Tag: elementary (page 6 of 19)

June 24, 2022 / 0 Comments

His Grace is Enough

If there is one message I want my daughters to take with them when they’re grown, it’s not “Pay your rent on time” or “If some guy tries something fresh, remember ‘Gift of Destruction’ from your karate class and take him out'” (though I hope they remember those, too). But really, the number one thing I want them to remember is that they can always come home. Not just home to us, their parents, but to God: his grace is abundant and free and he will always welcome them back—whatever drew them away, whatever they got wrong while they were in the wilderness. I want them to know that they don’t need to hide their sin or work hard to make up for it, but that they can come to God trusting that he will smile as he looks upon them and that he will cover them with his grace and forgiveness.

That’s it. That’s the one thing I hope all our parenting distills down to.

And so I’m grateful for Melissa Kruger’s book, His Grace is Enough, which distills that truth down further for the youngest readers and lays a gospel foundation for children. The refrain that runs throughout this book reads:

His grace is enough
It’s so big and so free . . .
There’s no need to hide,
And no need to run
Now you can serve him with
Gladness and fun

Now, when I said Kruger has distilled the message of the gospel down for the littlest readers, I didn’t mean only for the littlest readers. I read this book to my daughters over lunch and we all said, in effect, “Aw, that’s sweet,” before moving on with our day. But a few hours later, one daughter was distraught over something she got wrong (intentionally or unintentionally? It wasn’t clear). And this refrain bubbled to the surface: His grace is enough, so big and so free. Those words helped anchor my own thoughts as I gathered her in my arms and said, “Hey, what do we do now? Do you have to work hard so we’ll love you again?”

She nodded. Uh oh.

“Oh, sweetie,” I said. “But you don’t—we love you always, no matter what, even before you say you’re sorry. And God does, too! You don’t have to hide from him or from us—we’ll keep loving you forever, whatever happens, and so will he. Okay?”

Apologies and snuggles ensued.

Clearly, my daughter needed to hear this again. But so did I: reading the gospel written so plainly helped me see that maybe I need to simplify it a bit when I share it with my kids—maybe talk less about substitutionary atonement and more about grace. So, there you have it: a parenting lesson in a picture book! (A brilliantly written, beautifully illustrated picture book.)

His Grace is Enough: How God Makes it Right When We’ve Got it Wrong
Melissa Kruger; Isobel Lundie (2022)

Disclosure: I did receive a copy of this book for review, but I was not obligated to review it 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.

May God Bless You and Keep You, by Sarah Raymond Cunningham | Little Book, Big Story

June 17, 2022 / 0 Comments

May God Bless You & Keep You

For over two years, the only library books we brought home were ones we’d put on hold. We were ridiculous about this, of course, and still managed to bring dozens of books home, one heavy red plastic bin at a time. But still: I missed browsing. I didn’t realize how much I missed it until the first day I took my daughters to the library and wandered up and down the aisles, finding titles I’d never heard of and hadn’t known to look for.

We found books we love but had forgotten about (The World of Little House, for example, or Stephen Biesty’s cross-sections), as well as books that were completely, deliciously new to us (like Phil Bidner’s Martina & Chrissie). Of course, we also encountered the twaddle—lots and lots of it. So much more of it than I remembered. But in between the books we could do without we found plenty of little gems, like Sarah Raymond Cunningham’s sweet picture book, May God Bless You and Keep You.

This book reads like a series of benedictions spoken over the life of a child. Cunningham gives parents the words to bless children through the many joys and trials our children might face, from the time they wake up to the time they go to sleep, and all of these words point readers back to the Lord. Like a refrain throughout the book, Cunningham writes:

May God bless you.
May God keep you.
May God’s face shine on you today.
May God give you grace
and keep you safe.
May God be with you always.

For so many children who have wondered, over the past two years, where God has been or why he hasn’t answered their prayers the way they’ve wanted, this short picture book is a balm—a reminder that God is with us always, that his face shines upon us. I’m looking forward to many more trips to the library this summer, but I’m glad our first one began with this book. What a sweet start to a new season.

