Louisa Bruinsma

Nov 11, 2024 | christiancourier.ca | Louisa Bruinsma

The Little LiarMitch AlbomHarper, 2023I am a post-war baby boomer, the first child born after my parents arrived in Canada in 1947 from The Netherlands with five children in tow. In eighth grade at Calvin Christian School in Hamilton, Ontario, my teacher and school principal, Mr. John VanderVelde, showed us shocking photos of huge piles of bodies of Jews discovered in concentration camps after the defeat of the Third Reich. Those black and white photos are imprinted in my mind.

May 29, 2024 | christiancourier.ca | Louisa Bruinsma

HOW CANADA WORKS: THEPEOPLE WHO MAKE OURNATION THRIVEPeter Mansbridgeand Mark BulgutchSimon and Schuster Canada, 2023. It was an impulse buy. I was looking through the 70 percent off Christmas clearance rack at London Drugs when I spotted a book cover with the name “Peter Mansbridge” (of CBC’s The National). For almost thirty years, this trusted icon with the fatherly face on the evening news informed and comforted our nation through 9/11, floods and tornadoes. So I bought the book.

Aug 11, 2023 | christiancourier.ca | Christian Courier |Robert Bruinsma |Louisa Bruinsma |Kathy Vandergrift

In keeping with our desert theme, we asked CC folks, past and present, “What book would you most want if you were stranded on a desert island?” Almost half of them said, “Well, the Bible, but if you mean other than the Bible, then…”When I lived in Korea with my missionary parents, we spent part of our holiday in a cottage close to the Yellow Sea. I think I was around 11 years old when I read To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee within that cottage sanctuary.