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Teen Life Among the Amish and Other Alternative Communities: Choosing a Lifestyle
Imagine growing up without television, radio, video games, or even electric lights. For some people, such conditions may be hard to visualize. This book tells you about the Amish and other people who choose to live alternative lifestyles. It shows how they live and why they choose to live as they do.
96 pages, Library Binding
First published September 1, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 21, 2009
Teen Life Among the Amish and Other Alternative Communities: Choosing a Lifestyle, by David Hunter is part of a non-fiction series called Teen Life in Rural North America, which examine the particular challenges, issues, and activities of teens in a rural America. Other titles in the series range from Growing Up on a Farm: Responsibilities and Issues, to Rural Crime and Poverty: Violence, Drugs and other Issues. The entire series sounds fascinating to me, and if this book is any indication, my hunch may prove to be true. While I choose this book to reflect on the Amish Lifestyle, while reading, I realized that the rural American lifestyle can be considered “alternative” for many city and suburban students.
“Choosing a Lifestyle” begins with an inquiry into what is meant by community, and progresses to a discussion of alternative communities and the reasons why alternative communities are founded. The book breaks up longer chapters with half-page highlights that contain brief bits of interesting and important information. In one of these sections, “A Note About Terminology,” students are cautioned to be aware of the words they choose, and informed that the use of the word “normal” when discussing a student’s own community or lifestyle implies that other communities or lifestyles are “abnormal.” Different does not mean weird, strange or abnormal, the book says, and that is good advice for any teen.
When providing information about the Amish, the book begins with the Protestant Reformation in Europe, describes the Amish beginnings in the Anabaptist movement, and concludes the historical background with an explanation of the difference between the Amish and the Mennonites. The information about Amish life today is delivered with matter-of-fact honesty; the Amish lifestyle is not romanticized or made quaint in this book, and that is partly why I gave it five stars.
Other alternative communities discussed include Israeli Kibbutzim, communes born from the counterculture movement of the 1960’s and 70’s (some are still operating successfully!) and the newly popular Eco-Villages, which are focused on sustainable living. The book concludes with a chapter on learning to respect differences, and the final half-page highlight states “ultimately, we all belong to a single global community!”
In 95 pages, Choosing a Lifestyle provides brief, relevant and easy to understand lessons in history, religion, sociology and anthropology, but the lesson most emphasized is respect. The focus this book places on acceptance, respect and understanding for lifestyles different from one’s own is the other reason I gave this book five stars.
“Choosing a Lifestyle” begins with an inquiry into what is meant by community, and progresses to a discussion of alternative communities and the reasons why alternative communities are founded. The book breaks up longer chapters with half-page highlights that contain brief bits of interesting and important information. In one of these sections, “A Note About Terminology,” students are cautioned to be aware of the words they choose, and informed that the use of the word “normal” when discussing a student’s own community or lifestyle implies that other communities or lifestyles are “abnormal.” Different does not mean weird, strange or abnormal, the book says, and that is good advice for any teen.
When providing information about the Amish, the book begins with the Protestant Reformation in Europe, describes the Amish beginnings in the Anabaptist movement, and concludes the historical background with an explanation of the difference between the Amish and the Mennonites. The information about Amish life today is delivered with matter-of-fact honesty; the Amish lifestyle is not romanticized or made quaint in this book, and that is partly why I gave it five stars.
Other alternative communities discussed include Israeli Kibbutzim, communes born from the counterculture movement of the 1960’s and 70’s (some are still operating successfully!) and the newly popular Eco-Villages, which are focused on sustainable living. The book concludes with a chapter on learning to respect differences, and the final half-page highlight states “ultimately, we all belong to a single global community!”
In 95 pages, Choosing a Lifestyle provides brief, relevant and easy to understand lessons in history, religion, sociology and anthropology, but the lesson most emphasized is respect. The focus this book places on acceptance, respect and understanding for lifestyles different from one’s own is the other reason I gave this book five stars.
April 28, 2021
He had a good intro to the Amish community. He didn't talk about a lot or in depth about other communities except for the Amish which was OK I very much enjoyed this book. And it definitely will give you something to think about as far as community and things like that.
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September 7, 2022I came to this book from a place of curiosity and finished reading it in a place of feeling compassion and some better understanding of young people who are trying to make some very difficult decisions. This is a book well worth reading if you want to understand part of Amish and Mennonite culture.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews