I found that question hard to answer when I was pregnant with our third daughter. No baby toys; no bibs; no onesies. We had all of those in the attic and we know by now that items like that only see daylight for a few months before returning to the attic for years, so I found myself looking for things that would grow with Phoebe, that she could enjoy not only as an infant, but as a child and later, perhaps, as a mother herself. The answer was obvious: books.
The ladies at our church were kind enough to throw a baby shower for Phoebe and for another family in our church who had just had their third son, and it was a joy to come home with a few handmade gifts, a baby item or two, a pan of lasagna, and three gift bags full of books. They really did well, those ladies. Aesop’s Fables, A Child’s Book of Prayer, Misty of Chincoteague and this, The Children’s Book of Virtues, were among the first titles that I dove into, though Lydia and Sarah were happy to rummage through the whole stack, reading (Lydia) and “reading” (Sarah) aloud from the new books to themselves and each other.
I’ve written before about The Book of Virtues—the full, deluxe version—so this post might seem redundant. But The Children’s Book of Virtues is a find in its own right, and one that we’ve found nice and accessible for everyday use. The book is a large format picture book, fully illustrated, with only a handful of selections from The Book of Virtues, all geared toward a younger crowd (you won’t find Aristotle in here). That makes it a great introduction to folk tales, fairy tales and moral tales, one that the kids can savor themselves, while The Book of Virtues waits patiently on the shelf, until pulled down every once and a while for the sake of an especially good story.
This time last year, I was nearly thirty, newly pregnant, and too queasy to eat my own birthday cake. We went to my favorite bakery, where the cakes have names like “Chocolate Bliss” and “Lemon Cloud,” but my stomach protested against anything more complex than a cup of vanilla gelato.
When we went to dinner with my mom to celebrate our almost-shared birthdays, my mom apologized to the chef for returning my plate, scarcely touched, and assured him that it was nothing personal—“She’s pregnant,” she said, nodding knowingly. The restaurant was small and situated in a garden; jewel-like pies lined the counters of the kitchen. I had looked forward to eating there for months.
“What I could eat was so good!” I called after him. It really was. I think it was about half of a chicken, roasted and golden. There may have been poached eggs and asparagus involved, but I can’t be sure.
This year, my friends, I want a do-over.
I spent weeks dreaming up my own birthday cake, sketching schematics of the four-layer beauty and baking rough draft batches of batter—just to make sure, you know, that dark chocolate stout cake is a good idea (it is), and that it tastes okay with caramel and ganache-topped frosting (it does). I would like to go to that restaurant again and send an empty plate back to the kitchen, with my compliments to the chef.
And I would like to tell you about a sweet-as-caramel-cake book just released by two of my favorite artists, David and JJ Heller.
I know, that was a terrible transition. But sometimes, you do what you have to do, and when it’s (the day before) your birthday, you demand a little extra grace.
JJ Heller is known for her music, really—this is her first children’s book—so we’ll talk about that first. I tend to be a little wary of Christian music, because so much of what I have heard sounds written to sell what shouldn’t be sold, but David and JJ Heller have a wonderful dynamic: sincere, personal, well-written songs, sung simply and released on albums that the Hellers fund themselves, typically from the earnings of the previous album.* I have a lot of respect for artists who work that way, because you know they’re producing music that they are passionate about, not stuff that is designed to reach a certain market.
Oh, and they make music videos in their dining room:
That same passion and integrity shows up in their new book, The Golden Feather. They funded it with a Kickstarter campaign and oversaw the process of publication themselves, so the finished product is very much theirs: creative, beautifully illustrated by Luke Flowers and an absolute joy to read. The Hellers released it as a companion to their upcoming album of lullabies, I Dream of You, which you can pre-order through their website.
The story line of The Golden Feather is simple but imaginative, and Sarah was immediately caught up in this bedtime tale of a little girl just her size. When we discovered that there are bunnies hidden in the illustrations (one on every page!), it was hard to peel her away from the book when her bedtime rolled around. Now she “reads” it to us, asking at the end of each page, “Where’s the bunny? Do you see it?”
It has also proven effective in boosting morale after bicycle-related incidents:
The Golden Feather is a lovely book, yes—sweet in all the right ways (like caramel!)—but it’s also a project by people whose work is worth supporting. To learn more, you can visit their website and watch the adorable video of their daughter, Lucy, narrating The Golden Feather, or you can order a copy of the book or their new album of lullabies for little ones, I Dream of You. And if you find yourself having the sort of day where you should be eating cake but are instead stuck with good old vanilla gelato, then I suggest that you listen to JJ Heller’s album, Deeper. That one always makes me feel better.
*I remember reading about this in a post that David Heller wrote for their blog. When I went back to find that post so I could link to it, I couldn’t find their blog at all. But, for the record, that’s where I got my information.
If there’s any approach to telling a Bible story that makes me immediately suspicious, it’s the one where an author frames the story within a neat moral. And if there’s any approach to telling a Bible story that means well but often gets things awfully wrong, it’s the one where an author whisks a character off the sidelines and tells the story through that character’s eyes.
And yet, if there’s any author out there who can masterfully wield both of those approaches in the same book, it’s R. C. Sproul, author of countless books on theology for both children and adults.
