Viking Tales, by Jennie Hall

A few weeks ago I listed several books about Vikings which we had been reading. I also asked for suggestions for further titles and the Queen of Carrots recommend Viking Tales. I immediately ordered it off of Amazon and the kids and I read it together. (I purchased "used" and thankfully my copy looks like the one I've pictured on this post and not like the one you'll see on the Amazon page.) This book was first published by Rand, McNally & Co. in 1902, then republished in 2005. We are so glad that it was made available again to modern readers like ourselves!

Viking Tales is divided into two sections: part one taking place in Norway, and part two taking place in the lands "west-over-seas." Hall included a great introduction to her book explaining what the Sagas are so that the readers are made to understand that the events told in this book are ones which appear in the actual Viking Sagas which have been passed down through the ages. My kids were slightly versed in Viking history thanks to the books we had already read; having some background helped to really make Viking Tales come alive, if you will.

Viking Tales is comprised of mostly short chapters covering the time period between King Halfdan's reign in Norway through Leif Erikson's discovery of North America. (Side note: I had no idea that there is an official Leif Erikson Day in the United States.) Hall tells the stories of generations of Vikings in a manner which is both thrilling for young listeners, educational in spite of itself, and exciting for all involved in the reading. I really felt like this book helped us to solidify the timeline of Viking history in our minds, as well as making it personable and approachable. We highly recommend this title now to anyone who is learning about these people.

Of interest to me was information about the author herself. I had heard the name Jennie Hall before but didn't really know who she was. In case anyone else is curious, according to Goodreads she was a historical writer of the late 18th century. She is noted for having written "spellbinding travel memoirs" but I can't tell if anyone knows the titles of such books or if they are considering things like Viking Tales to fall into that category. Hall was born in 1875 and died in 1921 and beyond those dates and a smattering of book titles, that is all anyone seems to know about her. (Not even a Wikipedia page! Gasp! One wonders...) You'll not find a complete listing of her books on Amazon either, but you will find Buried Cities: Pompeii, Olympia, Mycenae for $0.99 on the Kindle (which I am enormously curious about). I would love to know more about her but it seems as if I shall have to remain curious. In the meantime, at least I can say that I've read one of her books and found it delightful.

Many thanks to the Queen who recommend the above title to me and for introducing me to Jennie Hall. I am much obliged.

Viking Picture Books and Resources

When your five year old expresses an interested in learning about Vikings, exactly what are you supposed to do? I poked around and asked a few friends for suggestions but no one had any specific titles to point me towards. My kids are all currently ages 8 and under so I was very interested in finding some titles that weren't all about the blood and the gore. With no suggestions, it became clear I was going to have to take a gamble and see what I could find. When it came to purchasing books about the Vikings I really appreciated Amazon's "Look Inside" feature. It helped me to get a feel for some of the titles, several of which I bypassed as being inappropriate for my children's ages.

Some of the titles I share below were purchased on Amazon and some were found by perusing the shelves of our local used bookstores.

#1 - Viking Settlers, by Fiona MacDonald.

Note: This is not a picture of the actual book. I can't find one online (which is a pity). (I might update this post with an actual picture of the copy I found.) This book was published in 1992 and would appear to be out of print, which is a real shame. The cover art is actually nicely done and very appealing. Viking Settlers is fully illustrated by Maggie Downer. Each page spread paints a scene of the Vikings building ships, sailing, building homes and, yes, attacking monasteries. When the Vikings are depicted in battle it shows them hovering over their victims with swords in hand. No blood, but you get the idea. In this book MacDonald covers topics such as Viking homelands, what they ate, how they traveled, and their death and burial practices. The book concludes with a timeline of events for the Vikings which is helpful piecing together their history.

I'm a big fan of this book and if you can lay your hands on a copy, do!

#2 - Who Were the Vikings?, an Usborne Staring Point History.

The Vikings look a little bit more, um, threatening than they do in Viking Settlers. Like many of Usborne's history books, it is filled with lots of illustrations and paragraphs of information scattered about the pages. Although the book is ordered out out much like Viking Settlements, it does feel more chaotic given the fact that there's hardly an inch of paper that is not covered with text or illustrations. It's a very busy book! However, it is also useful in providing information. Who Were the Vikings? is also illustrated and, like the above title, there is nothing gruesome contained within. The two books combined helped to solidify what we were learning  and, as is usually the case, each book you read on any given topic tends to add another layer of understanding. This book is likely easier to get a hold of and I have no objections to sharing it with small children.

