Extravagant

Starred review from June 1, 2020
Award-winning journalist Hinojosa, host of Latino USA on NPR, is known for covering overlooked and marginalized communities. She has now written a formidable memoir sparked by a chance encounter. When Hinojosa spies a little girl alone in an airport, she is transported back to her own scary arrival in the early 1960s as a child from Mexico; she tells the ni�a, Once I was you. From this emotional beginning, Hinojosa narrates her turbulent life story as a marginalized woman with allegiance to two countries. She lays out her personal and professional struggles and successes within a well-researched historical context, while also providing behind-the-scenes accounts of her groundbreaking and often traumatic work on 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina and the creation of the Frontline report on the miseries of immigration detention camps, titled Lost in Detention. As far-ranging and politically illuminating as Hinojosa's memoir becomes, it is also laser-focused and intimate, and at its heart are portrayals of immigrants, especially immigrant children. Although the situations of those children are dire and hope seems unrealistic, Hinojosa promises to keep telling their stories. A fascinating and essential journalist's memoir.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

Starred review from September 7, 2020
Boyd (Remarkable), senior pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, delivers heartfelt lessons from scripture for developing the “extravagant heart” God intended for all people. Though the notion of extravagance may initially conjure images of blatant excess, Boyd directs readers to the biblical tale of Mary anointing Jesus’s feet with costly perfume—a gesture perceived as wasteful by some yet commended by Jesus. He provides examples of lifestyle choices (charitable giving, volunteering) made by the “dangerously generous” and extols the power of empathetic and cautionary tales, noting Jesus’s habit of teaching through parables, and asks readers to consider what Jesus might say if he wrote a parable about their lives. In stark contrast, Boyd shares some sobering statistics on stinginess (“Three out of four Americans never volunteer an hour of their time”) and explains how to recognize fears that hinder generosity. Ultimately, Boyd encourages those who want to “choose the path of extravagance” to make “a simple decision to live like God asks for his people to live.” Any Christian will be inspired to live more generously by Boyd’s exemplary guide.