I Am Hutterite by Mary-Ann Kirkby is a coming of age memoir by a woman who grew up in an isolated religious community and grew up to become a news anchor. The book begins with a bit of an explanation of why the author decided to take this trip down memory lane, and then leads into how her parents grow up, got married, had children, and eventually reaches the point where her parents decided to take their many children and leave the Hutterite colony in which they had lived, and also how Mary Ann herself reinvented herself to become “English’, and eventually became Mrs. Kirkby and established herself in the news business.

I’m really not a memoir reader. I dislike most non-history non-fiction. For some reason, I keep choosing memoirs from Thomas Nelson’s Booksneeze program, and I’m not sure why (perhaps because there isn’t much fiction in my preferred genres). However, I loved I Am Hutterite. It read like a novel, and had very little of the “but that was to change all too soon” in it.

While I’m pretty familiar with Amish and Mennonites (I grew up in and live in Amish Country in south-central Pennsylvania), I’d never even heard of Hutterites until a few weeks ago. I’d heard them all grouped together and was intrigued, but assumed that it was simply another sect like the Amish. Within days I noticed I Am Hutterite appear on Thomas Nelson’s Booksneeze page and immediately grabbed it. I’m so glad I did. I read the whole thing through on my recent vacation to Walt Disney World (and those who know me know that I rarely have time for reading there), and have just passed it on to my mother for her vacation. I highly recommend it.

Links of interest:Thomas Nelson’s Product Page, Book Preview

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of I Am Hutterite by Mary Ann Kirkby from Thomas Nelson’s BookSneeze program for the purpose of reviewing it.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010 at 12:56 pm and is filed under book recommendations, reviews, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.