#3 - DK Eyewitness Books: Viking.

I liked this book because it contained photographs of Viking relics. We read through our books on Vikings over the course of a week (one book a day, followed by a documentary which I'll share below) and we saved this title for last. At this point, the kids were getting a good picture of who the Vikings were, where they came from and how they lived. It was interesting for all of us to see photographs of Viking swords, cups, pendants, ships, etc.

Much like the Usborne book, this DK edition is also full of facts and visuals. However, I found it slightly less distracting of a title due to the photography. It didn't feel like a bunch of doodles filled the pages. The artifacts displayed made you feel more like you were taking in a museum exhibit instead of necessarily reading a book if that makes sense. At the conclusion of this book there are several pages with more detailed information about famous Viking rulers, adventurers, writers and historians, etc. I highly recommend this title to anyone wanting to learn about the Vikings with their younger children.

#4 - The Vikings: Facts, Stories, Activities. This title was published by Scholastic in 1991. It also appears to be out of print.

The only slightly creepy illustrations in this book are the faces of the Viking gods. Otherwise everything and everyone looks pretty normal. I like the layout of this book (although it does feature the same busy format as the titles already mentioned) in that the paragraphs of information seem decently spread from the illustrations. This title includes a story about the Viking gods ("Thor Visits the Land of the Giants") which is included in the famous Sagas. Scattered throughout the book are a couple of ideas for some Viking crafts that you can do if you so choose.

#5 - Leif the Lucky by Ingri and Edgar Daulaire.

This tells the story of famous Viking explorer, Leif the Lucky, who set sail from his home and family in Greenland and discovered North America. Actually it was Leif, not Christopher Columbus, who was the first European who set foot on North America. I'm not sure what that does about our Columbus Day but it's good to know the facts. This title is delightfully illustrated and all of my children enjoyed hearing Leif's tale.

Lastly I wanted to share about a kid-safe documentary on the Vikings. Of course, you will have to decide whether or not your own children are ready for this but we enjoyed it. (I previewed it before showing it to them.)

Vikings: Journey to the New World

This documentary focuses primarily on the Viking expansion in the west. It discusses their move to Iceland and Erik the Red's temporary banishment which led to him exploring Greenland. From there Erik the Red's son Leif set out to discover new lands which, of course, led him to North America. This film does reference the fact that the Vikings were known to be fierce warriors (it opens with the attack on Lindisfarne) but it stresses the point that many Vikings were farmers and explorers.

Although this film does show the attack on Lindisfarne, it simply shows the Vikings approaching the monks and then the screen quickly blacks out. Next a video of a Viking slashing his sword appears on the screen and then also instantly fades to black again. There is no visual of anyone being attacked and nothing frightening appears on the screen. The only other tense moment is when the Inuit Indians are approaching the Viking camp (North America) to kill the explorers. Bookworm1 was starting to feel a little anxious as the Viking tent was surrounded, but I assured him that nothing scary would be seen and that settled him.

I really appreciated the fact that someone bothered to make a fairly informative documentary on the Vikings without delving into battle, death and gore. Yes, of course, we will learn more about this side of the Vikings as the children age but below the age of eight I truly don't think it's necessary to dwell on such subjects. You can know that the Vikings were warriors but you don't need to witness a killing to fully comprehend. This documentary suited our needs perfectly and I'd recommend it to parents looking for resources. However, I'd issue the caveat that when it comes to learning about the Vikings, any resource you decide to pick up really needs to be previewed by the parent before showing it to the kids.

One note of complaint: I don't know who produced this documentary but a man with a North American accent provides the commentary. He did not know how to correctly pronounce Richard Wagner's last name, nor the word "saga" which drove me nuts. It seems to me that they could have educated themselves as to correct pronunciation. I don't know why they didn't.

All in all, I've been happy with the above titles and if this helps another person to find books that they feel comfortable with then it's all good.

Of course, I'm interested in learning about more materials and resources on the Vikings. If anyone out there has a suggestion to make, I'm all ears!

