Breathe: A Child's Guide to Ascension, Pentecost, and the Growing Time by Laura Alary

Breathe: A Child's Guide to Ascension, Pentecost, and the Growing Time, a new book for children written by Laura Alary and illustrated by Cathrin Peterslund is due out in April of this year.

Breathe retells the biblical account of the Ascension of Jesus and the Day of Pentecost in a lyrical and practical way for children. 

'The season after Pentecost lasts for a long time...

In church we call it Ordinary Time...

There are no big holidays during Ordinary Time,

But life in the Spirit is not ordinary.

Amazing things are happening.'

Breathe looks at the natural growing time of the Northern Hemisphere’s spring and summer that coincides with Ordinary Time in the church calendar and connects it with the movement of the Holy Spirit. Seeds that had been buried in the earth have come to life and flowers are blooming. Everything is growing and changing in the natural world which makes it a good time to reflect on what the Spirit is doing in our lives. 

'Am I growing the fruit of kindness?'

'I wonder what kind of fruit I will bring to the world?'

I like the practical aspects of this book. The author puts them alongside the retelling of the biblical account to show us how we may apply them to our lives. 

Breathe is a lovely book to be shared with a child and I think an adult who does this will be refreshed too. It’s always good to examine ourselves to see if we are growing the fruit of kindness and children help to give us a fresh perspective as they see things we often don’t.

If you are, like me, in the Southern Hemisphere, the book is still applicable but like the Christmas books we read that depict snow, we have to use our imaginations a little more.

Laura Alary also wrote two other children's books I've previously highlighted - Make Room: A Child's Guide to Lent and Easter and Look! A Child's Guide to Advent and Christmas. They have a similar format to Breathe but a different illustrator. I think Breathe is pitched a little more to a wider age range with more textual depth but they are all well done.

All three books are published by Paraclete Press.

Christian Greats Challenge - Wrap-up Post

On the Incarnation by Athanasius

A Chameleon, a Boy, and a Quest by J.A. Myhre

The God Who is There by Francis Schaeffer

Life Under Compulsion by Anthony Esolen

Flynn of the Inland by Ion Idriess

In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden

North & South by Elizabeth Gaskell

Unnatural Death by Dorothy L. Sayers

Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis

The Nine Tailors by D.L. Sayers


The link up page is here if you wanted to add your review of any books you've read for this challenge.
Thank you to those who joined in!

A Chameleon, a Boy, and a Quest by J.A. Myhre

A Chameleon, a Boy, and a Quest is the story of Mu, a ten year old African boy, who has lived with his uncle after being orphaned as an infant. It is the tale of his search for identity, a search not of his own making, but one that was initiated by a very unlikely guide: a talking chameleon.

With echoes of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books, a modern Pilgrim’s Progress, and Hinds Feet on High Places, Mu’s quest takes him on a journey into the unknown that is fraught with danger.

He encounters enemies in the form of his own insecurities and fears; men who know his true identity and want to keep that knowledge from him; a band of rebel soldiers who enlist him as a child soldier, and the shame that comes from his own act of betrayal.

'He had come to the moment of truth about himself, and the truth was not beautiful. But in the very act of committing the worst deed of his life, he also saw something deeper than that truth about his own soul. He saw forgiveness, forgiveness freely given when he least deserved it.'

A Chameleon, a Boy, and a Quest is a well-written book that has a very real sense of place. The author has captured the feel of Africa through the descriptions of the land and the characters. It’s a modern Africa that presents some of that country’s problems in an appropriate manner for children around about age ten and upwards.

The author handled the aspect of Mu's inner world very well. Mu didn’t know his true identity and measured his worth by the way he was treated. It would make an excellent family read aloud and I think it could generate some good discussions and help to address some of these issues that children sometimes struggle with.

'Again Mu thought of his cousins and home - though objectively he had not been treated as a son, it was the only home he had known. He had, over the years, come to believe that his state of affairs was the only one possible for him, that there was some inherent defect in his person that determined his lot as a servant, scapegoat, last in line, not-quite-member of the large household.'

