What Is The Amish Year Off Called

Rumspringa

A revelatory look at Amish youth as they have never been looked at before Rumspringa is a fascinating look at a little-known Amish coming-of-age ritual, the rumspringa—the period of "running around" that begins for their youth at age sixteen. Through vivid portraits of teenagers in Ohio and Indiana, Tom Shachtman offers an account of Amish life as a mirror to the soul-searching and questing that we recognize as a generally intrinsic part of adolescence. The trappings of the Amish way of life—the "plain" clothes and electricity-free farms—conceal the communities' mystery: how they manage to retain their young people and perpetuate themselves generation after generation. The key to this is the rumspringa, when Amish youth are allowed to live outside the bounds of their faith, experimenting with alcohol, premarital sex, trendy clothes, telephones, drugs, and wild parties. By allowing them such freedom, their parents hope they will learn enough to help them make the most important decision of their lives—whether to be baptized as Christians, join the church, and forever give up worldly ways, or to remain out in the world. In this searching book, Shachtman draws on his skills as a documentarian to capture young people on the cusp of a fateful decision, and to give us an original and deeply affecting portrait of the Amish as a whole.

Growing Up Amish

My Kingdom Is Not of This World: 300 Years of the Amish, 1683-1983

Originally printed in German in 1993, this updated and revised version has been translated into English. Lots of new photos and updated data were added to the text as Gerlach traces the beginnings of the Amish movement in Switzerland, their development and contribution to agriculture in Europe, and their spread throughout Europe as well as their eventual decline. A short portion covers the Amish in North America. This is the most comprehensive book on the Amish in Europe. (401pp. color illus. index. Masthof Press, 2013.)