A Nest for Celeste

We finished it! It only took about a month, but we did it! It's a short, fast read but our out-of-town excursions drew the story out for us a bit.

A Nest for Celeste is supposed to be "a story about art, inspiration and the meaning of home." Okaaay. I wish authors and publishers wouldn't try to put the moral of the book in the title or use it as a selling point. A story well-written will speak to others in any variety of ways. When writing fiction, I think you should let the story speak for itself without trying to brand it to fit it into a thematic unit. But that's my opinion and my preference.

Regardless of my distaste for the book's subtitle, I still found this story to be quite fun and all of my children loved it. It makes for a very pleasant read aloud. In fact, I would rather recommend it only as a read aloud because it does have some political statements to make which I think require some discussion. But only the whole, it's very fun and I do not at all regret the time spent reading it.

In this book we met Celeste, the mouse. Celeste lives on the ground floor of a plantation house outside of New Orleans in 1821. She was misplaced from her family and ended up in the house where two rats taught her to forage for food (in order to steal whatever she found). One day a man named Audubon, and his assistant, Joseph, come to stay at the plantation. Joseph finds Celeste, rescuing her from the cat and a lonely existence under the floorboards. The two make friends and Celeste discovers herself in a position to help with some of the artwork which Joseph and Mr. Audubon are creating. In this endeavor, Celeste finds herself making friends with various birds and finding herself not so very alone in life by the end of the story.

This story is a fictionalized account (obviously, ha) of Mr. John James Audubon's 1821 stay outside of New Orleans, documenting the birds he found in the area and creating paintings of them. As this story documents, the way that Audubon went about painting his specimens was to first kill the bird and then use wires and string to pose them in lifelike positions so as to bring his pictures to life. His pictures are unarguably quite beautiful, but our present day sensibilities prefer us not to kill anything at any time (unless it's a baby in a womb and then you can kill it at any time, no problem). (Hey. If Cole can make his political argument, I can make mine. All's fair.) The author of this book does try to paint the picture that the killing of one bird of a species was a sad and horrifying thing. I don't agree with him of course.

My "political" (or moral) argument with Cole did lead to a discussion with my boys about our responsibility to take dominion of the earth, learning as much as we can about it. We are equally responsible to care for the animals, knowing that if we are negligent in this area, we can easily eradicate certain species as a direct result of our greed. We talked about the fact that we are allowed to kill only the animals that we need for food but not any more than we can eat. For example, it would have been wrong for Audubon to kills 15 osprey to make one picture. I do think though that it was ok for him to have killed one for scientific purposes, provided there were more to be found (and, in 1821, there were!). We had a healthy discussion between ourselves, talking about the differences between my opinion and Cole's. (I always make sure to lay out the arguments of the other side so that they aren't caught off guard by them at a later date) Because we discussed the differences, it didn't bug me tremendously that these arguments were in the book. At the same time, it did distract me from the story at hand and so my enjoyment of the read was not the same as the bookworms' who each enjoyed it whole heartily.

It should also be noted that there is some anti-gun propaganda in the book as well. (For, after all, the guns were used to kill the birds.) On one occasion, Joseph is retrieving a bird from some tall grass when he is accidentally shot by one of the men who are with Audubon. (It is a true fact that Audubon's assistant was shot while staying at the plantation, by the way.) I chose not to discuss gun control arguments with my kids this time (with this book).

Can I recommend A Nest for Celeste? Sure! Just know that there is a discussion about Audubon's practice of killing things so as to prepare yourself to talk about it. If you think that won't interfere with your ability to enjoy the story, then by all means pick this one up! It does have some sweet and touching elements, although I didn't really think the subtitle held true. Yes, there is some art being discussed and Celeste's home changes a few times but those points are so minor in the book (in my opinion) that that is not what stood out to me.

And with that I've probably written enough of an opinion on a middle grade piece of fiction and so I'll leave it at that! But on a slightly different topic -

After we finished up this book, I found a copy of The Boy Who Drew Birds: A Story of John James Audubon at the library (yes, I went to the library again!) and had Bookworm1 read it.

