Category: All Ages (page 1 of 3)

July 19, 2024 / 0 Comments

The Wilderking Trilogy

Without meaning to, we’ve made it a habit to reread these books every few summers. And with each reread my conviction deepens: these books are some of my very favorites, and I think I can saw with confidence that my whole family feels this way. They deal in deep truths, yet they’re written in a way that remains accessible for a range of ages. And they are funny. Good gravy, are they funny.

This summer, we’re listening to the audiobooks again, as we traverse the county en route to both parks and playdates. These audiobooks are read by Jonathan Rogers himself, and I don’t think I could hear them any other way now (though I do sometimes hear daughters practicing their “watch out” cries in the hammock, or giving the Feechie battle yell as they sail down the street on their bikes). I also splurged on the new editions of the series, so those will be time-released to our bookshelves all summer long. And I can’t wait to see them!

So I thought I’d bring forth an old review of the most excellent Wilderking trilogy (which I have–because these books deserve it–reviewed more than once over the years). This particular version first appeared on Story Warren in August of 2020.

I love many moments in The Wilderking Trilogy, but one of my favorites happens outside the story, on the faces of those hearing it for the first time: it is the Moment of Revelation, when that niggling feeling that there’s something about this story, something familiar . . . But how could that be? The child’s eyebrows work athletically as she tries to place it. No, she thinks. It can’t be the gator grabble. Whoever heard of a gator grabble? And she’s never heard of a feechiemark either, let alone a feechie—those scrappy, raucous folk of the swamp. So it can’t be that.

But—ah! Here her eyebrows leap—she does know an old story about a shepherd boy, who was anointed king while a living king still sat on the throne. She knows about that boy and his sling. She knows about his five smooth stones. And the revelation bursts from her mouth:

“David! It’s like David!”

That is the beauty of Jonathan Rogers’s trilogy. Rogers overlays a faint tracing of King David’s story with the story of Aidan Errolson, a boy who gets his start tending his father’s sheep and makes his way through pasture and swamp, war and exile, to the throne of Corenwald.

Aidan is a hero in the old style—not the broken hero, flawed and resisting his fate, that is so common in stories today. I can’t think of any major flaws in Aidan’s character or any moments when he outright rebels. When conflict arises, Aidan is the first to step in with a creative solution; he volunteers first for the hardest missions. And yet Aidan isn’t too good to be true. As a character, he’s nuanced, endearing, and, above all, believable. He belongs wholly to Corenwald, and yet, I could imagine a kid like him living somewhere in our world.

In one of my favorite scenes from the trilogy’s first book, Bayard the Truthspeaker and Aidan speak privately after Bayard’s pronouncement that Aidan is the mysterious, prophesied Wilderking:

“What if you are correct?” [Aidan] asked. “What if I am destined to be the Wilderking? How should I live?”

“The same way you should live if you weren’t the Wilderking. Live the life that unfolds before you. Love goodness more than you fear evil.”

Good advice, thought Aidan, but he was looking for something more specific. He was a loyal subject of King Darrow. Surely he wasn’t destined to lead a rebellion against his king. He didn’t quite know how to ask the question. “If I am the Wilderking, how do I become the Wilderking?” . . .

“A traitor is no fit king. Live the life that unfolds before you. Love goodness more than you fear evil.”

To every question Aidan asks after this one, Bayard simply repeats his answer: “Live the life that unfolds before you. Love goodness more than you fear evil.” And so, for the rest of the series, we watch Aidan live the life that unfolds before him. That life leads him from his home at Longleaf Manor to some unlikely places, and I take heart in watching the trail that prophecy takes to its fulfillment. This year has felt at times—for many of us, I’m sure—like one long exile in the Feechiefen Swamp. Stories like this give me hope that these times of exile aren’t permanent but are, in fact, an integral part of our own plot.

All told, I have read this series four times (twice alone and twice with my family), and every time I’m struck by how satisfying the story of the Wilderking is. Nothing in it is wasted or out of place; each twist and turn is deliberate, but each feels organic, as though the whole story grew out of the soil and swamps of Corenwald. Corenwald itself is a viney, twining, living thing with a history, topography, and mix of cultures that weave under and around Aidan’s story to give it an unforgettable texture. The land extends beyond the boundaries of this story, so fully developed that I’m certain Rogers knows much, much more about Corenwald than we see in this trilogy.

I recently had the opportunity to take a writing class from Jonathan Rogers, and in it he urged us students to give our readers “something they couldn’t get for themselves.” In The Wilderking Trilogy, he gives us readers just that: a ticket to a place we couldn’t visit on our own. He gives us a feechiemark and safe passage through the swamp.

