they put their wellbeing into the hands of strangers who demanded payment but offered no guarantee of safe arrival.The Endless Sea is a fi

The Rising

The Rising

Melanie Penn spent a number of years on (and off) Broadway singing other people’s songs thinking she had no songs of her own to sing. But when she realized that she had songs in her head that were not written by others she connected with a few people in Nashville who helped start her journey as a si

These Blue Mountains

These Blue Mountains

Set in several North Carolina communities and in Berlin, Germany, in the 1930s, when the memory of the horrors of WWI continued to haunt people and the rising threat of Hitler and the Nazis loomed, this riveting novel based on several real events relates the fictional story of gifted pianist Hedda S