This is an excellent picture book for grade school students on Audubon, providing a couple of paragraphs of information per page spread. The information is given in story form and through it we learned how Audubon can be credited with attaching the first tracking device to a bird (a piece of thread!) to learn about the bird's migration habits. Also, he was considered the greatest painter of birds at his time. Incredibly, his original book - full of life-sized drawings - required two people to be able to turn one of its pages! Here is a picture of the set at auction to give you an idea of what they looked like:

I think that's just astounding! Exactly where would you put them in your house and how on earth would you store them!?

Even still, his work is somewhat hard to obtain a copy of. Check out Amazon's price HERE. I'll just content myself with looking at his work via Google Images, thanks!

My favorite:

I realize it's of a crow, yes, I do. But I like the green background. So, there you have it.

Sharkopedia: The Complete Guide to Everything Shark

Just the cover of Sharkopedia is in danger of creeping me out. Heh. Not really but I'm not going swimming in open waters anytime soon either!

This new title is associated with the Discovery Channel and published by Time Home Entertainment. If you or someone you know loves sharks, this is definitely the book for them! I am somewhat amused though that one of the book's stated purposes is make this "misunderstood" and "scary" animal less so to we humans who recoil from rows of sharp, pointy teeth. Yet upon cracking open the covers of the book I am met with a page spread with the caption: "The Body of the Beast." So far I am not feeling any sympathy for these creatures with the massively huge and painful jaws of death. (No. I don't exaggerate things much. Why do you ask?)

The book explains a great deal about sharks including their anatomy, the orders (There are eight. Who knew?), a bit about their habits and activities. Sharkopedia discusses a wide variety of sharks and there are tidbits ("fin facts") and information on each page discussing things like the bullsharks' poor eyesight (which causes them to attack anything and everything), sharks which migrate, and lots of encouragement to pass laws to protect these beautiful (and terrifying) creatures. (Please don't misinterpret me here. I think we have a duty and a responsibility to take care of animals. But I have limits on the numbers of laws I think are required to live my life and if a shark were biting my leg off and I had a chance to kill it so that it would stop biting my leg off, I would, law or no.) I should note that there is also a section of this book dedicated to "survivor stories", showing pictures of people's healed limbs (or missing limbs, as the case may be).

I'm being seriously tongue-in-cheek with this review and I'm only slightly of sorry about that. I'm seriously amused by the fact that the purpose of this book is to make me think kindly of sharks while showing images which would rightly scare anyone spitless. One thing I can agree with this book on is that sharks are incredible creatures. They are curious beasts who are interesting to observe and learn about. They are awesome in the sense that they inspire awe and ought to be approached with great presence of mind and a load of respect for their abilities. I don't love them and this book didn't change that, but I did enjoy reading more about them.

My oldest son (age 6 1/2) is sensitive to what might be perceived as "scary" images. For the most part, he liked flipping through this book but there are some pages and images which he found disturbing and so he ended up asking me to take it away from his presence. I have done so. But that does not make me feel as if I cannot recommend this book. If you are curious about sharks at all, then this book has the ability to satisfy a great deal of your curiosity. It is nicely laid out with a great number of colored photographs set into nicely designed page layouts. There are roughly 180 pages of SHARKS and as that floats a good many boats out there, I'm happy to recommend this one to you for your consideration.

Note: my only true objection to this book is in the fact that the information is presented from an evolutionary viewpoint. As a creationist, I dismissed the introduction in which it discusses the theory that sharks have been "swimming in the world's oceans since before dinosaurs roamed the earth." However, Introductory page aside, the majority of the book focuses on actual facts of any variety of shark so I'm not too disturbed.

Many thanks to Time Home Entertainment for sending a copy of this title my direction in exchange for my sharing my honest thoughts.

The Children Who Loved Books, by Peter Carnavas

If you are a book lover, then you will likely love this book too. (After all, you just love books so why not this one also?)

The Children Who Loved Books, by Peter Carnavas tells us the story of a family who didn't have much in the way of possessions. However, they did have tons and tons and tons and tons of books. They were quite happy and got along with one another very well. Then, one day, for some strangely inexplicable reason, they got rid of all of their books. Then they were sad, as they should be. (I'm incredibly sympathetic as you can clearly see. They made a bad choice.) Then, one day, the daughter picks up a book and the family is reminded of the value and wonder of a terrifically good story. The book draws them together again and they realize that books are a necessity to life. (They go to the library, saving space in their tiny home but still being able to read. A happy compromise. Except I still would rather a full house of a books than one overdue library book. Call me crazy.)