This book is the first in the Rwendigo series of four books. My 14 year old daughter has read the first two books and enjoyed them so I think there’s a wide age range appeal especially for anyone who enjoys adventure with a bit of fantasy/allegory. The African setting is unique and adds another dimension to the story.

Many thanks to New Growth Press for providing me a free copy of this book for review.

#3 A Christian Allegory - see 2019 Christian Greats Challenge

A Miscellany

Miscellany: A group or collection of different items; a mixture

Here is a mixture of some things that have been going on at our place, mostly to do with art and appreciating what is good, beautiful and true...

We've found some very helpful watercolour videos on YouTube and I've posted some of what Moozle's done below after she watched them. There are oodles of them by the same artist & I've made a playlist of the videos we used. There are various levels but a good one to start with would be this one:

The Fifth Day Sea Creatures by Christopher E. Wade is a welcome addition to the area of children's picture books that 'explores some of the diverse ocean life that God created in the Biblical account of the 5th day of creation.' What is unique about this book is the author's beautiful and painstaking  illustrations. He uses a pointillism technique along with watercolours which he demonstrates on his blog here.
A review of the book is here and there is another book on winged creatures coming...

The American artist Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) isn't a well known artist here in Australia and I possibly would have passed her by if Moozle hadn't shown such an interest in painting flowers. We're using some of her paintings, including those below, for picture study for a few weeks in order for Moozle to take some time 'to see.'

'Nobody sees a flower - really - it is so small it takes time - we haven't time - and to see takes time, like having a friend takes time.' 

 Petunias, 1924

'When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.'  

Autumn Leaves, Lake George, 1924

'I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty.'

The only book I could find on the artist was the children's book below by Mike Venezia, which was written for younger children but it has a good selection of her paintings and Venezia's books are always fun to read.

 

I feel like I've been doing this forever - 1 inch hexagons using the English paper piecing method.

Larger hexagons - one and a half inch - i.e. each edge is 1 inch long - using up scraps. I'll wait until I have a good hundred basted before I attempt to put them together. I'll use tones, light, medium, dark to work out how the pieces will fit together. Moozle is helping me with this.

I use these pre-cut templates

Classic Children's Literature Event 2017: My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara (1941)

My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara has sat unread on our bookshelf for nearly twelve years since I first found it in a secondhand book store and recognised the title as being a Children's Classic, but not knowing much else about it. I decided to read it for the Children's Classic Literature Event this year as my 12 year old daughter loves horses and I thought I'd see if it was suitable for her.
I wasn't a horse fanatic when I was a child, but there's enough to enjoy in this book regardless of whether you like horses or not. The main thread of the narrative is the love a boy has for a filly (Flicka) and how that love is returned, but it's also a tender portrayal of family relationships - a stern ex-army father, a sensitive mother, and their two sons, Howard and Ken - and this added theme broadens its appeal even more.
Ken is a dreamy, scatterbrained, and irresponsible ten year old and his father just doesn't understand him at all. Ken always manages to get on the wrong side of his father while his older brother, Howard, is more like his Dad and has an easier time relating to him.

Ken felt as if he had been put out of the ranch, out of all the concerns that Howard was in on. And out of his father's heart - that was the worst. What he was always hoping for was to be friends with his father, and now this...His despair made him feel weak.

