7 Things to Look for in a Great Book for a Child—Part 5
It conveys imaginative and memorable ideas.
These are the books that take us to places outside of our own worlds. They may take us to lands faraway, to imaginary worlds, to personally unexplored territories like deep oceans, space, the microscopic world, into the past, or into the world of emotions like joy, intrigue, suspense, compassion, or even grief. These books rouse and shape the soul and are the books we remember long after we’ve read them. Anyone who spends any time with children knows their imaginations are a big part of their young lives—these books speak to that wonderful quality of children to learn through imagining. Vivid descriptions, colorful characters and innovative ideas are some of the things to look for in great books. Just a few examples:
Little House on the Prairie Series
Book Giveaway: Show Me How!
I had the pleasure of meeting a delightful new friend recently, Vivian Kirkfield. We met at a festival where she was promoting her new book, Show Me How! Build Your Child’s Self Esteem Through Reading, Crafting and Cooking. This book is packed with cooking and craft ideas that correspond to 100 really great children’s books. The target age range is 2-5, but I know my 9-year-old would still enjoy the activities in the book! How I wish I would have had this treasure trove when my kiddos were toddlers! Each book is listed with a corresponding healthful, natural snack recipe a child can help prepare and an age-appropriate craft (Vivian used, when possible, items most households will already have on hand, to stay environmentally friendly!). From Vivian:
“The books I have chosen for this guide address six elements that are crucial for building positive self-esteem: mastering tasks and skills, valuing one’s strengths and qualities, feeling appreciated, loved and accepted, being able to express one’s feelings, coping with and overcoming one’s fears, and finally, accepting and liking oneself.”
I am giving away a copy of this amazing resource!! Here’s how to enter:
Like MomsKidsBooks on Facebook: click here (you must also enter your name and email here or email it to me so we can contact the winner)
**If you’ve already liked us on Facebook, leave a comment on a post here or on Facebook book telling me why you’d enjoy this book.**
One winner will be randomly chosen on Wednesday, February 29.
Full Disclosure: Vivian provided me with a free copy of her book, but only to give away! I’m sad to see it go but I know it will be a huge blessing to the winner!
How to Send a Hug Around the World
Step 1: Sponsor a child (or two!) through Compassion International.
Step 2: Write letters to start building a relationship, then excitedly wait for your letters from them!
Step 3: Get your kids involved! Let them write letters, draw pictures, pray. It makes the world a little bit smaller to know there are kids just like them in faraway places, in very different circumstances, but similar in so many ways—what they like to do, their need for God and love and a family, where they find joy and purpose.
That’s it! HUG SENT!!
Oh, there is one more optional step:
Step 4: Maybe, just maybe, someday take a visit to see your sponsored child to give them a hug in person. When our kids are a bit older, I would love to do this. We are blessed to have a friend at a local church going to visit the Compassion center in Ethiopia where our sponsored children are! Today we packaged up our gifts into ziploc bags (yes, I managed to fit all the items in that picture in a 1-gallon bag!), included our letters and photos and our hugs, and gave them to our friend so that she can hand-deliver them in just a few days. I can’t wait to hear about their trip and I’ll be posting more about it here.
Letter my 9-year-old wrote to her friend in Ethiopia:
7 Things to Look for in a Great Book for a Child—Part 4
This is the fourth post in a series on criteria we use to consider books listed on MomsKidsBooks.
It inspires to goodness.
Are you familiar with formula books? Books in a series, published rapidly one after another, and all relatively the same? So many of them are either all about “me”, are morally pointless or are about very dark topics. I’m not suggesting that our children only read Pollyanna-ish books. Some very worthy books, especially for older children, cover dark topics (The Hiding Place, for example). But ultimately, the books they read should somehow in the end speak to that part of a child that hungers for goodness and truth, and inspire them to know they can have a part in making the world a better place. When children are very young, they should be protected from dark subjects. They should be shown examples of beauty and love and goodness in the characters they are reading about. Only when they are older should they, along with a loving adult to help them discuss what they’re reading, be allowed to explore those more challenging, darker topics. Truly great books can inspire kids to grow toward goodness.
Here are just a few examples:
What books have you seen inspire your children?
7 Things to Look for in a Great Book for a Child—Part 3
This is the third post in a series of posts on the criteria we use to consider books listed on MomsKidsBooks
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Teaches something important in an engaging and impactful manner.
When I was in high school, my world history teacher would start at one corner of the room and have each student read a paragraph in our textbook. We spent day after countless day listening to each other read the already dry material—some students struggled to read aloud, making the already tortuous drudgery that much worse to get through. Needless to say, I lost all interest in learning world history for the rest of my formal education, until I started homeschooling my children and realized there are fascinating STORIES that can tell world history so much better than a dry textbook. History is simply about people and the things that happened to them, but I had been exposed only to a bunch of dates and dry facts.
