Todd and Tara Storch took their family on the trip of a lifetime in 2010, but before it was over, their daughter, Taylor, had died. A ski accident took the life of the 13-year-old.

At the hospital, devastated by grief and facing a parent’s worst nightmare, Todd and Tara had to answer a question they had never even considered: Would they be willing to donate Taylor’s organs?

After seeking counsel and prayer, they agreed. Todd told the neurosurgeon, “Absolutely!” and Tara added, “It’s what Taylor would want.” They knew Taylor would have chosen organ donation—not because she had said so, but because of who she was and how she had lived her life for others.

The Storches’ choice saved the lives of five people waiting for a heart, liver, kidney and corneas.

In Taylor’s Gift: A Courageous Story of Giving Life and Renewing Hope (978-0-800-72188-6, $21.99), releasing this month from Revell (Baker Publishing Group), Todd and Tara Storch, with New York Times best-selling author Jennifer Schuchmann, tell Taylor’s story—her life before the accident, her family’s grief, the purpose her family found in the organ-donation process and the lives of the people Taylor’s organs saved.

The Storches write candidly about the messiness of their grief, the heroic practical support of their family and community, and their determination to connect with at least one of Taylor’s recipients. 

“Since the day we made the decision to donate Taylor’s organs, it was the one thing I wanted more than anything else,” Tara writes. 

They got their wish. In a short time, they connected with four of Taylor’s five organ recipients.

In the early days of their grief, the Storches learned that their home state of Texas ranked the second-lowest in the country in organ-donation registration. This stirred a desire, first in Todd. 

“What could I do to help educate people and lead them in conversations about organ donation?” he wondered.

In response, the two created Taylor’s Gift Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising organ-donation awareness. Their journey has received national media attention, including an NBC Today Show appearance along with Patricia Winters, who received Taylor’s heart. 

The Storches write that their book is not only Taylor’s story, but also “the story of countless recipients who received organs because someone heard Taylor’s story and registered to be an organ donor.”

For more information about Taylor’s Gift, visit www.bakerpublishinggroup.com, or to order, call 800-877-2665.

Visit www.christianretailing.com/taylorsgift for our interview with the Storches.

Joni Eareckson Tada and husband Ken reflect on 30-plus years creating their ‘untold love story’

TITLE: Joni and Ken: An Untold Love Story

AUTHOR: Joni Eareckson Tada and Ken Tada

PUBLISHER: Zondervan

ISBN: 978-0-310-31469-1

PRICE: $18.99

RELEASE DATE: April 2

When Ken Tada met Joni Eareckson, he was smitten by a Christian woman with an attractive appearance and a striking personality. But that’s not all—Joni, as she has come to be known around the world—was a quadriplegic. Still, Ken committed himself to her, and the two took their marriage vows July 3, 1982. In Joni & Ken: An Untold Love Story, written with Larry Libby, the two disclose the hardships and joys they have experienced in their more than 30 years together.

Ken first saw Joni in person when she spoke at a Young Life banquet in Burbank, Calif. He had read her biographies, watched her on Billy Graham crusades and had seen the movie about her life. Joni wondered if Ken understood just what a long-term relationship would be like with someone so well-known.

As for her fame, “she had come to accept it and live with it as a matter of course; it went with the territory,” they write. “But she had worried about Ken sometimes. Was he marrying the persona or the real person? It felt at times like he was walking into marriage with an idyllic view of who she was and what a lifetime with a quadriplegic woman really meant.” 

Early on, however, Ken learned what it was like to live with Joni, who was recognized wherever she went and known around the world. Joni had an international disability ministry—and a full schedule—while Ken was comfortable in his own world as a high school history teacher and coach. On the weekends, he needed some time to himself to recharge, so Judy, Joni’s longtime caregiver, would assist her when Ken went to visit his aging parents or go on a fishing trip, for instance. Ken was part of Joni’s ministry activities at times, but as a couple, they began to grow apart.

“They could still move in and out of each other’s worlds, but it wasn’t happening as often, or as joyfully, as it used to,” they write. 

