Rumspringa Contributor(s): Shachtman, Tom (Author) |
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ISBN: 0865477426 ISBN-13: 9780865477421 Publisher: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux-3pl OUR PRICE: $18.90 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: May 2007 Annotation: Through vivid portraits of teenagers in Ohio and Indiana, the author offers an account of Amish life as a mirror to the soul-searching and questing recognized as a generally intrinsic part of adolescence. |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Religion | Christianity - Amish - Social Science | Sociology Of Religion - Social Science | Customs & Traditions |
Dewey: 305.235 |
Physical Information: 0.9" H x 5.4" W x 8.4" (0.80 lbs) 304 pages |
Themes: - Religious Orientation - Christian - Topical - Adolescence/Coming of Age |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: Rumspringa is Tom Shachtman's celebrated look at a littleknown Amish coming-of-age ritual, the rumspringa--the period of "running around" that begins for their youth at age sixteen. During this time, Amish youth are allowed to live outside the bounds of their faith, experimenting with alcohol, premarital sex, revealing clothes, telephones, drugs, and wild parties. By allowing such broad freedoms, their parents hope they will learn enough to help them make the most important decision of their lives--whether to be baptized as Christians, join the church, and forever give up worldly ways, or to remain in the world. In this searching book, Shachtman draws on his skills as a documentarian to capture young people on the cusp of a fateful decision, and to give us "one of the most absorbing books ever written about the Plain People" (Publishers Weekly). |
Contributor Bio(s): Shachtman, Tom: - Tom Shachtman is an author, filmmaker, and educator. He has written or co-authored more than thirty books, including Rumspringa, Airlift to America, and Terrors and Marvels, as well documentaries for ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS, and has taught at major universities. Publishers Weekly lauded his book Rumspringa: To Be or Not to Be Amish as "not only one of the most absorbing books ever written about the Plain People, but a perceptive snapshot of the larger culture in which they live and move." He has written articles for The New York Times, Newsday, Smithsonian, and environmental monthlies, and writes a column for The Lakeville Journal (CT). A two-hour television documentary based on his book Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold was broadcast on PBS in February 2008. |