Tag: picture book (page 22 of 40)

June 30, 2017 / 0 Comments

Reformation ABCs

Thank you all so much for your encouraging words after my last post! You all are good people, and it was such a joy to hear from you. And I know I said that I was going to post every other week, but when I sat down to my calendar this morning and started scheduling posts two weeks apart, I hated it. I’ll stick to my word for a while, but I may not last long publishing at half speed—we’ll see. But here, today, is a new post about a new favorite book:

One of the books that inspired me to start this blog was Stephen J. Nichols’ Church History ABCs. From the illustrations to the topic to the fun Nichols clearly has with language, I had to share it with friends, family, the school, and our whole church body. A book blog seemed the best and most expedient way to do that. So I started one.

But now Nichols and illustrator Ned Bustard have a new book out. And it’s even—gasp!—better than the first one.

While Church History ABCs highlights figures from various points of church history, Reformation ABCs focuses on figures within a single time period. That narrowed focus makes this book a little easier to pair with history curriculum or Reformation Day celebrations, but by viewing stories through a smaller historical window, it also yields a host of fascinating biographies on people whose lives overlapped either in friendship or influence (or both).

The book itself has a smaller format than Church History ABCs, and because these books are written for the late elementary crowd, I like that. These are picture books for kids who might think they’re too old for picture books (as if there is such a thing!), and I think the smaller format on this book allows it to sneak in there, right between the picture books and the chapter books. Ned Bustards illustrations are still striking and I love them; Stephen Nichols’ language is still quirky and engaging, and I love that.

In short, Reformation ABCs took a bunch of things I loved about Church History ABCs, added some other stuff to it that I also love, and made a beautiful new book that I couldn’t wait to share with you.

Reformation ABCs
Stephen J. Nichols; Ned Bustard (2017)

May 5, 2017 / 0 Comments

He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands

A few weeks ago I stopped by the garden section of a favorite grocery store to visit with the plants. They flaunted spring finery and rhythmic names—columbine, stonecrop, a fluffy young thing called asparagus fern. Overhead played that ubiquitous shopping music, something by JLo maybe. I wouldn’t have noticed the music at all if two things hadn’t happened at once:

1. A song came on with a tolerable dance beat.

2. An old woman paused as she shuffled past me with her grocery cart. She got a good grip on the cart’s handle. And then she began to dance.

She swayed happily back and forth the way my baby does when she hears a catchy tune, bobbing her head and closing her eyes in a moment of complete contentment. When the song ended and the old woman caught me beaming at her, she grinned and shrugged. “If they don’t want us to dance, then they shouldn’t play music with such a nice beat,” she said.

Amen.

That story has nothing to do with today’s review, nothing at all. But it was too lovely not to share.

Today’s review has to do with a book whose text is simple—the lyrics from the old spiritual, “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.” The illustrations seem simple—light-soaked paintings that follow one boy as he explores what each line means for his life, his family. But that pairing of a traditional hymn born within the horrific fist of slavery with the wonder one child turns upon the world around him makes He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands a rich and beautiful book.

I would not, of course, expect every kid to make the connection between the old and new here. But even without an underlying knowledge of the song’s roots, this is a book worth sharing, as it takes a familiar song and makes it a visible story, one rooted in hope and joy. Nelson’s paintings invite us warmly into the life of the main character. He introduces us to his family, shows us his interests, allows us to tag along as he visits the beach and studies the stars. He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands manages to be both weighty and feather-light; both broad and sweetly specific.

And it’s hard to read without singing.

He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands
Kadir Nelson (2005)

The Easter Story, by Brian Wildsmith | Little Book, Big Story

April 14, 2017 / 1 Comment

Brian Wildsmith’s The Easter Story

I love celebrating Holy Week. I love it in the same way I love the anticipation of Advent, and the long meditation of Lent. I love living, day by day, the story of our Savior’s last week as a mortal man.

On Sunday, the triumphal procession. On Thursday, the Last Supper, Passover, the washing of feet. On Good Friday—oh, Good Friday—the Crucifixion, that startling ending and the piercing sorrow of it. The stunned silence of Holy Saturday.

And then: that first Easter morning, when the women gathered at Jesus’ tomb, come to minister to him only to find the tomb empty and angels waiting to bless them with the best news, the news that Jesus lives!

At our church on Easter morning, our pastor calls out to us at the start of the service, “He is risen!” And we, sleepy congregants who may have woken before dawn to come to the sunrise service before this one, call back, “He is risen indeed!” Our pastor doesn’t chide us for a lack of enthusiasm, but calls again, louder this time, “He is risen!” And we, still attending to fidgety children and crumpled bulletins, call back, “He is risen indeed!”

And again, still louder, “HE IS RISEN!“ Finally, we get it. Our hearts are warm, the tears gathering in some of our eyes as the joy in our pastor’s voice reaches us. The noise of it, the delight in our voices as we respond is palpable, the room filled with the good news as we call back, louder this time, “HE IS RISEN INDEED!”

