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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not That Original, July 7, 2006
This review is from: Rumspringa: To Be or Not to Be Amish (Hardcover)
The book 'Rumspringa' details the period of an Amish adolescent's life when they are allowed to explore a 'English' world and engage of previously forbidden behavior, such as drinking, partying, owning cars, and more, before they join the church in their early twenties. The book is arranged by giving historical anecdotes and personal accounts from people who either finished their rumspringa or were currently engaged in their own at the time of writing.
The book is written by one of the documentarians who helped produce the film of the same subject called 'Devil's Playground,' which contains many, if not all, of the people interviewed for the film. For those who have seen the film, Shachtman gives further details about each individual, which is the book's best attribute. However, Shachtman does not bring to light any new information or insights that was not previously covered in the documentary and thus, the book can seem repetitive relative to the movie.
The book is not academic and Shachtman does not cite specific sources (although he provides a bibliography at the end) and therefore, the book should not be used for research purposes. Additionally, there are quite a number of characters, introduced only by their first name and first letter of their last name, and the book tends to jump from story to story, requiring time to recollect the person and limits the flow of the read. At times, Shachtman introduces his own commentary and thoughts on the subject, which are often superficial and shallow, but to his credit, he never claims to be an authority or expert on the Amish.
If you are interested in seriously studying the subject, John Hostetler, Donald Kraybill, and Stephen Nolt have all published academic works that are excellent reading material and very informative. Additionally, a number of Amish defectors have written autobiographical works that give better accounts of growing up Amish and engaging in rumspringa than Shachtman does. However, rather than read 'Rumspringa,' I recommend watching documentary 'Devil's Playground' (2002) produced by his colleagues which deals with the same subject matter, has better flow, and includes most of the people and anecdotes from the book.
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41 of 48 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
not really about rumspringa, August 13, 2006
This review is from: Rumspringa: To Be or Not to Be Amish (Hardcover)
I was very surprised that the editor of this book allowed it to be hyped as a book about rumspringa. A very small percentage of the book is about this teenage Amish tradition. The rest is about Amish life in general (farming, faith, etc.), which, while interesting, is not about the moral conflicts teenagers face.
I am a writing professor and insist that my students stick to a thesis. As a professional writer, I often receive feedback from editors that I need to bring my writing back to the theme, instead of straying into related topics. Therefore, again, given the title of the book, I was very surprised that so little of this book is about the teens and their temporary entry into "the world."
The author also seems to rely at times on questionable sources. For example, at one point, he quotes an employer as saying that the decline in family farming has led to Amish teens lying more frequently. He offers no support for this proposition other than the word of the employer, yet seems to accept it as true.
His writing is also repetitive. He must tell us a dozen times that fewer Amish now farm.
That said, I did learn some interesting things about Amish communities.
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32 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A thoughtful, fair-minded exploration of Amish society, November 12, 2006
This review is from: Rumspringa: To Be or Not to Be Amish (Hardcover)
When they turn 16, children who have been raised among the Old Order Amish experience a curious coming-of-age ritual, the rumspringa--or "running around"--a period during which they are given license to experience the conveniences and temptations, previously forbidden them, of mainstream, "English" society. Amish youth in rumspringa can dress like their mainstream contemporaries, and they can drink and smoke and date and party, and some of them engage in such behaviors with dangerous abandon. Some of the rumspringa parties attended by Amish youth differ little from those thrown by non-Amish teenagers: sex and drugs and rock and rap, vomiting and sleeping in, unplanned pregnancies. The Amish, that is--and this is something I would never have dreamt I could say prior to reading this book--are, some of them, too wild for this reviewer. Other Amish youth, perhaps most, are more restrained in their rumspringa explorations, confining their wild behavior to attendance at parent-approved events.
The rumspringa period is intended to give the young Amish some experience of mainstream culture so that they can make informed decisions, when the time comes, about whether or not to join the Amish church as adults. The period ends, ideally, when a young adult in rumspringa decides to be baptized into the church, which implies refraining thenceforth from the illicit behaviors they were allowed briefly to experience. Some 80% of Amish youth do, in fact, return to the fold.
Tom Shachtman's Rumspringa is the product of more than 400 hours of interviews conducted between 1999 and 2004. Shachtman focuses on the period of rumspringa, but in fact his book serves as an introduction to Amish life as a whole. Each of the author's 11 chapters centers on some aspect of Amish life--education (most Amish aren't educated beyond the 8th grade), farming, punishment by shunning, the role of women in Amish society. Shachtman profiles a great number of individual Amish of varying ages, returning to his subjects' stories throughout the book as anecdotes from their lives become pertinent to his current theme. Shachtman seamlessly integrates direct quotes and information gleaned from the interviews into his narrative. And in fact Shachtman writes very well throughout the book. His prose is clear and admirably precise.
Shachtman's book is also fascinating, at least to this reader, who was previously largely unfamiliar with the particulars of Amish culture. I cannot know how a reader raised in the Amish faith would respond to the book, but Shachtman's study seemed to me a very thoughtful and fair-minded exploration of the society. The author finds value in much of what Amish culture has to offer--the Amish work ethic, for example, dependable community support, their care of the elderly and infirm--while finding fault with other aspects, for example, their abbreviated educational system. Shachtman concludes with a chapter considering why so high a percentage of youths in rumspringa eventually join the church. What is the allure of life in Amish society, considering that the price of belonging, the renunciation of much of one's independence, is so high? It is a very interesting discussion.
Debra Hamel -- author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece (Yale University Press, 2003)
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