My Amish Childhood: A True Story of Faith, Family, and the Simple Life

Imagine an Amish woman teaching her son about sexual mores while they wait for new tires to be put on the station wagon transporting them home. Throw out your stereotypes—this is Amish life through Eicher’s eyes. Eicher (a bestselling author of Amish fiction including the popular Hannah’s Heart series) takes readers back through his memories of childhood, “those hazy years when time drags.” The tale follows his family from 1968 to 1977, when they left the rules (or “ordnung”) of Amish society in Aylmer, Ontario, to start a new community in Honduras. Eicher unveils surprise after surprise, from his father’s being robbed at gunpoint to Eicher’s keeping a pet monkey as well as the realization that the Amish were the economic elite among their Third World peers. Readers will find they can, perhaps unexpectedly, relate to the politics of the Honduran Amish community and Eicher’s own struggles with stuttering and depression. Fans of his fiction will fall in love with the characters that form the basis for his novels. (Feb.)