May God Bless You and Keep You
Sarah Raymond Cunningham; Lorian Tu (2018)

June 10, 2022 / 0 Comments

The Biggest Story Bible Storybook

When our girls were little and some of them still didn’t exist, having a baby every two or three years felt just our speed. We weren’t a four-under-four-sized family; we were a pace-yourselves-and-aim-for-one-in-diapers-at-a-time family. Clothes moved pretty easily from one daughter’s dresser to the next, just trickling from room to room, as one daughter outgrew them and passed them on to the next one.

Before you read this next part, let me make this clear: we do not regret this. We loved having a very capable eight-year-old around when our fourth baby was born, and we have loved watching the girls’ friendships blossom at all different ages. There is something truly beautiful about watching these four very different girls love each other through all their various seasons of growth.

But I must say: this year has been a weird one, as we’ve had an eighth grader and kindergartener, plus two in between. One child prepares a speech on Charles Dickens for the school speech meet; another prepares for show-and-tell. One gets her braces off (!!); another is still missing front teeth. We’re living in four very different worlds here, and there are days when that feels a bit disorienting. Wonderfully disorienting, but still.

And so I am always profoundly grateful for the books that meet our whole squad right where we’re at—the ones that, like The Biggest Story Bible Storybook, are deep, thoughtful, and funny enough for the eighth-grader, but also bright, joyful, and clear enough for the kindergartener.

We’ve loved the various iterations of The Biggest Story, from the original version to the ABC board book, but this is by far my favorite. Author Kevin DeYoung and illustrator Don Clark expanded the original book into a full story Bible, filling in stories and adding more fabulous illustrations. But they hold fast to that thread of The Biggest Story and keep sight of Jesus and the work God does through him as they tell the story, and they keep sight of their audience. This is one read-aloud we’ve all enjoyed immensely.

So this summer, as my daughters do everything from hunt snails in the backyard to ride bikes across town to play D&D with their friends, we’ll gather in the long, slow evenings to read this book—a sweet point of connection for all of us, whatever our age.

The Biggest Story Bible Storybook
Kevin DeYoung; Don Clark (2022)

May 27, 2022 / 0 Comments

Tiny, Perfect Things

A few weeks ago my eldest daughter turned fourteen, and we celebrated by taking a ferry to the peninsula (if you picture Washington state as a mitten, I explained to my younger girls, we traveled from the index finger to the thumb), where we spent the day exploring a fabulous, still-very-Victorian-looking town on the water. The water that day was choppy, so much so that the captain cautioned us over the intercom to find a seat and stay there. “If you rode a motorcycle on board, we advise that you remain with it,” he said, at which point my husband caught my eye and raised his eyebrows.

Living where we do, the two of us have ridden many ferries to one of the San Juan islands or another. But never had we ridden waves like these. As we pulled out from the dock we could feel the ferry shuddering as it hit them and then, as it turned alongside the waves, sliding sideways down into the trough of one wave before climbing the peak of the next. I’d brought our lunch up to the deck with us, but as we watched the waters pitch and roll outside the window, I said, “Maybe we’ll save lunch until we’re on land, okay?”

The farther from land we travelled, the paler a few of us got, as though they were questioning every decision they’d ever made that may have brought us to that point. The rest of us pressed our faces to the glass and exclaimed over that burst of spray or that nearly-sideways sailboat, there, off to the left. “It’s so cool,” our fourteen-year-old said, while I decided to go check on the dog in the van, mostly as an excuse to stagger around the cabin watching the other passengers’ reactions and just, you know, taking it all in.

“Are you sure?” my husband asked. “I could go.”

“I’m sure,” I said. “I kind of want to.”

Trying to walk was more than comical: I listed from one wall to the other, zigzagging against my will even as my brain thought it was telling my feet to tread a straight line. I made it to the stairs, then down them—clinging to the railing the whole way—only to realize that I’d chosen the wrong flight of stairs and landed right in the bow of the ferry, in front of all the cars, where only a bright orange chain hung between those on the deck and the open, frothing water. The waves slapped the deck in a burst of spray. Two ferry employees stood there, so well-balanced and secure-looking, making small talk as the waves crashed around them. It was a wonderful and terrible moment, as beautiful a thing as I’d seen in a long time, even as the sight of that turbulent, gray-green water made my stomach drop. I stood there for a while, just watching.

