picture book Archives | Little Book, Big Story

Tag: picture book (page 1 of 18)

A Very Noisy Christmas, by Tim Thornborough | Little Book, Big Story

A Very Noisy Christmas | Tim Thornborough

A funny thing happened when we started packing: our books, that fill shelves throughout our house and are already quite a presence, seemed to multiply. One shelf’s worth filled three boxes, yet there were dozens of shelves to go. We understood, early on, that the bulk of our packable possessions are books.

It also became clear, while we were moving about from place to place, that the bulk of our portable possessions are also books. Lydia packed her entire collection of Redwall books, because she feels at home wherever they are. Josie needed her Sandra Boynton library; I filled a plastic tote with books I intended to read (Enjoying God), books I hoped to read (A Girl of the Limberlost), and books I might feel the sudden urge to re-read (The Lord of the Rings). And none of that includes our school books, of which there are also many.

But here is where this works out well: I spent the summer posting re-runs here and the fall posting nothing. But all summer and fall, our family was buying and borrowing and reading and falling in love with new books. Which means I have an abundance of wonderful books to share with you. I am, frankly, finding it very hard to wait to share some of them.

But I will start with this one, because it is so much fun to read and so seasonally appropriate:

When you have a toddler or a preschooler (or, like me, one of each for the past eight years or so), the volume in your home fluctuates quite a bit. There’s the high setting: squealing, giggling, ricocheting off furniture, weeping, and so on. And there’s the low setting: sleeping, snuggling, drawing on the wall with mom’s best lipstick.

A Very Noisy Christmas turns that knob up and down as you read the Christmas story, with prompts that encourage kids to whisper and bellow along with a telling on Jesus’ birth. It begins in a whisper, with the shepherds sleeping, and turns to a yell when the angels burst on the scene. Tim Thornborough’s text is fun to read aloud, and Jennifer Davison’s illustrations are full of energy, movement, and color (a great combo for energetic, ever-active, and certainly colorful kids).

This book would be great in a Sunday School class, or with a group of kids. Or with a toddler on one knee and a preschooler on the other. Or, really, just any time with any little kid.

A Very Noisy Christmas
Tim Thornborough; Jennifer Davison (2018)

Disclosure: I did receive a copy of this for review, but I was not obligated to review this book or compensated for my review in any way. I share this book with you because I love it, not because I was paid to do so.

What Every Child Should Know About Prayer, by Nancy Guthrie | Little Book, Big Story

November 30, 2018 / 0 Comments

What Every Child Should Know About Prayer | Nancy Guthrie

Dear readers: we are home!! And I don’t know what to tell you about first.

Josie, jumping joyously in her own bed for ten minutes straight, yelling, “Jump my bed! Jump my bed!” with the exuberance of a toddler liberated from the pack-n-play for good?

Phoebe’s sudden urge to dress as though she wants to wear all of her clothes—unpacked at last after two months—at once?

The stab of happiness I get every time I walk into the kitchen and see not a wall but a real dining room so big and pretty it makes our table—even with both leaves installed—look small?

Before . . .

After!

I could tell you about the two-month adventure that went from intense to really intense when we learned that our church of thirteen years was dissolving. I could tell you about sharing a twin bed with Mitch for two weeks, or about learning to cook in six different kitchens, or about how ridiculously well the construction itself went, or about how thankful we are for everyone who hosted, fed, prayed for and/or helped us in the past two months.

But for now, I will tell you about a book.

We brought a lot of books with us on the road, mostly because we like options and we don’t like leaving books behind, but there are a few that we read daily and that lent structure to our otherwise structure-less lives. What Every Child Should Know About Prayer is one of those.

Even though half of my girls are well outside the recommended age range for this book, we started reading through What Every Child Should Know About Prayer together because this is the sort of subject I fumble through, either over-explaining or overlooking the fact that it needs explanation. And so I’m glad for Nancy Guthrie’s help here. I’m glad for her direct explanations and for the conversations they generate at our table.

Guthrie’s short readings each explore some aspect of who God is, what prayer is, why it’s important, and how it’s done. Each one closes with a prayer prompt or question that got us thinking outside the box, and they have generated some great discussions with kids little and big. (Also worth noting: this book is part of series that also includes Everything a Child Should Know About God, which we love, and Everyone a Child Should Know, which I suspect we’ll love once we read it.)