At home, we have spent the week walking through Holy Week in Scripture and in our favorite picture books. We have read books that recount Jesus’ last week plainly, in gorgeous language straight from the Bible, and we have read books that come at the story from a fresh angle—from Peter’s perspective, from Petook’s, or in the case of The Donkey Who Carried a King or this book, Brian Wildsmith’s The Easter Story, through the eyes of the donkey both blessed and humbled by the honor of carrying the King of Kings into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.

Brian Wildsmith’s version is beautiful, the illustrations intricate and illuminated with gold accents that cry happily, “This story is something special! Attend to it!” We have had this one in our collection for years, and the joy evident in its creation and contagious in its reading makes it a fitting selection for this week, this Holy Week that is almost at its end.

May you all have a jubilant Easter, filled with delight and song and celebratory chocolate, for he is risen indeed!

The Easter Story
Brian Wildsmith (1993)

Michael Hague's Easter Treasury | Little Book, Big Story

April 7, 2017 / 0 Comments

Michael Hague’s Family Easter Treasury

I made it my mission this year to find unusual Easter books, books that play variations of Easter’s main themes rather than hammer out the melody over and over. That is, I went looking for books that don’t recount the events of Holy Week in the usual way.

We have a number of books that do that and I love them, but reading them repeatedly for the forty days of Lent can deaden the power and beauty of the resurrection story a bit by Easter, so this year, we tried something different: in Lent’s early weeks, we’ve been reading from books like At Jerusalem’s Gate and this one, Michael Hague’s Family Easter Treasury. We’ve been savoring variations upon that main theme, whetting our appetite for the rich feast of books to come.

This book is similar in style to The Children’s Book of Virtues (also illustrated by Michael Hague). It contains accounts of the Easter story, but they’re tucked into a well-chosen collection of fairy tales, folk tales, poems, hymns and stories that all touch on Easter in some fashion. The stories we’ve read so far have been beautiful—”The Maid of Emmaeus,” especially, and “The Selfish Giant.” We’ve savored them slowly as a part of our homeschool mornings, and they’ve already become a valuable part of our Easter library.

And Easter is coming! Soon we’ll pull out the old favorites and set this new favorite aside, but right now, this treasury is just right.

Easter Treasury
Michael Hague (1999)

March 24, 2017 / 2 Comments

At Jerusalem’s Gate

I finally figured out how to use our public library.

It’s been there for years—I frequented it myself as a child—and I have taken my daughters there semi-regularly since Lydia was a baby. But my approach to checking out books was haphazard at best: throw books that looked interesting in our book bag and sift through them when we got home. Return them a few months overdue, pay fines, and sheepishly avoid the library for a while. Every so often I would reserve a book, forget to pick it up, and sheepishly dodge the library again.

Something changed a few months ago, though, when I sat down to the online catalog and reserved every book I had ever bookmarked on Instagram. Every few days after that, I got an email announcing that some new book was in, waiting for me. These were the best books, the ones usually not on the shelves because their hold lists were so long they just moved from drop-box to hold shelf to somebody’s home and so on.

We found The Princess in Black this way. We discovered Mustache Baby. We checked out every available John Hendrix book this way (sorry, Whatcom County John Hendrix fans! We’ll bring them back soon, I promise). We learned that our library cards max out at seventy-five books, and that our county actually has a pretty respectable Easter selection.

You already know how to use your library, I’m sure. I am extremely late to this particular party. But I love this party: we go to the library weekly now, collect our box full of books and go home happy, not having entered the children’s department once. In this baby-and-toddler season of life, that’s a welcome development.

But about those Easter books.

At Jerusalem’s Gate was one of my favorite library finds this Lent, a title I remember from long ago on Aslan’s Library. In a genre where every other book seems to be titled either The Easter Story or What is Easter?, Nikki Grimes gives us something unexpected: a collection of poems that branches off from the familiar story of Easter.

Grimes walks the line between Scripture and speculation gracefully: each poem explores some aspect of the story that has caught her attention—the meaning of Judas’ name, the story of Pilate’s wife, Mary’s response to the Crucifixion—while making it clear in each poem’s introduction that these are the author’s thoughts, not canon. She invites the reader into her own musings and expands the world around the well-trod path of the Gospel accounts, reminding us that actual people lived the events of Holy Week—people who wept and wondered and lived the story’s beginning, middle and end.

This book is, obviously, available at our local library, but we loved it so much that I purchased our own copy (sadly, Jerusalem’s Gate is out of print, but you can sometimes find affordable copies on Amazon). It has been a beautiful part of our family’s reading for Lent, and it’s one I’ll look forward to reviving every spring.

Footnote

If you aren’t entirely smitten with this book yet, I highly recommend reading Sarah’s review on Aslan’s Library. It’s beautiful and gives a detailed look at some of the poems. You know what? You should read that review anyway, even if you’ve already put the book on hold at your library.

At Jerusalem’s Gate: Poems for Easter
Nikki Grimes; David Frampton (2005)

Tag: picture book (page 22 of 40)

Reformation ABCs

He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands

Brian Wildsmith’s The Easter Story

Michael Hague’s Family Easter Treasury

At Jerusalem’s Gate

Footnote

Welcome

Browse

Policies

Blogroll