The Chinese Ginger Jars Paperback – August 14, 2011

The book content is great: well written, progresses naturally and fast enough to keep interest, makes one feel that the author is a real person with whom the reader can easily identify. A book to be shared with joy, but the cover is not at all attractive and did not meet my standards to be used as a special gift--which was one of the reasons I bought it.

This is a very interesting life story of a family's lie in China during the war times and how they survived. Enjoyed it.

One of the best book I've read. Is amazing what this family went thought to help other people and how they stayed together.

I first read this book when it was published in 1962 and remembered parts of the story. I have finished reading it again.

In this book, Myra Scovel, the brave wife--with a sense of humor--of an American missionary doctor in China before, during, and after the Japanese occupation and then the Communist takeover relates in detail their many experiences. This is a book to cherish.

This is an enchanting story in a somewhat pompous but fitting style. Myra Scovel and her husband Frederick, a Presbyterian doctor, spent two decade in China, travelling from one corner to another, practicing medicine through the suzerains of both the Japanese and Communists. The account of the treatment of a ward full of opium addicts, as well as of the Japanese invading the hospital/missionary post the Scovels owned, are well treated and exciting. Myra and her husband were also missionaries in India; this is mentioned briefly toward the end of this memoir.

I found this book at a used book store. What a warm and enlightening story! Her writing style is light and easy, but she is adept at communicating a full range of experiences and emotion. She processes her doubts and experiences in light of her faith, making it tangible, human, and relatable. There's not an ounce of preachiness in it. She just sounds like a phenomenally interesting and delightful woman who loves her family and faces whatever God may send her way with both practicality, humility, a dash of spunk, and the heart of a mom.