Salutations!

For CLS 534 Adult Programming for Public Libraries in Summer 2022, I was tasked with creating a pathfinder for a genre of choice with associated explanatory essay; I chose Amish fiction, since it was outside my usual genre picks, and formally reviewed five representative novels. The pathfinder, made using Microsoft Publisher, is in the Google Drive folder “Documents/Presentations (MSLS & Beyond);” below are the TL;DR highlights (in my humble opinion):

•  Amish Romance, the primary focus of the novels highlighted as a representative sample in this Genre Pathfinder, can be defined as “romances that are morally and socially acceptable within [the Amish] community and religion, such as chastity and conservative values” (Harris et al., 2021). These novels feature characteristics common to both Amish Romance fiction and Christian Romance fiction, namely “a redemptive arc….a strong heroine…good prevailing over evil,” making them “safe and wholesome” books that makes readers “feel uplifted, inspired, and hopeful,” with many loyal readers avowing “their experience of the genre resembles devotional reading as much as it does entertainment” (Harris et al., 2021; Weaver-Zercher, 2013a, para. 5).
• The origin of Amish fiction as a whole seems to stem from the agreed-upon seminal publication of Beverly Lewis’ The Shunning in 1997, the first adult novel by a beloved children’s author that “quickly found an audience among fans of historical fiction”  (Markert, 2017, p. 280; Riess, 2008, p. S8). As of 2008, The Shunning “sold 766,000 copies, contributing to the 4.5 million total copies sold of Lewis’s Amish-related adult fiction” (Riess, p. S8). Beverley Lewis unknowingly paved the way for authors Wanda Brunstetter and Cindy Woodsmall to establish themselves as leaders within the new genre, leaping “to best-seller status and [continuing alongside her] to write Amish-themed romances that generate strong sales for the [publishing] houses that launched their [respective] careers” (Markert, p. 280).
• Overall, books in the Amish fiction genre or the Amish Romance fiction genre appeal to primarily female readers of varied ages and backgrounds, whether religious or not, for several different reasons. Most commonly, “the Amish lifestyle encapsulates many things [numerous readers across the United States primarily] find attractive—a strong sense of spirituality, a close-knit community, and the ability to remain relatively constant in a changing culture” (Reiss, p. S8), with some readers even discovering a sense of “permission to wrestle with some of their own doubts about how their faith intersects with the culture” (Reiss, p. S8); other readers are inspired to begin or continue “many of the practices they see slipping away from contemporary life: eating together as a family, caring for one’s neighbors, … resisting the urge to buy every new gadget, [and] choosing to forgive” (Weaver-Zercher, p. 24).

I grouped the pathfinder’s representative titles into a Goodreads shelve, with the same reviews posted there, you want to add any of them to your own TBR shelves!

RLGing,

Sarah Hope