Customer Reviews

Mulberry Park

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"And a child shall lead them."

Analisa has faith that God is real despite losing her father and mother to tragic ends in South America where they serve as missionaries. Her deep faith is a well that many an adult learns to draw from. At 6 she is sent to live with her Uncle Sam who has little faith, but struggles to raise her in love. Hilda, her nanny, takes her to Mulberry Park as a respite each day where she and Analisa make several friendships of the other broken spirited park patrons. Claire comes accidentally into Analisa's life by finding a letter the child writes to God, leaving it on a high limb in a tree. As it falls at Claire's feet, she reads it wondering how best to assure the hurting tike that her parents are happy in Heaven. Walter, an elderly man who feels his worth fullness has long wore out, prays to be needed again. Maria with two children and another on the way, worries how to feed her family. And Trevor, a lonely nine year old, wonders if he will see his imprisoned father home again. All wounded souls, events arise that force them to pull together as a unit to heal their hearts. Though probably a bit coincidental, the story keeps you intrigued learning the reasons for all the sorrow in each of these character's souls.

A lovely, spiritually uplifting read that leaves one happy that there is a God that loves us all.

I've just finished reading Mulberry Park by Judy Duarte. It may be the first Christian novel in quite a while to move me almost to tears. It's set in the area round a small park, where people who hardly talk to each other are bound to turn out to be neighbors. Over time, the good, the bad and the indifferent prove to be friends as well. The story centers on a young girl who's lost her parents and a middle-aged woman who's lost her child. Somewhere along the way the woman also lost her faith, but the child has kept hers and starts writing letters to God, which she persuades a fellow park-player to hide in a tree. Then God answers.

In a small neighborhood, coincidences are inevitable, and there's never any feeling of the characters being manipulated in this book. Each event arises naturally out of its own situation, and the characters build on their own shaky foundations of mistakes and mistrust. But somehow there's a feeling, as in any good story--and in the faith of a little girl who writes letters to God--that life's not entirely random. Death's not the end, and hope is never lost.

I cannot imagine the pain of losing a child, though Judy Duarte describes it with great poignancy and sympathy. I cannot imagine losing a beloved spouse, a child losing a parent, family losing home and livelihood. But life can be built on losses as well as on gains; hope is built on forgiveness, and forgiveness on faith.

Okay, so maybe it wasn't God who wrote an answer to Analisa's letter. But it's God who writes his name on our hearts and his healing on our lives. And Mulberry Park is a beautiful image of how that healing might look.

The story lines & characters of Mulberry Park are just as cute and heartwearming as the cover of this book. This novel is about heartbreak, healing, hope, love and friendship, all of which come together when a few lovable and interesting characters find their lives intertwined after meeting at Mulberry Park. I read this book in a few short hours and was completely caught up in each of the character's lives. I hope that Judy Duarte will write more in this genre.

There's so many books and stories about children sending letters to God that it gets a bit tiresome. It was a good story and I did appreciate the characters, even though some of their stories seemed unfinished. But it was all too "happy ending" mushy at the end. All these people and all of them end up having the perfect ending, I understand they are hinting "miracle" here, but it just didn't ring true. I don't know, maybe I've turn into a skeptic and I need my own personal miracle to turn around. It's an easy short read, so I still recommend it for a day at the pool/beach/coffee shop...

I enjoy reading good wholesome books with a good moral story. I don't want to feed my mind with garbage or filthy words. I like stories that I can relate to the characters.

A young girl who lost both her parents...

A young boy who lost his mother to cancer and his father to jail...

A woman who lost her young son to an accident and her husband to divorce...

A man who lost his wife and his stepsons...

A woman who lost her husband to jail and divorce...

Their lives and the lives of others entwine to bring healing to hurting souls.

If you're looking for a book with strong black and white deliniations of right and wrong, this isn't the one. If you're looking for a an uplifting book about characters on individual journeys of redemption, this one is a must have. Analisa is a child who wants simple answers to the hard questions, and her letter to God puts into motion the events that unfold in the story, each thread tugging at the heartstrings. While reading this book, I smiled, I worried for the well being of each of the characters, and I cried at the tangled mess of the climax.

This is a heart-warming story you'll remember long after you put this book down. I can't wait to read this author's next book!

At first I thought this book would be boring and somewhat predictable and while it was in a way, by the end of the book I was wrapped in warmth that filled me like a warm cup of hot chocolate. I cried and was glad that I read it. The story of Claire and the loss of her son were real and filled with raw emotions. The best part of the story was the way the other characters all interacted. This is a great feel good novel.

Excellent book.........its a feel good story right from the start. Beautifully written! You won't regret reading this one.

Analisa has some questions for which the adults in her life just don't have answers, so she's determined to ask God. Her best bet, by her calculations, is the huge tree in the middle of Mulberry Park whose branches reach high into the heavens. Surely if she can get a letter up into its upper branches, God will be able to reach it and answer her. When Claire, a grieving mother, finds the letter and answers, she sets off a chain of events that will make "a community" where there wasn't one before.

In this touching story, Judy Duarte weaves together an amazing cast of characters. Any single story line would have been formulaic, but she seamlessly switches from one perspective to another in such a way that I was never sorry to go, nor to return. It was such a natural flow that it seemed perfectly normal to switch from a little girl to an elderly man even though all they did was walk past one another.

Let me see if I can introduce the cast of characters. There's Walter, the Korean War vet whose best pal and chess buddy has died, leaving him feeling purposeless, lonely, and struggling to not answer the siren call of the local pub. There's Maria, the pregnant single mother who is just trying to make ends meet. There's Sam, the attorney whose life was altered when he took guardianship of his estranged brother's daughter. Add Hilda, who had to come out of retirement because of a poor investment but is plagued by memory loss. And Trevor is a young loner who has lost faith in anything good ever happening to him again. But in the context that is Mulberry Park, these strangers' lives become so interwoven that they soon are interdependent.

I loved this story, or, better said, these stories. The characters are three dimensional and she only reveals their past as it is necessary. And their pasts are important, giving an air of mystery to this women's fiction novel.

Armchair Interview says: Mulberry Park is highly recommended for a light read with depth