Ken desperately wants his father's approval and friendship but everything he does seems to drive them further apart. When Ken fails to be promoted to the next grade by his teacher his father is furious, but the only thing that will motivate Ken is having a colt of his own. And this his mother understands.
The story takes place in Wyoming in the USA and the author's vivid writing creates such a tangible sense of the countryside that it's easy for someone like myself, in a completely different part of the world, to imagine the setting. She also succeeds in depicting the various characters in a convincing manner - the four members of the McLaughlin family, the ranch workers, the horses and their individual characteristics, the itinerant family trying to eek out an existence - each are realistic and are heart-renderingly fleshed out by her descriptive powers.
I'm surprised that this book doesn't seem to be that well-known (well, in Australia at least) except for those who read it as a child themselves. It was made into a movie but a female character was substituted in Ken's place and from what I've read it didn't do the book justice. It certainly deserves its place amongst children's classics for its beautifully crafted writing and for the way the author portrays conflict in family life.
I think this book would be best suited for an independent reader of about 13 or 14 years and up, even though the main protagonist is 10 years old. Rob McLaughlin is a just man but has a quick temper, a rough tongue, and a harsh manner. "Damn it !" and sometimes "God damn it!" are part of his regular vocabulary and there is some tension between himself and his wife, Nell, that would better suit an older child. However, I think it would work well as a read aloud with a younger child with a little editing in places as there are some great themes worth exploring.

Some favourite bits:

"The most affectionate animal in the world," said Rob. "You don't see the young ones leaving their mothers if they can help it. They stay in the family group. You'll often see a mare on the plains with a four-year-old colt, and a three-year-old, and a two, and a one, and a foal. All together. They don't break up unless something happens to make them. And they never forget."

"They learn from their mothers. They copy. They do everything their mothers do. That's why it's practically impossible to raise a good-tempered colt from a bad-tempered mate. That's why I never have any luck with the colts of the wild mares I get. The colts are corrupted from birth - just as wild as their mothers. You can't train it out of them."

McLaughlin never allowed anyone to show, or even to feel, any grief about the death of the animals. It was an unwritten law to take death as the animals take it, all in the day's work, something natural and not too important; forget it. Close as they were to the animals, making such friends of them, if they let themselves mourn them, there would be too much mourning. Death was all around them - they did not shed tears.

"...I maintain that it's not insane for a freedom-loving individual man or beast, to refuse to be subdued."

"My experience has been that the high-strung individual, the nervous, keyed-up type - is apt to be a fine performer. It's the solitary, or the queer fellow, that I'm afraid of. Show me a man who plays a lone hand - no natural gregariousness, you know - the lone wolf type - and I'll show you the one who's apt to be screwy." 

"Flicka has been frightened. Only one thing will ever thoroughly overcome that, and that is, if she comes to trust you. Even so, some bad reactions of the fear may remain. This does not mean that you must not master her. You must. She will have many impulses that must be denied because you forbid the actions that rise from them..."

Mary O'Hara continues her animal saga in the following two books:

Thunderhead
Green Grass of Wyoming 

Some information on the author is here.
 

Linking to Simpler Pastimes for this month's Classic Children's Literature Event. Check it out for some wonderful literature!

Books in a Series for Young Voracious Readers - Part 1

Some children read very quickly and are always asking for more books. Although all my children loved reading, two had insatiable reading habits. They were/are both active and have interests in many different areas so it wasn't as if they sat around all day reading. They just had the ability to read extremely quickly.
When children are still quite young it is sometimes difficult to find suitable reading material for their age. I didn't want to give my voracious readers any old book to stop them harrassing me, although at times I told them to go back and re-read some.
This is the beginning of some posts with lists of books in a series that I felt comfortable using with our children when they were around the ages of  eight to ten and that they all enjoyed at one stage or another.

I'd already mentioned the Redwall series for reluctant readers but they are great books for the book gobblers also as there are a number of them and they are well written.
In this post I'll concentrate on another family favourite:

The Biggles books are a series of books (one hundred and two altogether) written between 1932 and 1968 by W.E. Johns (1893-1968). Some are difficult to find as they're out of print but others have been reprinted in the past few years. They are also suitable for reluctant readers, especially boys, and have a wide appeal for a variety of ages. We know a number of adults who still have their boyhood Biggles' collections.
W.E. Johns was a British fighter pilot during WW1 and his writing reflects his knowledge of aircraft and air battles. His books are adventurous, fun to read and are free from pessimism.




