Product Description
Named the CMA song of the year, I Hope You Dance is a challenge to make the most out of life: “And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance.” This beautiful gift book by the Nashville team that wrote the song includes a CD with an acoustic version recorded especially for this book by Lee Ann Womack. This is the perfect gift not only for fans of Lee Ann Womack, but for a new graduate, for someone that needs encouragement, or for anyone… More >>
#1 by Marlin Sommers on April 18, 2010 - 5:37 am
I appreciate parts of this book, but want all to know that it is not Christian. It properly calls us to marvel at nature, to go on in spite of tragedy, and to fully participate in life(I hope you dance!); but it does not give the basis for these, which is the existence of a good, loving, redeeming Creator.
The book is implicitly and explicitly anti-Christian. It is implicitly so in that it emphasizes doing things yourself while it does not acknowlege God, as demonstrated in the following quotes.
“It’s crossing your fingers when… it’s up to you-you and your gut and your mettle, and your level or resilience, and your wealth of wisdom-to persevere. To get to the other side.”
“A PROMISE IS ONLY AS STRONG as your own faith in your own self, in your own god.”
One of the most blatantly anti-christian sections is the flippant and erroneous interpretation of Eve’s sin. I quote:
“LIVING MIGHT MEAN TAKING CHANCES, BUT THEY’RE WORTH TAKING Ask Eve. Evolve. Take a chance, take a ticket, take a fast train to the coast. No guts, no glory.” That chance was not worth taking! It resulted in our current mess.
Much as I decry the godless philosophy of this book, I do wish to affirm the theme “I hope you dance!”, but please, seek the Truth. Dance for the Lord. Dance with Jesus Christ!
Rating: 1 / 5
#2 by Melissa Rae Centazzocommunication Conundrum on April 18, 2010 - 7:37 am
I love the song and bought it for a guy that broke up with me.
Rating: 5 / 5
#3 by Anonymous on April 18, 2010 - 10:07 am
This book contains the lyrics to the song, “I hope you dance”, along with some poetry to go along with it and a CD of the song. I thought it was too mushy and sentimential. But since my 11-year-old daughter liked the song, I got her the book for her birthday and she absolutely loved it. Despite all the mushiness, it does have some good messages for everyone.
Rating: 4 / 5
#4 by JR Corry on April 18, 2010 - 12:56 pm
Being a lover of this song and of gift books, I naturally couldn’t resist ordering this book the minute I saw it in a store. The lyrics of Leann Womack’s classic song is featured throughout the book, along with inspirational messages and beautiful photography from those who put the book together.
I did dock a star because the messages in the book that accompanied the song occasionally came off as a little too..mushy. I’m really not that harsh a critic, not of books like these, but the beautiful words of inspiration were, a couple of times, replaced by words that were definitely too syrupy for my taste. I prefer truly moving messages and stories to speak for themselves, but it occassionally seemed like the authors wanted to hammer the point home, overdo the sentimentality, and even make their message serious and cheerfully bouncy at the exact same time (trust me, that doesn’t work). For ex: throughout the book, the lyrics of the song are printed in large bold letters in order to differentiate them from the authors’ separate words of inspiration. Usually, the pages featuring the lyrics had no other words on them, but at one point, right above the words of Womack’s moving song, the authors’ placed a bulletin that said, “Attention! This is BIG stuff!” Considering the fact that Leann’s song more than speaks for itself and doesn’t need any extra emotional boosting, I found those additional words annoying and almost jarring to the flow of the song and its message.
Elsewhere in the book, as I mentioned before, the sentimentality goes into overdrive. One page is dedicated entirely to love and begins with the words, “Love, love, love. You have to love.” Gag, gag, gag, I needed to retch. It’s nice to compliment the song with additional words of motivation, but we don’t need an interpretive page with every selection of the song. In another part of the book, while speaking of youth, the narrator says, “Ah, youth..new skin, wide smiles, clear eyes..the future so bright. If only we could bottle it up, sip it now and again..” This sounded more to me like a bad commercial for a fountain of youth than a motivational speech. I don’t mean to sound cynical, I usually love gift books, but the tone in this one was sometimes just too sweet for my taste.
I also didn’t particularly care for the version of the song in the bonus CD. There’s a mainstream version with soft rock music and female voices in the background (which I prefer) and there’s a country version with male voices in the background and the occassional awful twangy instruments; this one’s the latter. If you like country music, good for you, but I don’t like the country version of this song.
There are plenty of good points of this book to make up for the disappointments, of course. The song is wonderful, whether you hear it or read it, and some of the separate words in the book were lovely to read. My favorite part of the book’s text, other than the song, was a beautiful little haiku that the authors wrote called “You”, celebrating every individual. The photographs are also gorgeous, from grinning children to nature scenery. A beautiful package, altogether.
Now, if they’d only make a gift book celebrating the beautiful song “Private Malone”..
Rating: 4 / 5
#5 by Thomas Fernandez on April 18, 2010 - 1:51 pm
I was given this book/cd as a Christmas present from an ex-lover. While I generally agree with all of the reviews that are posted here, I will tell you that the song makes me really sad and I’ve stopped playing it. Please don’t let that discourage you from purchasing this item, because it is nicely done.
Rating: 4 / 5