My kids love this book. And I'm not saying that's because our house is so full of books that they are used to prop up furniture. (Said books may be under the furniture and on it, but they are not being used to prop anything. That would break the spines.) The story is familiar and that's why we all like it. Books are everywhere in our house and I intend that they remain so.

Our secondary reason for liking this book (at least from the perspective of Bookworm3) is that this book is filled with CHICKENS. Chickens on every page! Chickens everywhere! And we acknowledged every one, oh yes we did, because we recently obtained six chickies for our own backyard. Here they are:

L-R: Charlie Brown, Cecily, Miss Bunches, and Lisa Lisa
They aren't this small anymore and we added two additional chicks after taking this picture. Now we have a total of 6 "baby chickies". Also, Miss Bunches has been renamed "Nellie" (yes, Olsen) because she was getting kind of mean for a bit. One of the new chickens was dubbed Happy Bunches in her place (not pictured) and the littles gal amongst them is named Rosie (also not pictured).

It should be noted that chickens really are as big and stinky as everyone says which, upon some reflection, might be the reason that the family in this book got rid of all of their books. Chickens can only co-exist with other things for a brief period of time and then no more.

At any rate, we love our chickens (who are about to move outdoors for good! oh yay!) and our books, making The Children Who Loved Books a hit in our household!

Note: this title is not available through Amazon. It was released earlier this year and is available through Usborne Books & More which is where I have linked the title to.

Many thanks to Kane Miller who sent a copy of this title my direction in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Explore Flight!

I'm still frequently asked the question, "What are you doing for (home) school?" and I still don't fully know how to answer that question. It is a journey and we are on it. To date, I haven't been too terribly concerned with it. (Should anyone be speculating about us...our oldest is 6, reads chapter books independently and is working out of a second grade math book. So I think we're doing ok.)

Still, I know quite well that next fall needs to look more official than this year and that is one of the reasons why I wanted to check out Explore Flight! which is a newer title from Nomad Press.

I'm a personal fan of thematic units. I think that's because unit studies manage to hold my own attention span. I like learning about things in spurts and then moving on to new things. I like Story of the World for history and I'm looking for something suitable for science. Explore Flight! holds great promise and so I think we're going to use this. (And then, separately, My Body.)

Explore Flight! is written/designed for ages 7-9. I could hand the book over to my son and he could read it for himself but we'll make it a group effort and involve the four year old as well. Upon opening up the book you are given a timeline of the history of flight. Moving on you are given some basic information and "words to know" as you dive (fly?) into this subject. All throughout the book we learn about scientist and explorers who dreamed about flight and made it possible for humankind. Litered liberally through the pages are experiments which you can conduct which are age appropriate. For example, the opening experiments involve flying seeds and leaves and also ye olde air resistance experiment where you drop things of varying weight and see which falls more quickly.

History and science are explored simultaneously with discussions of technology and the flight of the Hindenburg. (Of course, anything that adds the historical perspective is going to catch my attention and hold my interest.) The experiments increase in difficulty and complexity as you go along and you'll find yourself building a mini hot air balloon and/or learn things like Morse Code. It looks like tons of fun and the information is laid out in a way that is easily comprehendible. I think this book is a good fit. Especially for young boys who believe they can fly, regardless of the evidence.

If you are interested, Nomad Press has thematic units for all sorts of subjects. I've reviewed a few of their books before including the following:

* Explore the Wild West
* Great Pioneer Projects
* Great Colonial America Projects

Many thanks to Nomad Press for sending the above title my direction in exchange for my honest thoughts!

Earth Day Picture Books

Yes indeed. Earth Day was this past Monday. Alas, this review did not write itself in time for the official Earth Day but I find the following to be good resources and fun reads all year 'round. (For us they are particularly good for the approaching summer months!)

All my children have enjoyed Maisy at some time or another. She's a favorite little mouse of ours. When offered a chance to check out Maisy Grows a Garden I couldn't say no. If you know Maisy books, you know that this is not a fact-filled read, but rather pictures Maisy and various garden vegetables and, in this case, a little worm wriggling in the soil.

