I have now read and enjoyed three of your novels: Hidden, Wanted, and Spring’s Renewal. You have a gift for presenting people and stories in a simple way that brings out the comfort and peace that can come with honest and harmonious human relations. You have given me a small window into Amish life which I appreciate.

Although my own religious foundation is far from that of the Amish, and I suspect far from your own (I’m Unitarian), I find it interesting that my ethics and core values are almost identical to those of the characters you depict in the few of your books I have read.

There is one rather glaring exception to this, however. I do not share the Amish belief that formal education should end at the eigth grade level. I get the feeling that the Amish Ordnung not only delares secondary and higher education to be unnecessary, but even considers it potentially harmful.

As the teacher and thoughtful person you appear to be, I wonder whether this bothers you as it does me. If you choose to respond to this note, perhaps you can tell me whether you deal with this discordance in any of your other novels, or whether you perhaps intend to take this on in a future work.

Your books fill an improtant niche and probably foster honesty and compassion in many of your readers. Keep up the good work.

Bob Koehler