Life with his wife’s never-ending needs led Ken into a depression, a condition he had battled in the past as well. By God’s grace, he began taking part in a men’s study focused on John Eldredge’s best-selling book Wild at Heart. Ken learned that men desire “an adventure to live, a battle to fight and a beauty to rescue.”

In June 2010, he got his big chance to rescue his beauty when Joni learned she had breast cancer. And Ken stepped up to truly be there for Joni. In fact, they write, her cancer became a “gift” that helped to transform their relationship.

“The more we have been forced to depend on Christ in our weakness, the stronger our marriage has become,” Ken told Dr. James Dobson in a “Focus on the Family” interview.

In a personal note at the end of the book, Joni admits that while their marriage may not “meet all the family-counseling criteria for ‘a happy marriage,’ ” there is one thing she knows for sure: “Home is with Ken Tada. … Home is wherever we are together.”

To order Joni & Ken, call 800-727-1309, or visit www.zondervan.com.

ASK THE AUTHOR: Travis Thrasher

LATEST PROJECT: Home Run (978-0-781-40838-7, $14.99, March).

PUBLISHER: David C Cook.

What is the premise of Home Run?  A professional ball player with a substance abuse problem is forced into rehab in his hometown, finding new hope when he gets honest about his checkered past and takes on coaching duties for a misfit Little League team.

A film version of the story releases in theaters April 19. How did you end up working on the novelization?  In December 2011, I got a call from Don Pape, vice president of trade publishing at David C Cook. He and I have worked together since his time at WaterBrook Press. He said they were bidding on an exciting project and thought of me for it. Later I discovered that a couple of publishers had suggested my name for this project. That’s always gratifying to hear. I’m delighted Cook ended up publishing Home Run. 

How was writing a film novelization different than writing a novel from scratch?  With a novel, I start from scratch with my own ideas and characters and story lines. With a novelization, I’m working off a script that’s already been written. My job is to flesh out the story and put it into a novel form. I strive to get to the heart of the story and accentuate what’s already there in the script. 

How did you collaborate with the film team? The entire process has really been remarkable. I feel like the Home Run team adopted me in January of 2012. I’ve been a part of their family ever since. The first thing I did was to meet with the producers at a Celebrate Recovery event. Carol Mathews [executive producer and producer] and Micah Barnard [associate producer] wanted me to see what Celebrate Recovery was all about as well as connecting with them. I got to hear Carol’s heart and vision for the project. She gave me a ton of creative license with the story, which was good to have. She also remained in touch via email and phone as I worked on the novel.

What is Celebrate Recovery?  Celebrate Recovery [CR] is a program designed to help those struggling with hurts, hang-ups and habits by showing them the loving power of Jesus Christ through the recovery process. The thing with CR is that it’s for everybody—I don’t know anybody out there who doesn’t struggle with something in their life. The amazing thing about this program is that it’s such a safe and supportive environment. The people I’ve met in this program are some of the most inspiring people I’ve ever met in life. 

In the beginning, the main character, Cory Brand, exhibits extremely destructive behaviors. How will readers be able to relate to him?  I think Cory Brand is a very relatable character. Yes, he has destructive habits, but he’s also very likable. He’s a sports star—that’s all he’s known his whole life. But he comes from a small town where he experienced what everybody does—falling in love, dreaming big, having growing pains. Cory deals with his struggles by using humor; ultimately this is masking the pain and hurt he hides deep down. 

What is one of your favorite scenes?  There are quite a few, and they all come from the great script I was given. I think one of the most impactful is the scene where Karen, Cory’s sister-in-law, gives her testimony. I love what she says. The actress portraying her in the movie, Nicole Leigh, did a fabulous job, just like everybody else. 

Did something in particular about the story resonate with you?  If there’s one common theme in all the novels I’ve written, it’s been the theme of redemption and second chances. There’s a line when Cory Brand first gets into recovery where everybody is sharing what they’re struggling with, and he says his agent is trying to be funny. I thought to myself, I so get this guy, dealing with the hurt through humor. I loved the fact that everybody in this story is broken, yet they’re choosing to deal with their hurts in a different way than our star baseball player. 