In The Donkey Who Carried a King, the previously side-lined character is, obviously, the donkey of Palm Sunday fame. The neat moral is—well, I’ll let you read it for yourself. But it works well with the story, that’s the part I’d like to emphasize. And it’s the sort of moral we want to bring home to our kids.
Sproul takes this seemingly unappreciated donkey and uses him to tell a crucial part of The Big Story, reminding us gently that it was precisely the quality that the donkey, Davey, most lamented in himself that made him most suited to carry a king. Chuck Groenick’s illustrations bring a delightful depth to the story as well, amplifying Sproul’s words with color and texture.
We—that is, I—have a penchant for buying books at the slightest provocation (I’ve written about this before), and one of the seasons that brings this penchant to the forefront is Easter, when I often buy a new Easter book or two for our Lenten enjoyment, as well as a new, theologically rich book for each child to open on Easter morning and read all year round. The Donkey Who Carried a King met both requirements: lately, Sarah has been smitten with two of Sproul’s other books, The Prince’s Poison Cup and The Lightlings, so we picked this one for her, thinking it would make a great year-round reminder of the Cross.
In case you missed it: yes, our children get books on Easter morning, plus, like, two pieces of chocolate or something. We have our priorities. And Phoebe, who can’t eat chocolate, will be getting one of these:
I have good news for you, and I have bad news. I’m going to operate off the assumption that you, like me, would rather hear the worst first, so here’s the bad news: Petook: An Easter Story is out of print and going for something like $60 (minimum) on Amazon. The good news is that there are still copies out there available for less than that (I did not pay $60 for mine), and this book is worth the work of checking Amazon regularly or haunting book sales, garage sales, or Goodwill. Better yet, our library here in town has a copy, so, quick! Race to our library website and put a hold on it now! (Or read on to find out why I’m being so bossy about a book about a chicken.)
To say that Petook is a beautifully written book would be entirely true. But to say that without mentioning Tomie dePaola’s illustrations would be a critical omission: the best bits of this story are not written, but are embedded within the artwork, making Petook an incredibly moving book, unforgettable and lovely to look at.
To explain exactly how this works is a tricky business, because the bulk of the book’s beauty rests in the subtlety with which it tells the story of Easter, and subtlety is hard to pin down. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever been more tempted to skip the summary of a story entirely and simply order you to go get a copy, but we’ve already discussed the difficulty of doing exactly that (see above), so I’ll have to take a stab at it.
Petook is a story with a foreground and a background. In the foreground is Petook (a rooster), his mate, Martha, and their chicks. Petook doesn’t do anything terribly exciting, really, but Houselander’s telling of his story stands alone so beautifully that it’s tempting miss the drama unfolding behind the rooster, where dePaola draws out the events of Holy Week so quietly that they nearly slipped past me during my first reading of Petook.
As Petook passes an uneasy night or anticipates the hatching of his newest chicks, tiny figures in the background of the paintings show Jesus and his disciples in the Garden of Gethsamene, with a line of soldiers marching toward them, or depict the tomb, shut up and under guard. As Petook stretches his wings restlessly, there on the hilltop behind him stand three crosses in silhouette. Petook responds to these events with the rest of Creation, grieving when Jesus is crucified, rejoicing when he rises again. At points, his story touches that of Christ (you’ll know them when you see them).
Petook is a modest tale at first glance, but it deepens with each reading, thanks to dePaola’s unusual approach. It has become one of our favorite Easter stories, and tends to be the first to emerge from the attic each year and the last one to retire. If you’re able to get your hands on a copy, do! If not, keep your eyes open; be patient. Petook is a book worth hunting for.
You know the story of Noah’s Ark, don’t you? Of course you do. Even if you avoid the Bible out of principle, it’s hard to miss Noah and his crew, given their perpetual presence in wooden toys and watercolors of the story’s closing scene in which Noah—a jolly, old man—hangs out with a dove or a doe-eyed elephant. Behind them, you can see the ark, probably with a rainbow shooting out of its roof.
Perhaps the presence of wildlife contributes to the ongoing appeal of Noah’s story. Maybe all of those animals, poking their heads and necks out of the ark on all sides, have eclipsed the depth, tragedy and joy of what is, honestly, one of the darker tales in the Bible. But I’m thankful for illustrators like Jerry Pinkney, who tackle a story so familiar that it’s almost lost it’s punch, and treat it with the reverence it deserves.
Pinkney knows that this story isn’t about animals: it’s about the severity and the grace of God, and his illustrations reflect that. They are gorgeous and haunting, detailed in a way that swells the story beyond the bounds of words and yet retains an attraction for young readers. My daughters delight in studying the details on each page: we count spiders, hunt butterflies (the animals aren’t without their charm, after all), and wonder at the vastness of the sea. We study the structure of the ark-in-progress and marvel at Noah’s obedience down to the smallest beam.
And we revel in the rainbow and the hope that it signifies, because the story of Noah is also about hope: hope for the redemption of mankind; hope in a God who expects perfection from us, and yet pays the penalty Himself for our failure.
(Haley, at Aslan’s Library, wrote an excellent post on a similar topic called, “The Noah Problem.” It’s definitely worth a read.)
