This is not a review of a book. It is, instead, a review of some music written about a book—the book—and it is music that I think you and the little ones in your immediate vicinity would enjoy, so I am including it here, for your sake, for mine, and for the sake of those little ones.
Questions With Answers is a series of six albums by Dana Dirksen, who takes the Westminster Shorter Catechism and puts it to music. That means that while you run errands or cook dinner or take lengthy road trips, you and your children can memorize not only the catechism itself but various verses that relate to it (but will you ever be able to answer the catechism without singing? I don’t know. We certainly can’t).
That is the good and wholesome answer to the question “Why should you listen to Questions with Answers?” But if you’d like an honest answer to why we have folded these into our family’s daily life and culture, here it is: they’re just really, really fun. You might be tempted to think—as I was—that six albums of any one musician could get old over time, but Dana Dirksen is a creative songwriter, and she pulls in just about every genre of music as she writes (just about: I haven’t heard hip hop in there yet, but then, we only have Volumes 1-4). And it doesn’t sound like she explores different genres because she’s trying to keep us listening: it just sounds like she’s having a great time. That joy produces the best music, I think.
These CDs have traveled with us halfway across the country and back. They have gone with us on the first day of kindergarten, down the Washington coast, over the Cascades, and across town. My daughter’s school used them as memorization tools last year; we have gifted them to missionary friends on the hunt for great preschool materials. We received them as a gift and love to give them to others.
That is the long answer to the question, “Why should you listen to Questions with Answers?” If you’re still on the fence, here is a short playlist of some of our favorite songs in the series:
And if you go to their website, Songs for Saplings, you can download all six albums for free! How compelling is that?
Questions With Answers, Volumes 1–6
Dana Dirksen, Songs for Saplings
Lindsay C says:
I’ll check it out! Have you heard of Seeds Family Worship? It’s Scripture put to music—good music, not annoying singsongy kid music. We just bought our second album and love it!
March 27, 2015 — 10:57 am
Théa says:
I’ll have to check those out! I have heard of them, but haven’t listened to them yet. Our four year old is so smitten with music now that it would be nice to have some new music to through into the rotation 🙂
March 27, 2015 — 2:02 pm
Christina A says:
We just discovered her on Spotify; wonderful! Also, I second Seeds Family Worship for Scripture memory (and dance parties). They have all songs available to stream for free on their website (not sure if they allow you to download). Lastly, for Bible stories, overviews of large chunks of Scripture, and genealogies, we enjoy Jamie Soles music. A small disclaimer for those with sensitive kids: he does include a handful of the “harder” stories, like when bears attack boys who mocked the prophet Elisha. You can hear samples here: http://www.solmusic.ca/
March 27, 2015 — 2:14 pm
Théa says:
Awesome, thank you! I’ll have to give those a listen, too. I love when my list of books to read and music to explore gets longer 🙂
March 27, 2015 — 8:16 pm
Christina A says:
So, this is an article by a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-cousin: http://orangemarmaladebooks.com/musings-2/in-a-world-of-sorrow-shall-i-dish-up-green-eggs-and-ham/
I thought you might like it. I’m beyond excited to read through years of blog posts by this lady!
March 28, 2015 — 10:03 pm
Théa says:
Oh, that is beautiful! Thank you so much for sharing. One of the parts I love about reading aloud with our children in a suffering world is that we get to work through these fictional scenarios with them as sort of practice run before they face suffering in their own lives. Through reading good books they learn that certain things can happen that haven’t necessarily happened to them, and they get to see how it works out in the lives of characters and think through how they might handle it differently if something similar happened in their own lives. She’s right: books are powerful!
March 30, 2015 — 6:41 am
Haley says:
Such a small world. Jill (the author of Orange Marmalade kidlit blog) is a local friend of mine! She is truly wonderful.
And we love the Seeds CDs, too! All of them!
April 26, 2015 — 7:30 am
Jessie says:
I’m catching up on your blog and was so pleased to find out that Dana Dirksen’s albums are free to download! I have them all in iTunes now and can’t wait to listen to volumes 4-6 and Song for Saplings with my boys. Thank you for the heads up! You’re one of my best resources.
April 29, 2015 — 9:24 pm
Théa says:
But wait! You introduced me to Volumes 1-3, so you must be one of my best resources, too 🙂
April 30, 2015 — 2:56 pm