You can order the new edition of the first book (and pre-order the other two) in the Rabbit Room store or on Amazon. You can buy the audiobooks here. I don’t usually tell you what to do, but in this case, I sure will: buy the books and the audiobooks. Listen to the audiobooks, and keep the print volumes around for your readers to discover (and to marvel at the illustrations). This series is worth it!

4 Gorgeous Allegories | Little Book, Big Story

October 7, 2022 / 0 Comments

4 Gorgeous Christian Allegories

When it comes to allegories, people have Opinions. Some readers find them unbearably cheesy, which is, I guess, understandable: few things grate on the nerves like a story that’s too handholdy—the kind that tells us what we’re supposed to think about every element of the story. And allegories can certainly come across as handholdy. There’s no dodging it: every allegory mentioned in this post features characters whose names explicitly tell you what they’re meant to represent within the story.

But you know what? I love allegories. I love the way they take an abstract truth and, by portraying it as a character, bring it to life. Allegories give those truths structure and presence—they give them a body. And I love what allegories do in our hearts as our family reads them: they give us illustrations we can return to when faced with a difficult moment. “Remember when Little Pilgrim strayed from the path?” we might say. “This situation is kind of like that because . . .”

When reading Little Pilgrim’s Progress we’re reminded that our life is not a linear line but a journey, filled with moments of peril and conviction as well as rest and peace. When reading Hinds’ Feet on High Places, we remember that our Shepherd is just a call away and that he’ll come bounding down the mountainside to our help when we call. Of course the best stories can also have this effect, allegorical or not, but allegories excel at it: they give us something concrete to picture in those moments when our vision is clouded by grief or discouragement or doubt.

So, here are a few of our family’s favorites. There’s a little something on this list for all age levels, so I’ve organized it from the ones written for the littlest readers to the ones written for the biggest.

Little Pilgrim’s Progress, by Helen L. Taylor (& Joe Sutphin)

Little Pilgrim's Progress, by Helen Taylor & Joe Sutphin | Little Book, Big Story

This adaptation takes the big truths of John Bunyan’s classic Pilgrim’s Progress and translates them into characters and images that are accessible for young readers. Joe Sutphin’s illustrations in this edition open them up further. (Read the full review.)

Tales of the Kingdom, by David & Karen Mains

Tales of the Kingdom was written in the eighties (you can see it in the artwork), which makes this one feel the most like modern life. These books are full of delightful stories and a prince we all long to know better. (Read the full review.)

Hinds’ Feet on High Places, by Hannah Hurnard

Hannah Hurnard’s tale of Much-Afraid and her journey to the High Places is one worth meditating upon and savoring. My older daughters love this one; I keep a copy by my bed so I can read a little each day. (Read the full review.)

The Pilgrim’s Progress, by John Bunyan

The grand-daddy of allegories, Pilgrim’s Progress follows Christian as he journeys from the City of Destruction to the City of Light—and is waylaid, challenged, or fortified by those he meets along the way. This edition features updated language and some annotation that makes John Bunyan’s old-school language open up for modern readers. Another point in its favor? It’s so pretty!

January 21, 2022 / 0 Comments

Theology is Awesome (Videos)

Our theology influences every part of our lives, and yet so many theology resources are fairly abstract—they’re hard to decipher, and tough for kids to decode. We adults can leap a little more nimbly from one abstract concept to another, so applying theology—what we believe about God—to a dicey situation at work may come more easily to us. It isn’t easy, of course, but we’ve had more practice. Our brains can handle a little abstract thinking.

But when our kids are campaigning for a last-minute drink of water before bed, or testing for a yellow belt, or squabbling with each other—what does theology have to say to that? The other day my daughter was wrestling with some unsavory feelings toward her sister, and I found myself rambling about, you know, God’s love and maybe the cross? And my words shot past her like so many misaimed arrows.

In that moment, she needed me to be concrete. She needed to hear examples she recognized, from the world she sees around her. My fluffy abstract nouns like “love” and “forgiveness” gave her nothing to hold onto and turn over in her hands. She needed me to sit down next to her and point to something she could study and say, “There. It looks like that.”

The videos produced by Theology is Awesome do exactly that: Kate and Brannon take tricky concepts and big questions and explain them in a way that gives viewers something to see and something to take with them. They frame some of the big questions we all ask about God and the world, from “Does theology matter?” to “Why is theology so boring?”, in creative ways that make even the most abstract-thinking of us take notice. They bring energy (and such a sense of humor!) to subjects that could have been flat and colorless. You’ll finish each video wishing you knew them personally (which—full disclosure—we do! They’re good friends of ours, and, yes, they really are that delightful).

