What it's about (From Goodreads): Your best friend hates you. The guy you liked hates you. Your entire group of friends hates you.
All because you did the right thing.
Welcome to life for Mena, whose year is starting off in the worst way possible. She's been kicked out of her church group and no one will talk to her—not even her own parents. No one except for Casey, her supersmart lab partner in science class, who's pretty funny for the most brilliant guy on earth.
And when Ms. Shepherd begins the unit on evolution, school becomes more dramatic than Mena could ever imagine . . . and her own life is about to evolve in some amazing and unexpected ways.
What I learned: Oh man, another book that directly addresses the questions I'm dealing with in my own life. Reconciling Christianity and evolution isn't nearly as important to me as Christianity and homosexuality - which The God Box did for me wonderfully - but it's still an issue I've given a fair amount of thought to. I grew up in a somewhat similar situation to Mena, except my parents and my church were never mean-spirited and would never have punished me for doing what Mena did. I was simply raised with the same beliefs about homosexuality and evolution. I went to a Christian school for junior high and I vividly remember watching many Answers in Genesis videos with Ken Ham. The videos aim to address evolutionist science with Biblical citation. Essentially, they try to prove that creationism/intelligent design is right and evolution is wrong, using both the Bible and science. I did go to a public high school and was taught evolution in my biology class but no one ever made a big deal about it and I pretty much chose to just learn what I needed to for the class but not believe it.
Over the years I have since changed my beliefs to almost exactly what Ms. Shepherd says in the book: "I believe that God created the universe and everything in it, and that evolution is the best explanation of what systems He used to effect it" (p. 257). There is absolutely no denying some amount of evolution. But it's what started the whole process in the beginning that people get hung up on. I choose to believe that God started the world and that evolution occurred naturally after that. It just makes sense to me.
I learned so much from this book in regards to thoughts on Christianity, intelligent design and evolution, but what I really learned is that my parents are awesome. Even though they think along the same lines as Mena's parents in their beliefs (the parts about Mena not being allowed to watch any movies rated higher than PG or with sorcery of any kind could have been lifted straight from my life), they never once went overboard and lost their capabilities of rational, loving thought. They never gave me the silent treatment for any of the numerous mistakes I made in high school and they always took the time to explain exactly why their punishment fit my crime. It made it really hard at the time for my teenage self to ever righteously complain about them, but looking back I see how absolutely fair they were and how much they were trying to keep me from harm.
If you've read Evolution, Me & Other Freaks of Nature, what did you learn?
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