Written By: Dale Cramer
The warmth, love, hardships, sadness, fears, and strength found in this book awed me. This book is based on true events, set in the 1920's, around an Amish community that is being punished for not letting their children attend the public school five days a week. The men are taken and put in prison in the beginning, their children are forced to attend the public school five days a week. While the men are in prison the children are put in an orphanage type setting, where they take their clothes, cut their hair and make them look like any other child. Taking away, in the childrens eyes, their very existence. For the 'good' of the children the government take away part of what the children identify as their heritage as Amish children. Compromises are made for the sake of the children, plans are spun by the Amish parents for a whole new way life for them and their children. Caleb Bender is the first one to take action, he decides that since he cannot break the oath he made to the judge in the United States he will move himself and his family to Mexico. He takes them to a place named Paradise Valley. Though the land is rich, and there is no law for schools there are other struggles and obstacles that the Bender family must overcome. Was it worth it for them to move? Or should they of stayed where they were enduring the change?
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