Tag: picture book (page 24 of 40)

December 16, 2016 / 0 Comments

The Christmas Promise

When I pulled our Christmas books out of the attic this year, I couldn’t help but notice a theme: our collection is heavy on stories about the first Christmas and noticeably light on stories about any Christmas that came after.

We have some notable exceptions (Great Joy; Saint Nicholas; An Early American Christmas), as well as the classics: The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, The Snow Man, and Good King Wenceslas. We even have the token Fancy Nancy Christmas book.

But every other book is set in a stable in Bethlehem.

I don’t think this is a short-coming, not really, because what impresses me is how many ways that one story can be told. Some books tell it from the perspective of the animals in the stable (Who is Coming to Our House?, The Friendly Beasts); some books tell the story just the way it’s told in Scripture (The First Christmas).

Some tell it through the eyes of Mary (Mary’s First Christmas; My Son, My Savior), or through the perspective of an imagined character (The Little Drummer Boy).

Others are by Sally Lloyd-Jones and are, therefore, wonderful (Little One, We Knew You’d Come; Song of the Stars).

But The Christmas Promise begins not with the good news that Jesus has come, but with the news that he is coming: Alison Mitchell (beloved author of two of my favorite picture books) begins with God’s promise of a coming king—”a new king, a rescuing king, a forever king!”—and then goes on to show, through the telling of the nativity story, how Jesus is all of those things.

That big picture approach is one that we did not yet have in our collection, and it’s one that has endeared Mitchell’s other books me. The fact that it’s illustrated by Catalina Echeverri, illustrator of three of my favorite picture books, is a thick, delicious swirl of frosting on the cake.

One more thing this book has going for it: The Christmas Promise falls under the heading of “Books I Will Read Any Time, For Any Reason, No Matter What Else Is Going On.” It’s short. It’s charming. It’s hard not to read with gusto. And I am reminded every time I read it of the ties connecting this season to the rest of Scripture, to our strange times now, and to the wonderful times that are coming.

The Christmas Promise
Alison Mitchell, Catalina Echeverri (2014)

December 9, 2016 / 4 Comments

Great Joy

Let’s appreciate, for a moment, the behind-the-scenes people who make books possible. Editors, art directors, publishers, agents—I don’t know exactly what you all do, but books like Great Joy make me glad that you do it.

The pages, cover, and binding combine to make a book that makes our family feel like we’re unwrapping something precious as I read, which I suppose we are, in a way, because the story is precious and the illustrations are warm and welcoming. But the gold leaf on the cover and the cloth binding and the very feel of the pages make the gift a thing that’s not just heard or observed but warmly felt. Somebody chose that paper and decided to ornament the cover just so—thank you, whoever you are.

Great Joy‘s quiet story doesn’t need bells and whistles—it would shine in a hand-drawn, xeroxed ‘zine, I’m sure, though it may not reach its intended audience that way—but the lovely quality of the book encouraged us to slow down and savor DiCamillo’s language and Bagram Ibatoulline’s illustrations.

Those illustrations are so gorgeous, by the way, that I’m tempted to heap adjectives on them willy-nilly. But I won’t burden you with that. Instead I’ll show you pictures:

Great Joy reaches my daughters at different levels: at eight, Lydia delights in the fact that Frances, the story’s protagonist, reads the same verses for the Christmas pageant that Lydia read for hers; Sarah, at six, asks the same questions Frances does about the organ-grinder; and Phoebe, at almost-three, delights in finding the monkey on every page (when she wants to read the book, she points at the shelf and shouts, “MONKEYS!” until someone hands her the book).

And I, as a mother, rejoice: this story is the sort of gift that I love to give my daughters, knowing that it points toward the one who is our greatest gift.

Great Joy
Kate DiCamillo, Bagram Ibatoulline (2010)

November 11, 2016 / 0 Comments

Golly’s Folly

Some of the best parts of Scripture feature unsavory elements. Adultery, for example. Prostitution. Murder. And because those passages tend toward the unsavory, they don’t often get shared with children.

Maybe that’s as it should be. Maybe those books are better after the wait.

But sometimes authors take the plunge and pull surprisingly beautiful themes out of Scripture’s darker corners. Authors Eleazar and Rebekah Ruiz did just that when they adapted the story of Ecclesiastes into a parable called Golly’s Folly.

Golly is a prince who grows impatient for his turn to be king. But when his father hands his crown over to Golly, Golly uses his new authority to surround himself with wealth, possession, and knowledge—all in an effort to make himself happy. That goes about as well as you might expect. Eventually, Golly learns that what makes him truly happy was his before he ever wore a crown.

I happened upon a trailer for this book months ago, and while I was promptly smitten with the illustrations and the design, I was most taken with the message of the book. From a young age, our children are surrounded with countless variations on the theme that we can find our happiness in possessions and experiences and achievements, and they watch us wrestle with those same temptations (with varying degrees of success). So I’m thankful for a book that shows our children, clearly and concisely, where our true happiness lies.