But for now, friends, it is good to be home. We still have a crazy amount of work to do—there are rough drywall edges everywhere and we’re living on the subfloor—but still. We are reveling right now in the amount of work already done.

What Every Child Should Know About Prayer
Nancy Guthrie; Jenny Brake (2018)

Building Our House, by Jonathan Bean | Little Book, Big Story

September 7, 2018 / 0 Comments

Building Our House | Jonathan Bean

I write this morning from the kitchen table of an adorable two-bedroom apartment. We rearranged one bedroom to accommodate four sisters and the pantry to hold our school books. Stacks of suitcases and plastic totes fill corners and line the short hall, yet it already feels like home.

But why am I here and not at my own kitchen table?

Because that table is in storage. We are in the throes of a major home remodel, one that involves the destruction and expansion of one portion of our home. Our books are stored in portable totes; we have been watching Fixer Upper to boost morale. I’ve been reading The Gospel Comes with a House Key to remind myself why we wanted to do this in the first place—but not recently, because I lost my copy. I think I packed it in the wrong tote.

The plants, the porch, the fence, and that whole back addition are gone! And there’s a big hole in the ground (a crawlspace-to-be), reaching to about where the wheelbarrow is in the photo.

In the midst of this mayhem, I do need to keep the proverbial plate light and portable for the next few months, so I am going to take a short break from blogging. I anticipate being back some time in November, but I make no firm promises. Home remodels are not predictable, trustworthy things—that is what I am learning.

But I do want to leave you with a good book, and this, my friends, certainly qualifies as a Good Book.

You may know Jonathan Bean from This is My Home, This is My School or from his beautiful (and previously reviewed here) book At Night. I love every book of his I’ve read. But Building Our House is just the right book for now, and here’s why:

Building Our House follows his own family’s home-building endeavor, from the time they moved a camper onto their property to the day they move into their new home. The story itself is charming, but the illustrations add a new level of meaning to the story, as we watch his family grow and change with the seasons of work and waiting. Bean takes a slice of ordinary life and, by lifting it up, shows us that it is worth consideration. It is something worth celebrating.

I bought a copy of Building Our House and have it stowed in a tote with various and sundry other Mom surprises (sticker dolls! Non-messy craft kits! New board games!) that I hope will keep us occupied on rainy days in small spaces. I hope to pull it out and read it aloud on the day part of our house gets broken to bits and tossed in a giant dumpster. You know, to remind us that it’s not all destruction, but that there’s some marvelous new construction coming.

In the meantime, I will miss you all! I’ll read lots of good books and come back with some great titles to share. I hope you are all enjoying the fall weather and baking things with pumpkin in them. When I return, I hope to have a dining room (no more homeschooling in the kitchen!) and a second bathroom (no more “estimated wait times” for the first one!).

And also, a heart full of gratitude to the One who makes this huge undertaking possible, and for all the folks who took us in and prayed with us and installed things for us along the way. You know who you are.

Footnote

The light in these photos is extra strange and orange-y, and here’s why: I took them when a blanket of wildfire smoke drifted our way from British Columbia, California, Eastern Washington, and Siberia, and smothered our town for a few days. It smelled awful and did who knows what to our lungs, but man—it was pretty.

Building Our House
Jonathan Bean (2013)

The Boy and the Ocean, by Max Lucado | Little Book, Big Story

August 17, 2018 / 2 Comments

The Boy and the Ocean | Max Lucado

This post originally appeared on the blog in October 2014.

Here is my thesis for this post: The Boy and the Ocean is beautiful. I loved it. The writing is rhythmic, the illustrations uncommonly gorgeous, the story endearing, and the whole thing describes the love of God in a way that appeals to my daughters—and to me.

The Boy and the Ocean follows an unnamed boy as he vacations near the sea with his parents. The story appears in three parts, as he explores the ocean, the mountains, and then studies the night sky with his parents, and reflects on how the ocean, mountains, and sky, like God’s love, are endless and unchanging.

This book is a little like Does God Know How to Tie Shoes?, a little like Psalm 19: “The heavens declare the glory of God, the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” And the illustrations are . . . oh, how to describe them? Like the sort of thing I think about before falling asleep—but that doesn’t exactly help you, does it? Suffice it to say, they are stunning, absolutely stunning:

The color blue that T. Lively Fluharty uses throughout the book is one of my very favorites (a small detail, but one worth noting).

