Book Review: Power Up

“Right then, Lexi settled in her spirit to let God carry her and her family. She decided not to spend her energy trying to figure out God or tell him what to do, but to simply hold on to his goodness as truth and trust him.” Jessie Mattis, Power Up

I often struggle with how to encourage my kids in their own spiritual lives. Between school work and video games and chores how do we motivate kids to be interested in God’s Word and growing in faith? Author Jessie Mattis has done a wonderful thing with Power Up. Through fun characters and a great story she introduces deep concepts about the Holy Spirit to middle-school kids.

Power Up is the story of 11 year old Lexi and her family. In many ways they represent the typical American church-going family and Lexi is a very relatable 11 year old. She has siblings she bickers with, school friends she hangs out with, and parents and teachers she is trying to appease so she can earn the reward trip at the end of the school year.

A new Sunday School teacher, Miss Kate, shakes things up for the kids with teachings about the very real and personal relationship Christians can have with the Holy Spirit, even very young ones like Lexi and her siblings. Lexi’s excitement grows each week as she learns to trust the Holy Spirit more and more. Her shallow friendships become deep and encouraging. She finds new motivation to accomplish difficult school assignments. She even begins to see her siblings in a new light as they all try to complete their weekly Holy Spirit homework from Miss Kate. Later in the book Lexi’s family goes through a hard circumstance. The weeks of learning to trust the Spirit in small ways leads Lexi to trust in a much deeper way when her emotions and fear seem out of control. 

My 13 year old son and I read Power Up together this summer. He really loved Miss Kate and how she explained the mysterious Holy Spirit to the kids in Sunday School. I loved that it gave us common ground to talk about things deeper than typical Bible stories that are often just used as morality tales but don’t have a lot of gospel substance.

Power Up is easy to read with age appropriate chapter lengths. It’s a great book for older elementary kids and middle-schoolers to learn about how personal and practical the Holy Spirit really is. It was also a great reminder to me how our kids experience big emotions and fears just like grown-ups. There’s no better time than now to encourage our kids to trust God and Power Up is an awesome book that does it well.

You can find Power Up in e-book and paperback on Amazon.com and connect with Jessie Mattis on Twitter @JessieMattis