And while I’m excited to tell you about Golly’s Folly myself, this week’s review doesn’t end there: on Tuesday, you’ll get to hear directly from authors Eleazar and Rebekah Ruiz, who were kind enough to let me interview them for this blog! I think you’re going to love what they have to say about children’s books, beauty, and their new publishing company, Patrol Books. (We’ll also be giving away a copy of the book!)

But if you can’t wait until then and want to know more about the book right now—why they wrote it, how it was made—here are a few behind-the-scenes videos about the making of Golly’s Folly to tide you over:

Behind the Story | Behind the Art | Behind the Letters

Golly’s Folly
Eleazar and Rebekah Ruiz, Rommel Ruiz (2016)

September 30, 2016 / 2 Comments

The One O’Clock Miracle

At the start of the year, I knew nothing of the series “Tales that Tell the Truth.” I had never seen Catalina Echeverri’s artwork, nor heard of Alison Mitchell or Carl Laferton.

But that changed when I read The Garden, the Curtain and the Cross. Not long after reading that book, I found The Storm that Stopped, and felt a sudden conviction that our family must own these books. All of them. Immediately. These books are beautifully told, truthful, well made, and worth reading dozens of times. We needed them.

The One O’Clock Miracle was the next to join our collection:

The One O’Clock Miracle tells of the young boy Jesus healed, through the perspective of his father, who walked miles and miles to meet Jesus, only to hear the words, “Go. Your son will live.”

But Alison Mitchell isn’t content to simply retell the biblical story. Instead, she uses the story as a lens through with readers can view Jesus: the sub-title, “A True Story About Trusting the Words of Jesus“ is the perfect summary of her purpose here. The story is fun to read, but by the end the end of the book, it shows us something new about trusting Jesus, something we hadn’t seen before.

Catalina Echeverri’s illustrations are, again, full of energy and charm. And I’m pleased to report that, though our collection is growing, there are still more “Tales That Tell the Truth” out there for our family to collect.

And collect them we will.

The One O’Clock Miracle
Alison Mitchell, Catalina Echeverri (2015)

September 9, 2016 / 9 Comments

Lily, The Girl Who Could See

I did not grow up on a steady diet of missionary biographies. A steady diet of Goosebumps: yes. But the missionaries that have been childhood friends for many of you are new acquaintances to me. I met Corrie ten Boom, Elisabeth Elliot, Amy Carmichael, and more only after reaching adulthood, but in the few years since I first read their works, their stories have challenged me and shaped my faith. And of all the stories I’ve read, either on my own or while curating a collection of biographies for my daughters, few stand out as brightly to me as the story of Lilias Trotter.

Trotter left home and family behind to follow the Lord wherever he sent her, but she sacrificed something else as well: Lilias Trotter was an unusually gifted painter, a woman able to “see” what made a flower a flower or a face a face and capture that essence with her brush. She trained under a renowned instructor who saw in her the makings of a great artist. But when her dedication to art seemed to come in conflict with her work among London’s poor, Lilias Trotter sought the Lord’s counsel and strove to bring everything—her service, her love for him, and her gifts—under his authority. The result was a life lived beautifully, a work of art in its own right.

This is a subject dear to me because I talk to many mothers who are worried that, in laying down a gift that God has given them in order to raise children, they are, perhaps, giving up too much. But I have seen in my own life the way that the Lord often asks us to give up the very gifts that seem to come from him, only to give them back to us later, transformed by his touch. For me, this was music (I wrote at length about this for Deeply Rooted Magazine, Issue 7: Legacy). For some, it is teaching. Or accounting. Or even serving within the church.

The story of Lilias Trotter beautifully captures the struggle of a Christian who is torn between two good gifts, but who chooses instead to serve the Lord who gives the gifts—whatever the cost. The book’s language is simple; Tim Ladwig’s watercolors, gorgeous (he’s quickly becoming one of my favorite illustrators). This picture book is a lovely introduction to the life of Lilias Trotter, and one that gives a powerful example of a Christian laying down their life in the service of the Lord and yet receiving back, in this life, what they lost one hundredfold.

If you would like to learn more about Lilias Trotter, you can find her story in Noel Piper’s excellent book, Faithful Women and Their Extraordinary God (that’s where I first met her). And I just started reading the biography that Lily, The Girl Who Could See is based on: A Passion for the Impossible, by Miriam Huffman Rockness. So far, it’s lovely.

Lily: The Girl Who Could See
Sally Oxley, Tim Ladwig (2015)

Tag: picture book (page 24 of 40)

The Christmas Promise

Great Joy

Golly’s Folly

The One O’Clock Miracle

Lily, The Girl Who Could See

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