What is the message of the book?  Freedom is possible for anybody. Anybody. 

Who would enjoy Home Run?  I think anyone who loves a powerful story about redemption will love Home Run, both the book and the movie. 

ECPA Fiction Top 10

1. The Harbinger, Jonathan Cahn (FrontLine/Charisma House Book Group)

2. Cross Roads, William P. Young (FaithWords/Hachette Book Group)

3. The Bridge, Karen Kingsbury  (Howard Books)

4. Full Disclosure, Dee Henderson (Bethany House/Baker Publishing Group) 

5. The Shack, William P. Young  (Windblown Media/Hachette Book Group)

6. Redeeming Love, Francine Rivers (Multnomah Books)

7. A Patchwork Christmas, Judith Miller, Nancy Moser and Stephanie Grace Whitson (Barbour Publishing)

8. The Bridesmaid, Beverly Lewis (Bethany House/Baker Publishing Group)

9. Tidewater Inn, Colleen Coble (Thomas Nelson)

10. Coming Home, Kingsbury (Zondervan)

The ECPA list is compiled from sales of Christian books in hundreds of Christian retail outlets nationwide, collected using Pubtrack Christian ,(<a href="http://www.ptchristian.com" target=_"blank">www.ptchristian.com</a>). February best-sellers are for the five-week cycle ending Jan. 12, 2013. All rights reserved. © 2013 ECPA. <a href="http://www.epa.org" target="_blank">www.ecpa.org</a>.

New Fiction in April

A Season of Mysteries, Rusty Whitener (Kregel Publications)

Daughter of Jerusalem, Joan Wolf (Worthy Publishing)

Deceptions of Angels, Amelia Glynn (Nail Prints Press)

Magnificent Malevolence, Derek Wilson (Lion/Kregel Publications)

One Glorious Ambition, Jane Kirkpatrick (WaterBrook Press)

Past Darkness, Laurel Woiwode (Crossway)

Roses Have Thorns, Sandra Byrd (Howard Books)

Sinners and the Sea, Rebecca Kanner (Howard Books)

Stress Test, Richard L. Mabry, M.D. (Thomas Nelson)

Surrendered Love, Laura V. Hilton (Whitaker House)

Sweet Sanctuary, Kim Vogel Sawyer (Bethany House/Baker Publishing Group)

Take a Chance on Me, Susan May Warren (Tyndale House Publishers)

The Color of Hope, Kim Cash Tate (Thomas Nelson)

The Dance, Dan Walsh and Gary Smalley (Revell/Baker Publishing Group)

The Gate, Dann A. Stouten (Revell/Baker Publishing Group)

The Heart of Stone, Sherry Kyle (Abingdon Press)

The Hope of Spring, Wanda E. Brunstetter (Barbour Publishing)

The Message on the Quilt, Stephanie Grace Whitson (Barbour Publishing)

Though My Heart Is Torn, Joanne Bischof (Multnomah Books)

Zondervan aims to meet the needs of college students with the NIV College Devotional Bible, on sale in stores the middle of last month. Available in hardcover for $34.99 and navy/red Italian Duo-Tone for $49.99, the college edition aims to help students deepen their walk with Christ and find God’s Word as their most important source during their pivotal college years. The Bible includes 222 school-year devotions with a storytelling approach, a practical reading plan for the school year, a quick-start guide that shows students how to get the most out of reading the Bible and a subject index. 

Homeschoolers are a key audience for the Christian market, and Zondervan is appealing to that demographic with the NIV Homeschool Mom’s Bible, in stores March 12. Its devotions aim to encourage and strengthen mothers who educate their children at home. Available in hardcover for $34.99 and hot pink Italian Duo-Tone for $49.99, the Bible includes a full year’s worth of devotions written by a homeschooler for homeschoolers.

Thomas Nelson is offering two portable-size Bibles each in King James and New King James versions. The KJV Checkbook Bible includes in-text subject headings, self-pronouncing text and the words of Christ in red, and the NKJV Checkbook Bible features in-text chapter headings, translation and textual footnotes and the words of Christ in red. The publisher has sold more than 900,000 checkbook Bibles. Releasing this month, the Bibles come in turquoise or Forget-Me-Not blue, and each retails for $29.99.