The Boy and the Ocean was well received by both our six-year-old and our (newly) four-year-old—it was her birthday gift, and it is a story that draws our eyes up past the beautiful illustrations, the lovely writing, to the maker of oceans and mountains and authors and artists.

The Boy and the Ocean
Max Lucado, T. Lively Fluharty (2013)

Just Because You're Mine, by Sally Lloyd-Jones | Little Book, Big Story

June 15, 2018 / 0 Comments

Just Because You’re Mine | Sally Lloyd-Jones

Of all the books I’ve bought just because they have Sally Lloyd-Jones‘ name on them, this one has grown on me slowest. But when I say “slowest,” I don’t mean that I ever didn’t like it. I have loved this book since we bought it years ago. But I didn’t immediately draft a review of it or buy copies to give as gifts. What I did instead was read and re-read it to my daughters and love it with them.

Just Because You’re Mine is a quiet story featuring Little Red Squirrel and his father. As he explores the woods with his dad, Little Red Squirrel asks his dad why he loves his son so much.

“Is it because of my Super-Fast Running?” Little Red Squirrel asks. “Because of my High Climbing?”

The story follows this rhythm of question-and-answer, building gently as his father answers each question with: “You can climb high (and so on), but that’s not why I love you.”

By the end, when his father tells Little Red Squirrel why, precisely, he does love his son, the moment is deeply satisfying, as though the only response to his answer is, “Oh, of course.” It feels like the story couldn’t end any other way.

Just Because You’re Mine is a beautiful picture book, filled with Lloyd-Jones’ musical language and the warm and welcoming illustrations of Frank Endersby. This is a book not only for children, but for families: the story of Little Red Squirrel draws our eyes upward toward our own Father, who loves us not because of our Super-Great Housekeeping or our Extra-Strong Service, but just because we’re his.

Just Because You’re Mine
Sally Lloyd-Jones; Frank Endersby (2011)

Dangerous Journey, by Oliver Hunkin | Little Book, Big Story

June 1, 2018 / 0 Comments

Dangerous Journey | Oliver Hunkin

I love it when I’m wrong about books.

Years ago, a friend showed me this one and I considered how excellent a children’s rendition of A Pilgrim’s Progress would be. I read a few sample pages and loved the tone of the story. But the illustrations—they were so intense. So many pointy teeth and warty giants! Egad. I thought that maybe some day my daughters might appreciate it—maybe. But at that point, we were still having nightmares about VeggieTales, so that day seemed a long way off.

But this year, some wise educator included Dangerous Journey in our history curriculum, so we gave it a read, even though I was still pretty sure at least one of the girls was way too small for it and another would listen to the story while giving every bodily clue that she hated it.

But I was wrong: Dangerous Journey became our favorite read aloud, the one that got applause when the girls saw it in the stack. “It’s Dangerous Journey day!” became something they said with the same enthusiasm they show for the ice cream truck in the summer. (Note: I am not exaggerating for effect.)

I’m so glad I was wrong about that, because reacquainting the girls with the story of Pilgrim’s Progress (we read Little Pilgrim’s Progress a few years ago) gave us a beautiful shared analogy for the Christian life that we’ve come back to often since our Dangerous Journey days ended. When someone descends into the depth of a terrible mood, I can draw them back gently with, “Remember when Christian left the path? Do you remember where he ended?” Or we can spur each other on in good works by remembering the Celestial City. Through Dangerous Journey, Pilgrim’s Progress has become part of our family’s shared language.

a quick comparison

For a moment, though, let’s consider what makes this version different from Little Pilgrim’s Progress. Dangerous Journey is told in picture book format (Little Pilgrim’s Progress is a chapter book), but even so, it’s language is a little more advanced. In it, Christian is an adult (he is a child in Little Pilgrim’s Progress, a perspective that obviously has its own benefits). Dangerous Journey’s illustrations are dark and a bit dated, but something about them really did connect with my girls (Little Pilgrim’s Progress is minimally illustrated), and I think the visuals helped them understand better what was happening in the story.

Both books are excellent, and both have found deserving spaces on our shelves, though they each approach the story of Christian’s journey to the Celestial City differently. And neither gave our girls nightmares. That’s a definite plus.

Thank you all!

Thank you so much to all of you who entered the Slugs & Bugs giveaway, and congrats to Emily and Jen, our winners! Since I can’t send you all home with an album, I’ll do the next best thing and play you out with a song. Here is the video for the song “The Ten Commandments.” Enjoy!