Later, on land, near the end of our day, we found a bookstore, and in it I found this book, Tiny, Perfect Things. That moment on the ferry wasn’t tiny, exactly, but it was perfect, and it’s the sort of thing noticing tiny, perfect things prepares one to appreciate, I think. But let me explain:

Tiny, Perfect Things is one of those quiet, lovely picture books about something as ordinary as a walk, shared by a grandfather and granddaughter. As they walk, the child collects little moments of beauty: a fallen leaf, a spider’s web, a snail. “The world is full of wonders, no matter where we go,” she tells her mother later.

The beauty of this book is how it celebrates those small things and reminds readers that they are always underfoot or in the boughs just overhead. I read this book to my girls as we waited, in our van, to board ferry home (which was thirty minutes late due to the “windy conditions”). And then I watched as the younger two passed the book back and forth, each examining Madeline Kloepper’s illustrations, searching for tiny, perfect things not mentioned in the text. From the back seat, I heard:

“Oh! A ladybug!”

“And an anthill, look!”

Little kids often don’t need to be reminded to look for these little wonders. But as they get older, I notice, they begin to need those reminders—we adults do, too. When the ferry of life pitches and rolls, I suppose you could say, it can be a comfort to wonder at those waves and to remember that we live in the care of the One who made them. These tiny, perfect things remind us to wonder at the Maker of all things, big and small.

Tiny, Perfect Things
M.H. Clark; Madeline Kloepper (2018)

May 6, 2022 / 0 Comments

The Apostles’ Creed

My youngest daughter is in kindergarten which means that, when I teach art in her class, I get to hang out with kindergartners, who are some of the best people I know. By the time I get there, they’ve been in school for five hours, so they’re in a pleasant state of disarray—their hair wild, their knees stained. The line between the real and imagined is thin for them, and the world around them is so enormous: that leap off the playground structure is to them what a leap off a single-story roof might be to me. But they still leap, and they scream with joy when they do.

And when we do that trick with washi tape in art class—the one where you cover part of your paper in tape, paint all over it, and then peel the tape off, leaving behind a perfectly white, crisp pattern—they gasp audibly. Which is exactly what I want to do every time, I’m just too grown-up to do it. The way they see that clean white line reminds me that, you know what? It is amazing. We painted all over our paper, but there it is—still white.

Reading Ben Myers’s new book, The Apostles’ Creed, is kind of like peeling the tape off a brilliant painting. At our church, we recite the Apostles’ Creed together, week after week, building up layers of color as we take those words to heart. But for my daughter the kindergartener, some of those words have blurry edges. She can’t see the beautiful pattern beneath them yet, not as long as the tape stays in place. But this picture book takes each line of the Apostles’ Creed and opens it up for readers, in clear, understandable language. It peels back the tape, with its layers of paint, and allows young readers to see the crisp white pattern beneath.

The Apostles’ Creed is narrated by a child who articulates, one line at a time, these deep truths of our faith in childlike language, which allows readers to connect the world they see around them with these old, old tenets of Christianity. Every double spread introduces one line of the creed and closes with “That’s what I believe.” This, as we read a few pages each day over lunch, became a refrain my daughters voluntarily repeated with me: “That’s what I believe.” That structure continues the rhythm of the Apostles’ Creed at home and, with the help of Natasha Kennedy’s illustrations, invites children into these core Christian beliefs. Without condescending or being cute about it, Myers reveals some of God’s wonder and beauty and lets the kids marvel.

The Apostles’ Creed: For All God’s Children
Ben Myers; Natasha Kennedy (2022)

Tag: elementary (page 6 of 19)

His Grace is Enough

May God Bless You & Keep You

The Biggest Story Bible Storybook

Tiny, Perfect Things

The Apostles’ Creed

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