Moozle loves this series and has become quite an expert on old war planes as I found out when she got into a conversation with her brother's orthodontist, an aviation enthusiast & expert on model planes. Here is what she said when I asked her which ones she would recommend reading first:

"The first book in the Biggles series by W.E.Johns you should read is The Boy Biggles.
A good book of adventures of when Biggles was a boy in India.

Then,

Biggles Goes to School - Biggles’ adventures when he’s in school.

Biggles Learns to Fly - it’s situated in WW1, when Biggles learns to fly a Camel, (an aircraft!) in Squadron 266.

Biggles Flies East -

The head office tells Biggles to go as a spy into German territory, relying on the fact that someone has mistaken Biggles for another person who is on the German side.

‘The General’s face was grave when he returned and sat down at his desk, and he eyed Biggles speculatively.

“Now, Bigglesworth,” he commenced, “I am going to have a very serious talk with you, and I want you to listen carefully. While I have been away I have examined the situation from every possible angle, I believe that Broglace’s next move will be to will be to make a definite offer to you, provided you do not give him cause for alarm. If our assumption is correct, he will suggest that you work for him, which means, of course, for Germany; I would like you to except that offer.” 

The Camels are Coming -

This is first book W.E. Johns wrote and takes place during WW1 when Biggles was a fighter pilot in France.

Biggles in the Orient -

Biggles is sent to figure the reason why machines are just suddenly falling every day, on a normal flight. The place where’s its happening is Dum Dum, an aircraft station.

The other books can be read in any order, except some of them are in WW1, in between the wars, and some of them are in WW2.

 Biggles Takes a Holiday -

Biggles’s friend Angus Mackail has disappeared into a valley, which is advertised as ‘Paradise Valley,’ in South America. Biggles sets out to find him with his trio of friends, Bertie Lissie, Algernon Montgomery Lacey (or Algy Lacey) and ‘Ginger’ Hebblethwaite (he has red hair)."

Thank you to Miss Moozle aged 10 years for her thoughts above. 


A bit about the author from a flyleaf of one of his books:

Captain W.E. Johns was born in Hertfordshire in 1893. He flew with the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War and made a daring escape from a German prison camp in 1918. Between the wars he edited Flying and Popular Flying and became a writer for the Ministry of Defence.


For a listing of the books in the order they were written see here.







 

Picture books are just for young children?? Rubbish…a guest post

I really dislike it when people say that picture books are just for young children or beginning readers. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that I never grew out of them myself and have an ever-expanding wish list. Casting slurs on my level of maturity and all that…

Anyway, as a primary teacher, picture books are one of my favourite resources and I use them across all grade levels. Most people are familiar with the quote: “A picture speaks a thousand words”. What I consider to be one of the most beneficial characteristics of pictures is that these “thousand words” are those of the reader. A good picture book is rich and open to a variety of interpretations. It can spark discussion and engagement with difficult or controversial concepts. Whilst they do provide an avenue into literacy for struggling readers, it can be too easy to downplay what they have to offer to students who have excellent skills in this area. The beauty of a text that is so open to interpretation is that everyone can access it at their own level and pull different meaning from it depending on their skills and background knowledge. You could probably compare it to an allegory, which can be read at face value or with the deeper meaning in mind.

Another advantage of picture books, as compared to written texts like novels, is the interplay between the words and the pictures. What is not said is just as, if not more, important than what is said. This technique creates much of the humour and appeal in picture books, and can inspire students to be creative and think outside of the box. The last element that I particularly appreciate is that of “defamiliarisation”. Essentially this refers to a technique by which familiar things are put in unfamiliar contexts or described in unfamiliar ways. I find this really useful for extending the thinking of those students who always want to know “the right answer” or tend towards common or stereotypical interpretations of meaning.

In hindsight, I should have been aware of just how hard it is to narrow my favourite picture books down to a short list! These are just a few of the ones I like to use with older students: 

·         I love anything by Shaun Tan. He is one of those authors who has a very unique perspective and imagination. Every time I read one of his books, I notice something new. Titles include Tales from Outer Suburbia, The Arrival, Rules of Summer and The Lost Thing. 