Maisy is most appealing to 2-4 year olds for the simple sentences, and the bright, bold design of the characters and settings. Maisy Grows a Garden is a pull-the-tab book. When you pull the tabs you see Maisy shoveling dirt, watering her garden and see seedlings poking through the dirt. On each page spread you will also find a box of gardening vocabulary words such as "shovel", "tulip", "seedlings", "snail", "carrot" and "tomato." It being a pull-the-tab book made it an instant hit with my children. However, I have to say that I didn't find the tabs very durable for little hands. My two year old had a very hard time manipulating the tabs and managed to tear one in record time. My four and six year old seemed to manage with more sensitivity towards the page design. You'll want to oversee usage of this book as a general rule. Or just don't expect it to have a very long shelf life!

Look Up!: Bird-Watching in Your Own Backyard by Annette LeBlanc Cate is a real winner! It's a fairly long picture book at 51 pages, and it is packed full of useful information on the art of bird watching. It is basically a whimsically illustrated "How To" for birdwatching. The beauty of it is that Cate opens the door to the idea that you can enjoy nature from your own home!

"Some people think that nature is something experienced by other people - people who live out in the country. But no matter where you live, you are a part of the natural world, just as the birds and other creatures are. Your thoughts, feelings, and observations about nature are just as valid as anyone else's. Your the only one who can keep track of your specific experiences, so keep your sketchbook with you, write things down, and draw pictures. It's important."

Each page offers tips and advice on how to begin birdwatching, the importance of keeping quiet and just watching, tips on how to identify birds by colors, beak shapes, wings, etc. Meanwhile each page is filled with illustrated scenes of people and birds with thought and word bubbles sharing songs, rhymes and encouragement to see birds in new ways.

I highly recommend this book as a great resource in helping younger children connect with nature and BIRDS!

The kids and I all really enjoyed reading It's Our Garden: From Seeds to Harvest in a School Garden. An elementary school in Santa Fe, New Mexico decided to grow a school garden and George Ancona spent a year photographing their efforts. This book tells the story of the teachers, volunteers and students who set out to design and build a garden that could be enjoyed by the entire community.

Now, we home school, in part, for the reason this book was written: to encourage the idea of a hands-on education with practical real-life experience. Learning should be exciting and fun and should involve plenty of opportunity to explore the actual world around you by getting outside into the world rather than staring at it through photographs. I love that this school designed a garden and then taught the children about how to grow different vegetables, how to compost, how to conserve and build and enjoy something that they themselves worked hard to produce. It's a really lovely and exciting idea. Ancona's photographs of the actual individuals who brought this garden to life and made it a place to live in just thrills the soul, that's what! I love that my kids can go out and play in our yard and grow things for themselves for our family to enjoy. And I also love that the students at this public school in New Mexico are learning a practical skill and are exploring their own world with outdoor classes and projects which allows them to get their hands dirty. We need more of this!

Love this book! My kids were interested in it also, in part because they can identify. They were allowed one portion of our land to grow flowers in the yard (they chose mammoth sunflowers) and also two large pots to plant something of their choosing. (They chose strawberries and snake gourds. So we're growing snakes! ;) I love involving them in gardening and I am happy to let them choose what they want to grow. It's FUN and it's beneficial to the whole family.

Our gardening experiments continue and we are enjoying learning more about how to enjoy this beautiful world that God created for us to live in!

Many thanks to Candlewick Press for sending copies of the above three titles in exchange for our honest thoughts.

Independent Reader

Ladies and gentlemen,  we have an independent reader on our hands!!!

I truly believed we would never see the day!

He's been gaining in reading confidence and so we thought we'd throw a challenge his direction. We offered him a reward if he'd complete the reading of one chapter book all by himself. The book of choice? The Boxcar Children.

The reward? We'd light up the fire pit (something we seldom do) and have s'mores (something we have maybe once a year, if at all). He went for it.

When he is particularly motivated to do something, he'll dedicate massive time and energy to it and that ended up being the case with this book. He read The Boxcar Children in two afternoons! (It took him roughly 4 hours.) Immediately upon completing the book, we went out into the yard and built a fire! (Gotta keep the motivation up, you know!)

As this is his very first chapter book to have read all by himself, I asked him a few questions in relation to the book. These were his answers.

