What Money Can't Buy

by Emily Steiner

Caught in the vortex of the Great Depression, the Hess family needs to work and sweat and pray for every mortgage payment on their Ohio farm. Their savings disappear when the bank fails, and prices for farm goods drop ever lower. Disaster sweeps across the entire nation, and no one knows when—or if—things will get better. But even when life seems to hopelessly out of control, fourteen-year-old Annie finds that God is still unchanging and eternal source of true riches. This is a story of faith and trust, of loving and sharing, of giving and receiving.

Unknown Binding

Reviews

[Phoebs · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful Christian book, I have read it 8 times if that tells u anything 😀

[Kristin Rounds · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heart-warming (in the nicest way) story about a Mennonite family making do during the Great Depression.

[Caleb A. Gerber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Story of a Mennonite family during the Great Depression. What money can't buy. Family, love, faith. Good story.

[Christopher Wright · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought this book for my 9 year old because we read a variety of Christian fiction, and some books are outstanding (like a Charge to Keep) and empowering, and really model a Christian response in an uplifting, inspiring, get-you-through-your-own-hard-times-with-a-sense-of-gratitude-way. He insisted it was a great book and that I read it, and so I did. I have only about 20 pages to go till the end and it hasn't improved. The problem with the book is that all the optimism in the book is false. It is just about a family going through degrading circumstances and bearing with those circumstances, while they are progressively humiliated by the one wealthy family in the town. If you voyeuristically want to peak into the suffering of an imaginary family as some daughter of a farmer that loses his farm is forced to work as a quiet slave to some insufferably offputting selfish people, then, this book is for you, but, it draws some insane conclusions - like, God is glorified by humiliating His followers in this fashion, and that *God* intends for them to experience things like this as an exercise in getting "spiritually stronger." I find that offensive. God is a healer. He is Just. He is not a being that capriciously impoverishes people or teaches by humiliating people into slavery: on the contrary, that would be devil. When the people of the town rightly abstain from supporting the hands of evildoers by establishing a boycott, we are lectured by the author that this is "hateful" and "unloving" - when there's nothing hateful about a boycott: it's just simple act of group protection against monetary exploitation. The author completely ignores that all throughout the Old Testament God brought justice to the impoverished by taking out the rich oppressors, and even says in the New Testament "woe to the rich". Obviously vigilante justice should not be encouraged but, unlike A Charge to Keep ( a very good book on an admirable response to poverty ) this book does not inspire but actually suggests that God would allow people to be totally destroyed, His own followers, without intervening to help them at all. This has got to be false. We have the entire OT that shows that God intervenes when people repent. I don't believe for a minute that God is glorified by an imaginary book where some poor daughter has to go and outwork her father as a rich person's maid - for the noble goal of being humiliated. That is a total perversion of all things good in my mind, and, I was not inspired in the least to read it. There may be poor unfortunate souls tested beyond reason here and there, but to invent something so depressing and dreary - I honestly think this story has got to be WORSE than what actually happened in the Depression. Our history book claims that most Mennonites actually kept their farms (bolstering the theory that God does protect those who follow after Him). It just left me feeling vicariously abused, and I think this is not the heart of Christianity as much as people try to pretend it is. I think it's very simple - you follow after God as best you can, and He protects and cares for you. If you are looking for a book on someone going through adverse work circumstances and poverty, and who improves their situation with the help of God, I would recommend a Charge to Keep instead. That is a book that actually motivates.

[Marilyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice easy read. Not overly religious but they are a Mennonite family. Living a simple way of life, with its complications during the Great Depression. Sadly reminded me of my own childhood being poor, living in the projects. Simple story that I will pass on.