Holman Bible Publishers’ KJV Compact UltraThin Bible brings the King James Version to readers in three bindings, mahogany, pink/brown and blue/taupe, each retailing for $24.99. Features include four full-color maps, a presentation page and a two-piece, die-cut gift box. The simulated-leather editions are available this month from B&H Publishing Group.

Tyndale House Publishers continues to market its top study Bible with the Life Application Study Bible, Personal Size, TuTone in a brown/tan color combination, releasing March 1. Feature the New Living Translation, it features nearly 10,000 Life Application notes and features to help readers apply God’s truth to daily life. The leather edition retails for $59.99.

Latest project: Beautiful Nate (978-1-451-67851-2, $21.99, Howard Books, March).

Why did you choose to write your family’s story of losing your son Nate when he was 27? My goal in writing Beautiful Nate is to encourage families and individuals that even when we do everything right in raising our children, things can often turn out very wrong. Having been so close to the child-rearing 1-2-3s of evangelical Christianity for a decade, my bride and I ended up ultimately realizing that much of what we did was done as child-centered, fear-based parents—and these behaviors did not work. In an ironic twist we may have ultimately succeeded in our unintended goal: raising children—when what was needed was to raise adults.

You fought for traditional family values for many years. What did you do in that regard and with whom did you work? Having been involved in California politics since 1978, I have experience as a lobbyist, campaign manager, candidate, businessman and legislative chief of staff. In 1990 I was honored to become the founder and executive director of Focus on the Family’s Family Policy Council (FPC) in Boise, Idaho…FPCs are located in state capitols across the United States. It was my duty to develop a two-pronged approach to influencing pro-family public policy: 1. Develop legislation and 2. Influence public opinion. 

How did your experience as Nate’s father change your view of parenting? Nate was an explorer as a little boy. I was unendingly cautious of his explorations. As a young, cocky father who had intentionally studied many of the Christian child-rearing books, I thought I had all the strong and safe answers. In time, as Nate grappled and grew into adolescence, I was worn thin and began to wonder if I even knew the questions! By his 20s, Nate helped me learn that he was going to do what he wanted to do—legal or otherwise—and it was fully his decision to do so. Hard as that was to experience, it more accurately reflected the freedom that the Lord allows us to have as His kids. How Nate chose to act as an adult no longer reflected on my value and self worth. 

Could you explain what you mean by “child-centeredness” and “fear-based parenting”? Being “child-centered” focuses parents’ attention on their kids in an unhealthy way. We treat our children as though their wants and needs trump the collective needs and desires of the family. The child becomes the center of the family, receiving undue attention with an ongoing overblown sense of self-importance. Child-centered parenting often creates selfish teenagers—and a world of hurt on the horizon. 

“Fear-based parenting” acts in opposition to faith. Parents who are fear-based construct scenarios of deep distress and pain before anything could ever even happen to their children. Parents create fear within their children by trying to overly protect them from the difficult things of life. This childhood fear can often manifest itself as an unusual interest by the child in the underbelly of life—things they were told to stay away from. In the end, the opposite is often achieved.

What do you mean by “performance-based faith”? Since the early 1970s, evangelical Christianity has inadvertently created a competitive environment of parenting within the body of Christ. Our Christian subculture has created a series of opportunities which feed into this competitiveness: memorization programs, Christian schools and homeschooling end up pitting kids against one another, allowing status-craving parents the false sense of security that their child is growing in their faith simply because they may be scoring well on scriptural tests.

Why is the question, “Do you really want to raise children?” important to consider? A friend asked me an important question at a key time in my raising of Nate: “Do you really want to raise a good child?” Of course I was surprised by his question, the girth of which involved more than I suspected. “Yes” was my Sunday school answer. He ripped into me. “No, we shouldn’t want to raise good children or bad children, for that matter. We should want to raise adults.” Balance is the key to everything.