History is not the only subject that can be taught in an engaging manner using stories. There are math stories, science stories, music stories, stories about reading, spelling, grammar, and art. Children’s minds truly are like sponges—ready to absorb so much, but only if what they’re exposed to is engaging and stimulating.
Just a few examples of books that present an alternative to dry, mind-numbing textbooks are:
The Bee People
Magic Schoolbus Books
Usborne See Inside Series (Your Body, Math, Underground, others)
What else would you add?
Let Your Fish Swim
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
― Albert Einstein
I have a couple fish. In fact, I am a fish too! We aren’t good at absolutely everything those around us are good at!
One of the reasons I stick to homeschooling even when the days are hard and I watch the school bus (we live on its route) longingly as it drives by, or I hear of friends getting together for lunch or gym workouts in the middle of the day while their kids are in school is that I LOVE that I can let my kids be who they are!
Photo credit:http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=1961
OctoberBaby—Coming to Theaters in March!
I had the privilege of screening OctoberBaby this week. It’s a new Provident Films (ala Courageous, Fireproof) movie releasing in theaters on March 23.
View the trailer here. This movie is likely different than any you’ve seen, as its main character is an abortion survivor. At age 19, she finds out the truth about her life—that she was adopted shortly after a failed abortion attempt. The movie chronicles her journey to resolve the issues this knowledge brings to light, find her birth mother, and become her own person with this new revelation of the truth.
My somewhat random thoughts:
1. I love that more Christian films are being made for the big screen!
2. John Schneider (yes, Bo Duke of Dukes of Hazard—he was my very favorite actor in Jr. High—and yes, I realize I’m dating myself 
) has aged—imagine that! (He plays the adoptive father).
3. It does not have an overt gospel message like Courageous and Fireproof did, but does a first-rate job illustrating the power of forgiveness and redemption.
4. It handled the perspective of all those involved in an abortion with grace—especially the birth mom.
5. This leads me to what I felt was the most touching and impactful aspect of the movie—here’s a clip about the birth mother (although if you do plan to see this movie in the theater, you might want to wait until then to watch it—they’ll play it in the credits and it would be more meaningful after seeing the movie).
Birth mother actress interview
6. A statistic shared at the screening was that 40% of women of child-bearing age have had an abortion. That is an astounding number, and although more and more women are finding places to open up and share their experience to begin the healing process, it is still something that many hold inside. The distributors of the movie hope that this film will help women (and the men involved) start the healing process.
7. I loved the guest appearance by Javier from Courageous!
I thought the acting wasn’t stellar (even from John Schneider 
) but it was engaging and shared a powerful message—if you know someone who has maybe confided only in you that she’s had an abortion or that he was the father of an aborted child, consider watching this movie with them and letting them know there is grace and healing.
If you’ve seen it, I’d love to hear your comments below.
The Transforming Power of Story
7 Things to Look for in a Great Book for a Child—Part 2
This is the second in a series of posts explaining the criteria we use to consider books listed on MomsKidsBooks.
Is enhanced with illustrations that reflect artistic beauty
Illustrations, if present, reflect artistic beauty and are visually engaging. The artist has clearly taken a personal interest in the story or subject matter and enhances it in a beautiful and creative way.
This is one of my favorite aspects of wonderful books. I LOVE picture books for their engaging, artistic illustrations. An illustrator who can make a book have an impact puts a bit of their soul into their illustrations. They take time and care to create beautiful images, whether they are drawings, photographs or any other art media. Even chapter books or novels that have illustrations are so much more engaging with well-placed illustrations. Our family recently read The Hobbit together and even the few illustrations J.R.R. Tolkein included add to the amazing story. There are so many books that are great examples of this to list, but here are few of my favorites:
Jan Brett (anything illustrated by her)
What are your favorite illustrated books? Who are your favorite illustrators?
Family Reading Journal 1/17/12
What I read this week: Helen’s Temper, a Lamplighter book. We have quite a few on our shelf and I’ve only read one other one (Jessica’s First Prayer) so I thought I should add a couple to my repertoire. Also started The Well Educated Mind by Susan Wise Bauer.
What 9 yo Sweet Pea read: 
Basket of Flowers, another Lamplighter book. She’s also started a plan to read through the New Testament in 40 days in The Books of the Bible: New Testament from Biblica.
What 6 yo Spunky Monkey read: various picture books; not a lot of structured reading—(boy, keeping this is holding me accountable—I’m falling short making reading time a priority for us!!)
What we read together: We’ve been reading Life of Fred books together (Apples and Butterflies) lately. If you’ve read these, what do you think? I wouldn’t consider them challenging writing, but the kids LOVE them! They laugh and laugh and are learning about things like Archimedes and Betelgeuse thrown in with math concepts.