·         Libby Hathorn’s Way Home is a really touching and confronting picture book about homeless children. Very thought-provoking!

·         Anything at all by Oliver Jeffers! I am yet to pick up a book by him that hasn’t made me laugh. At first glance they are very simple, but when you read them closely they are incredibly creative in their simplicity, which prompts some great discussion. Favourites include Once Upon an Alphabet, The Day the Crayons Quit, The Great Paper Caper, The Heart and the Bottle, Stuck, The Incredible Book-Eating Boy, and This Moose Belongs to Me. 

·         Imagine a Day and Imagine a Night (Rob Gonsalves & Sarah Thomson) – these books provide some of the best stimuli for creating writing I’ve seen. 

·         Erika’sStory (Ruth van der Zee), RoseBlanche (Roberto Innocenti) and Letthe Celebration Begin (Margaret Wild & Julie Vivas) are some of my favourite picture books about the Holocaust.  

·         Jeannie Baker’s two books Window and Belonging are wordless and show changes in an environment over time. Really good discussion starters and writing prompts!

·         The Peasant Prince (Li Cunxin & Anne Spudvilas) is the children’s version of Mao’s Last Dancer. One of its best points for use as a teaching resource is how it represents the fables and stories that inspire the main character. You end up with rich, thought-provoking “stories within a story”.

Thank you to Zana, my lovely enthusiastic daughter who is venturing out as a new graduate teacher, for sharing some of the ways she uses picture books in her teaching.

Volcano Adventure by Willard Price

When my eldest son was about ten I found a book in the children's section of the library I thought looked promising and brought it home. When my husband saw it he recognised the author and said he'd loved his books when we was a boy.

Willard Price (1887-1983) wrote fourteen books in his Adventure series for children starting with Amazon Adventure in 1949 and finishing with Arctic Adventure in 1980, in addition to authoring a number of travel books for adults.

Hal and Roger, the nineteen and fourteen year old sons of the famous naturalist and animal collector, John Hunt, have been given a year off from their studies to gain practical experience on scientific expeditions.

In Volcano Adventure, written in 1956, the two boys are working under the supervision of a world famous volcanologist and the book begins with them half way up an exploding Japanese volcano in the middle of the night.
Hair-raising and highly improbable adventures occur in rapid succession; geological discussions and facts scattered throughout provide the young reader with a wealth of information.

The author knew his natural history and had the ability to pass this on to children through his books and this was brought home to me when I was reading A Child's Geography: Explore His Earth by Ann Voskamp to 9 year old Moozle.

I was going through the section on earthquakes and volcanoes and she'd stop me and say, "I read about that in Hal and Roger..." and then proceed to tell me about what happened in Volcano Adventure. I was quite surprised at the amount of stuff she had picked up reading this book. Of course, some of the information is outdated now, but he wrote out of his personal experience and interest and that pervades his writing.

Volcano Adventure describes events that actually happened: the Tin Can Islands were evacuated during an eruption, divers discovered the submerged Falcon Island, a bell containing observers did actually descend 1,250 feet into the boiling crater of Mihara in Japan.

The author visited all the scenes described in the book and in order to gain information on volcanoes he climbed Mauna Loa, Asama, Aso, Mihara, Kilauea, Paricutin and Vesuvius and flew over Stromboli, Etna, Popocatepetl, Pelee, Momotombo, Izalco, Uracus and Apo!

We have all fourteen books - accrued since we found the first one 13 years ago - and they have been devoured by one and all. They were a wonderful series for my late reader, giving him enough action and interesting information at the same time as being a not too difficult read.

There are some minor elements of evolution that occur in some of the books but Volcano Adventure is free from any mention of it.

I recommend them for children around the ages of about 9 years to encourage an interest in the natural world and also for older boys who struggle with reading and love an adventure.