You write about several things you’ve learned since Nate’s death. What is one of the most important lessons you’d like our readers to grasp? One of the most important lessons I’d like readers to embrace is this: If there is breath, there is hope. I prayed for Nate, I walked with Nate, my family and I hoped for Nate when he had almost given up hope on himself. We lived with a son (and brother) who tested us at every turn. And as long as he was alive, we never gave up hope for him and in him. At the point of his death, we looked to the Lord, saw breath inside ourselves and realized that hope was still alive for us, though Nate was now in heaven.

What should Christian retailers know about Beautiful Nate? This is a book about hope, even though the source of the book stems from a very painful set of personal experiences. The story line involves the death of my precious son and yet it more accurately reflects the losses endured by others in their own lives—and provides hope for them to navigate through the troubled waters of their own lives.

Pastor and Bible study coauthor Chad Norris tells of his encounters with the Holy Spirit in Signs, Wonders and a Baptist Preacher: How Jesus Flipped My World Upside Down. Using humor and candor, Norris recounts his bouts with depression and panic attacks before Jesus intervened. He encourages readers to be open to the supernatural and to doing the great things Jesus said believers would do. Releasing this month from Chosen/Baker Publishing Group, this softcover book retails for $12.99.

The founder of the Two Futures Project, a movement of Christians for nuclear threat reduction, author Tyler Wigg-Stevenson has written The World Is Not Ours to Save: Finding the Freedom to do Good. Part One addresses the limits of activism, while Part Two explains the Christian’s true calling—to passionately pursue the kingdom of peace as described by the prophet Micah. This $16 softcover book releases this month from Likewise, an imprint of InterVarsity Press.

Emmy Award-winner and former NBC journalist Jack Perkins pens his spiritual memoir in Finding Moosewood, Finding God: What Happened When a TV Newsman Abandoned His Career for Life on an Island. After more than 40 years in the media, Perkins and his wife retired to a rustic cabin where he experienced a spiritual awakening. In his book, he recounts highlights of his career, the cabin building and his unfolding faith. Zondervan releases this hardcover for $22.99 this month.

Debbie Morris, pastor of women’s ministry at Gateway Church in Dallas/Fort Worth and wife of pastor-author Robert Morris, invites women to learn the true meaning of being blessed in The Blessed Woman: Learning About Grace From the Women of the Bible (softcover, $14.99). Drawing from her own stories and those of women in Scripture, Morris addresses issues such as femininity, finding purpose, worship and waiting. Releasing from WaterBrook Press this month, the book includes a study guide with a leader’s guide available online. 

In Love No Matter What: When Your Kids Make Decisions You Don’t Agree With (softcover, $15.99), author and speaker Brenda Garrison, uses family stories—her own and others—to discuss how to respond to children who make choices their parents believe are wrong. Garrison provides practical tips for modeling God’s parenting style and understanding where the responsibilities lie. The book concludes with questions for reflection and discussion and releases this month from Thomas Nelson.

Jeff Shinabarger explains how things can be improved for people in need in More or Less: Choosing a Lifestyle of Excessive Generosity (softcover, $17.99). Creative director of the Catalyst conference and founder of Plywood People, an innovative community helping others through sustainable solutions, Shinabarger shows how to resist a culture that exaggerates what is enough and how living on less makes way for giving more. David C Cook releases More or Less this month. 

To Walk or Stay: Trusting God Through   Shattered Hopes and Suffocating Fears is Lara Williams’ true story of marital crisis and path to victory. Williams tells how, following the devastating discovery of her husband’s sexual addictions, she learned to live by faith in spite of her circumstances. Christian Focus Publications releases To Walk or Stay ($12.99) this month. The book also includes study questions for use in small groups.

Best-selling author Ted Kluck and Dove-Award-nominated recording artist Ronnie Martin share their own doubts and mistakes in Finding God in the Dark (Bethany House/Baker Publishing Group) to encourage believers facing loss and disappointment. Drawing from Scripture, their own lives and the stories of others, they examine topics including unbelief, idolatry, self-sufficiency and God’s faithfulness. Retailing for $12.99, the softcover book releases this month.