Q: Why did you read this book?

A: Because you told me I had to.

Q: What is hard to read, or easy to read?

A: Easy and then hard and then easy.

Q: What made it hard?

A: It was hard reading it outside because there was so much fun happening all around me that it was hard to want to read.*

*He was determined to finish it the first afternoon. The sun was shining and I didn't want him to miss out on any rays so I sent him out in the yard to read. Apparently not the best location.

Q: Who was your favorite character?

A: Benny.

Q: Why's that?

A: Because he was so, so, so, so funny.

Q: What was one thing that he did that was particularly funny?

A: He wanted the dog so badly that he yelled that he wanted it. He didn't know it was someone else's dog and he really wanted it.

Q: What was the scariest part of the book?

A: There were no scary parts.

Q: Did they stay living in the boxcar forever? 

A: No, they moved in with their Grandfather.

Q: Did they want to find their grandfather?

A: No, they thought he was dead. They were surprised when they discovered him.

Q: Would you read another Boxcar Children book?

A: Maybe yes, another one.

Q: What do you like to find in books? What things make you like them?

A: Happy things. Exciting things. This was not an exciting book, but I liked it!

******
Upon coming back in the house after making our s'mores he told me that he'd like to read the second book (which I gave to him immediately, of course) and that he thought it was cool that in the first book, "Benny learns to read just like me!" Also, he and daddy wrote words using some of the burnt end of sticks which is how the siblings teach Benny to read in the book.

All in all it was a very fun experience but I'm not sure who enjoyed his reading of the book more, him or his parents. Perhaps his parents, who are doing The Dance of Joy!

Lastly, got a chuckle out of this:

My ABC Bible Verses from the Psalms, by Susan and Richie Hunt

My ABC Bible Verses from the Psalms is a new release from Crossway Books but the second ABC Bible verse book from Susan Hunt. (This is the first.) If you've made use of the first title, then you'll be very familiar with the layout in this new one as it follows the same pattern.

Example:

A - Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name. Psalm 29:2
B - Because Your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. Psalm 63:3

As Susan and Richie point out in their introduction, the first ABC Bible verse book focused on practical application of the Bible, whereas this new book featuring the Psalms focuses more on the character of God. The scripture quotations from this book are taken from the English Standard Version (ESV) of the Bible.

My ABC Bible Verses from the Psalms is a handy devotional/memorization guide for young children. Each letter in the alphabet is given a verse from the Psalms which starts with the same and you are encouraged to work with your children in memorizing these 26 verses from the Psalms. (It's not a bad exercise for the parents either, really.)

We had taken a look at the first title when our kids were much younger and I didn't really think it a very good fit at the time. Grant it, it seemed a nice resource but it was also over their heads. I was eager to take a peek at this book which focuses on the Psalms because I thought it might be a perfect fit for our oldest (age 6) in particular. Indeed it is, but the four year old can follow along at this point as well. We find it remarkably suited for our children's ages in the now.

Each verse has a short devotional in the form of a story. Each story is roughly a page and a half long and includes use of the Bible verse in focus. Then each lesson is concluded with some discussion questions and a suggestion on how you can incorporate the same verse into your prayer life.

I like the illustrations by Connie Gabbert. They have a more "scrapbook-y" and "crafty" feel to them. Instead of stark white pages, the paper has a beige tint to it which gives the book a very calm feel. The illustrations are appealing to the eye and I like the artsy alphabet letters.

In short, both Jonathan and I were very pleased with this resource and we plan to make good use of it with our kids -- starting now!

I am further delighted to inform you that Crossway authorized me to give away THREE copies of this new title to three of you! This contest will be open through Monday, February 11th and is open to US AND Canadian residents.

To win? Simply leave a comment below.
Extra entry if you FB this contest or share about it on your Twitter feed. (Just leave a second comment below if you choose to do either.)

THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED. THE WINNERS (as selected by Random.org) ARE #7 - EMILY D., #16 - SHONYA, and #22 - KENDAL

Congrats, ladies!

Thanks to Crossway Books for shooting a copy of My ABC Bible Verses from the Psalms to my family in exchange for our honest thoughts. Thanks also for your generosity in providing an additional three copies to my readers here at Reading to Know!