Dangerous Journey
Oliver Hunkin (1985)

Audrey Bunny, by Angie Smith | Little Book, Big Story

May 11, 2018 / 0 Comments

Audrey Bunny | Angie Smith

Five years ago, when I started this blog, Phoebe was a tiny person still riding in my belly. I knew of a handful of beautiful children’s books, and I wanted others to know about them. (And my friends were most likely tired of hearing about them.)

Back then, looking for good books felt like mining for gold. I’d dig and dig and dig—at the library, on book blogs, or on Amazon—and every now and then I’d strike a shimming vein: a new author, a new blog, or an excellent publisher. I’d find a handful of new favorites to share, and then I’d go back to digging. There were stretches where I felt dangerously close to running out of books to review, because it wasn’t easy to find great books for kids that were beautiful, well-made, and rich in the gospel.

But now, there are times when it feels as though I’m standing beneath a faucet turned on full. So many good books have come out in the last few years—great books on church history, Bible stories that link a single story to the Big Story of Scripture, books that tell that Big Story from start to finish, biographies of believers from different ages and backgrounds. My blog schedule is typically filled for 2-3 months. It’s glorious.

But there is one category that I’m hungry for, one that still makes me feel like a miner striking it rich when I find one: beautifully written stories that aren’t about the gospel but that are saturated with it. These are stories that are rich in grace and goodness, that are written by authors with a Christian worldview, but that may not be specifically Christian in theme.

Audrey Bunny is one of these.

Audrey is a stuffed bunny who lived in the barrel at the toy store until the day a young girl came and claimed her. But Audrey has a defect, and she dreads the day the little girl discovers it. But when that day comes, the girl doesn’t respond at all the way Audrey feared she would. This is a book about God’s grace and love, but it doesn’t say so in the story. We simply see what that loves looks like as we watch this little girl love her bunny, imperfections and all.

Angie Smith and Breezy Brookshire also worked together on one of my favorite books, For Such a Time as This. In both books, the words and the illustrations are gorgeous. In the back of Audrey Bunny, there is a guide for parent discussion, so we have the means to link the story to a deeper discussion on God’s unconditional love, but as we read, we’re free to enjoy the story itself without feeling tugged toward a neat moral at the end.

And I appreciate this freedom. There is certainly a place for stories that do link, within the story itself, to the deeper truths of Scripture and that clearly explain that connection. But I also value these stories that allow for open-ended discussions with kids or that simply make for beautiful reading—books that store away, in our children’s memories, one image of the kind of love God has for us.

coming soon!

I have brand new copies of Slugs & Bugs Sing the Bible Vol. 3 for you! Huzzah! I’ll publish details on how to enter the giveaway next week, so prepare yourself.

One last note (I promise)

Today, the toddler I read those beautiful books to turns ten.

I couldn’t find a recent picture of her (a situation I’ll remedy later by photographing her having an epic birthday adventure), but this photo, taken on the day we spent hours in the rain, throwing rocks into the bay, will do nicely. She counts that rainy afternoon among her favorite memories, and I remember why: the satisfying plunk of stones hitting the water, the promise of hot chocolate after, the birds diving for snacks as we watched them.

It’s one of my favorite memories, too.

Audrey Bunny
Angie Smith; Breezy Brookshire (2013)

Tag: picture book (page 1 of 18)

A Very Noisy Christmas | Tim Thornborough

What Every Child Should Know About Prayer | Nancy Guthrie

Building Our House | Jonathan Bean

Footnote

The Boy and the Ocean | Max Lucado

Just Because You’re Mine | Sally Lloyd-Jones

Dangerous Journey | Oliver Hunkin

a quick comparison

Thank you all!

Audrey Bunny | Angie Smith

coming soon!

One last note (I promise)

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Tag: picture book (page 1 of 18)

A Very Noisy Christmas | Tim Thornborough

What Every Child Should Know About Prayer | Nancy Guthrie

Building Our House | Jonathan Bean

Footnote

The Boy and the Ocean | Max Lucado

Just Because You’re Mine | Sally Lloyd-Jones

Dangerous Journey | Oliver Hunkin

a quick comparison

Thank you all!

Audrey Bunny | Angie Smith

coming soon!

One last note (I promise)

subscribe to the newsletter

Permissions

Affiliate Links

Books for Review

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