Sunday Snippet: Never Give Up on Your Dreams… A GiveAway

I seem to have a pile of books that has been growing on my desk and there are heaps of GiveAways… watch this space, lots of GiveAways coming your way over the next few weeks… Let’s get going with Never Give Up on Your Dreams by Mary Weeks Millard is a book in the FaithFinders Series published by DayOne Publishers.

This is the story of Gabrielle who is a promising young swimmer and the life of her family as she gets caught up in the world of extra-training and a dream of competing in the Olympics one day. The whole focus of Gabrielle’s life is swimming, training and competing… she is is so intent on pursuing her dreams that she doesn’t even realise the effects it must be having on her family and especially her siblings, an older brother and a younger sister.

When her couch requires her to be at training at five in the morning, every morning… her father thinks that they need to reassess her commitment to competitive swimming. But Gabrielle desperately wants to continue. The family realises that the other children, not to mention the parents ability to function is going to be compromised… and her sweet granny steps in, to assist the family. There is an audible sigh of relief, and training continues with intensity. Gabrielle continues to be extremely focused on her swimming at any cost and doesn’t see the effect it is having on her life… but her granny is a great example to her, loving and caring and quietly and calmly displaying a godly example for Gabrielle. The girl is inspired by her granny and through ups and downs and ins and outs her granny continues to support her through her swimming career.

A family holiday and a disobedient little sister and her friend result in selfless and dramatic rescue by Gabrielle. Not to mention a tragic accident for her, it looks like Gabrielle may never swim again and definitely not in the Olympics. The question is… does she just give up on her dream or does she discover another way to follow her dream?

Hood #3 really enjoyed this book, she was inspired by Gabrielle’s tenacity. The striking difference between the Gabrielle at the beginning of the book and the Gabrielle that she became after becoming a christian is tangible and lovely. It is so good to read books about realistic children like my children, that have dreams and live in regular families with brothers and sisters. Children who like to play and compete and practice at getting better and doing their best. This is an easy to read chapter book, for readers who are comfortable with reading a quick chapter or two in a sitting, or a quick an easy read for a more advanced reader. It doesn’t read as if there is a “preachy lesson” in it, but there is a valuable lesson: Pursuing a dream at any cost is quite a different matter to following your dream and not giving up.

The GiveAway

We have a copy of Never Give Up on Your Dreams by Mary Weeks Millard to GiveAway. This GiveAway works in the usual way, comment before the end of this coming Sunday, 20 October 2013, and we will draw and publish the winners after that. I won’t respond to your comments as I do on our other posts because I don’t want to be included in our own giveaway.

Our GiveAways are open to everyone: If you have won a GiveAway before never fear – enter away. If you live on the far side of the world – enter away. Postage takes forever from here but eventually it should get to you! Good luck and happy commenting!!!

As usual we have to thank Christian Book Discounters, who supply Sunday Snippet GiveAway books for us to review and GiveAway. We are not paid to write our reviews and the opinions expressed are entirely our own.