“Embracing All That’s Around Us”
A Review of
The Rhythm of Family:
Discovering a Sense of Wonder
through the Seasons.
Amanda Blake Soule and Stephen Soule.
Paperback: Roost Books / Shambhala, 2011.
Buy now: [ Amazon ]
Reviewed by Jeni Newswanger Smith.
Amanda Blake Soule has been keeping a popular blog, Soulemama (soulemama.com,) for many years. She writes about family, childhood, nature, crafts, art and embracing a more earth-bound way of living. In recent years, her husband Stephen has written numerous guest posts, delighting readers with his deep love for his family as well as his thoughtful approach to parenting and partnership. Soule’s newest book, The Rhythm of Family: Discovering a Sense of Wonder through the Seasons, is co-authored by her husband and is a culmination of what the blog has grown to be—short essays, simple sewing projects, lovely seasonal photography, creative conservation, self-sufficiency and finding a family rhythm.
This particular book is divided into 12 sections, one for each month. Each month contains an essay by each author, as well as “make” or “do” sections, containing sewing or knitting patterns, recipes, craft ideas and/or child centered activities. Very few of these make and do items are particularly original, but the Soules place them nicely in appropriate seasons, providing inspiration to actually get out there and do them. While some of the crafts seem very Soule-centric (a wall-hanging bag to store your handmade handkerchiefs, for instance,) nearly every item is interesting. I’m not likely to make the handkerchief bag—but maybe the same pattern could be used to contain the stray mittens littering our entryway. I imagine other readers will also adapt the make and do items for their own families.
For regular readers of Soule’s blog (or her previous two books, The Handmade Home and The Creative Family,) this new book is very familiar. The Soules have a “look” that has been carefully molded—certain colors and levels of saturation repeat in the photography, themes of nature and the natural repeat often in their essays. There has been some criticism of this book just being the same stuff previously published, rehashed. But I think it flows nicely out of (or alongside) what the Soules are already doing. In addition, I found the short essays to be calming reminders to embrace what can be crazy times with our children. Obviously rhythm is a major theme: discovering the daily rhythm of family, slowing down the pace or revving it up as needed, and following the seasons.
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