So, where should you start watching? They have some delightful introductory videos, but I recommend jumping into the deep end with “How to Teach Theology to Kids.” It’ll make you laugh, and it’ll prepare you to pause mid-soup-stir to answer your child’s question about Pharaoh’s hard heart (yikes).

Theology is Awesome (video resource)
YouTube | Facebook

Also worth visiting: the Ellises’s business Credibility. They’re legit!

September 17, 2021 / 0 Comments

Treasury for Children

When my eldest daughter was a toddler, she discovered James Herriot’s Moses the Kitten. She dropped that book in my lap again and again, and we read it until the book spine felt limber and the pages soft. It is a long book—not ideal for a hasty pre-nap read—but I loved the descriptive passages, we both loved the warmth and coziness of the story, and my daughter loved the paintings of the kittens.

We eventually expanded our library to include Herriot’s Treasury for Children, in print and on audio. And in the decade that followed, we read and reread that book, as three other daughters joined our crew and each in turn fell for Herriot’s stories.

These days, my older daughters have graduated to Herriot’s Cat Stories and Dog Stories; I’ve graduated to his memoirs. And as I read them I began to understand why his stories are so appealing: James Herriot loved his work as a vet in the English countryside; he loved the place he lived and the people he encountered there, with all their flaws and quirks. He loved the animals he cared for. Herriot’s stories invite us into a time and place we could never have occupied otherwise: a veterinary surgery in the 1930s, when draft horses were giving way to tractors, old medicines were making way for the new, and the brief peace after the First World War was giving way to the devastation of World War II.

Herriot’s stories aren’t fraught with drama. He wrote about everyday happenings: the small conflicts between a country vet and his colleagues; the tension between a vet and his clients (be they animal or owner); the victories and losses of veterinary practice; the mishaps in which Herriot often played the loveable fool. But through his delightful descriptions and attentive writing, Herriot made the ordinary episodes of his life enjoyable—even magical. In his memoirs, he reaches through those stories toward some difficult topics and finds compassionate ways to discuss issues like suicide or loss.

But in his Treasury for Children, he shares a handful of stories written for younger readers, delightfully illustrated by Ruth Brown and Peter Barrett. These stories exert a magnetic pull in our house: I may open the book at the request of my five- or seven-year-old daughter, but it isn’t long before my ten- and thirteen-year-old drift in to hear the story of Oscar, cat-about-town, or of Gyp and his solitary woof. Even my husband turns the water pressure down on the sink so he can listen while he finishes the dinner dishes.

James Herriot told stories no one else could tell—stories of his work, his family, and his village. And in doing so, he reminded us that the stories most of us live through will be ordinary ones, about our own work, our families, our towns. The joy and gratitude with which he told his stories quietly reminds us, big and small readers alike, that our lives are full of stories worth telling, masterfully crafted by the best Storyteller. I, for one, am grateful Herriot took the time to sit down and tell his.

James Herriot’s Treasury for Children: Warm and Joyful Tales
James Herriot; Ruth Brown, Peter Barrett (1992)

May 15, 2020 / 0 Comments

A Nature Poem For Every Day of the Year

Earlier this year I shared the beautiful anthology of nature poetry for children, Sing a Song of Seasons. What happened shortly after was that I bought a beautiful anthology of nature poetry for my own, perched it in our dining room window where I’d see it every day, and set myself the loose goal of reading a poem whenever it crossed my mind.

A Nature Poem for Every Day of the Year features poems old and new, one for—wait for it—every day of the year. From E. Nesbit to Shakespeare, some are easy to follow and some invite us to reach beyond what feels comfortable. Some are excerpts from older, lengthier works like Paradise Lost or The Faerie Queen; many are single stanzas. But all are a glimpse of the sun as it peers over the horizon at dawn. As editor Jane McMorland Hunter writes in her introduction:

“Animals, birds, flowers, trees, the sea and the sky allow our imaginations to soar. This can only improve our lives.”

I would go further and say that animals, birds, flowers, trees the sea and the sky lift our eyes up to the Lord, maker of columbine and wild geese, cumulus clouds and cherry trees, and in him our imaginations soar. These poems remind me to lift my eyes from the page (or, alas, from the news feed on my phone) and remember the Lord who cares for sparrows and lilies and, more so, for us.

Whether you read a poem daily or weekly (or, as I do, sometimes one and sometimes the other); whether you read your poem seated at the table with you family, outside under a flowering plum tree, or (as I do) standing by the shelf where you store the book, pausing for a moment mid-stride, this is a book of wonder and beauty worth savoring. Though this anthology is intended for grown-ups, I haven’t seen anything in it that couldn’t be read as a family—and I do sometimes read a poem aloud to any nearby child who might be listening.

A Nature Poem for Every Day of the Year
Ed. Jane McMorland Hunter (2018)