by
Life for the Jantz family has been predicated by the Mennonite church. But through a series of shifting circumstances, inside their church and in the world at large, each member of this family is ultimately confronted with the decision to remain a part of their religious community. Darlene, Vernon, and Caroline “Shike” Jantz’s intensely personal journeys are observed and told through the voice of Shike—a contraction of Shy-Poke—as she comes of age during the 1940s and early ’50s.
In these engaging, interwoven stories, Shike experiences the slow disintegration of her parents’ world.
Even at four years, Shike is an intelligent child with keen observational skills, curiousity about her parents’ beliefs, and an obsession with the meaning of words. She learns that the religious practices of her mother and father are in conflict with their social desires. Her mother reads her prohibited fairy tales, while her father teaches her about the world at large, including a war in which his pacifist beliefs do not allow him to participate. When her father receives his draft notice, he and her mother must decide whether they can still embrace their family’s history and faith.
