6:30 pm
Posted in Children's Books, Elizabeth, Tommy on Feb 1st, 2011
This is a sight I’ll never get tired of seeing…
Category Archive for 'Children’s Books'
Lovely thoughts from Anne
Posted in Children's Books on Dec 22nd, 2010
“That’s a lovely idea, Diana,” said Anne enthusiastically. “Living so that you beautify your name, even if it wasn’t beautiful to begin with…making it stand in people’s thoughts for something so lovely and pleasant that they never think of it by itself.”
Book Recommendation: The Perilous Gard
Posted in Books, Children's Books on Dec 20th, 2010
I first encountered The Perilous Gard, by Elizabeth Marie Pope, my senior year of college. Cate Stearns had read it onto tapes and lent them to me for my drive up to Hillsdale. I was enraptured. (Never have Illinois and Indiana gone by so quickly!) Tragically, the second to last tape was flawed, and I […]
100 of Our Favorite Picture Books
Posted in Children's Books on Dec 14th, 2010
Anderson, C. W. Billy and Blaze Asch, Frank Bear’s Bargain Asch, Frank Bear Shadow Base, Graeme Animalia Base, Graeme The Water Hole Bedard, Michael Emily illust. Barbara Cooney Bemelmans, Ludwig Madeline Bluedorn, Johannah Little Bitty Baby Learns Greek Bluedorn, Johannah Little Bitty Baby Learns Hebrew Borden, Louise The Greatest Skating Race Boynton, Sandra The Going […]
A Philosophy of Children's Literature: Books for Young Children
Posted in Children's Books on Dec 13th, 2010
Christina asked me to expand on our thought process behind selecting books for our kids right now–almost 4 and almost 2. Here are some things we do: What Do We Look For? We still ask, Does this accurately represent God’s creation? and Is this a work of literary and artistic excellence? For picture books, the […]
I Should Reread Anne More Often…
Posted in Children's Books, Homemaking on Dec 10th, 2010
I should have reread Anne of Ingleside before I went with Derek to his 10-year high school reunion, when I almost worried myself sick beforehand about making small talk with Christine Stuart types who would see me as just a perpetually pregnant “little woman” married to the Valedictorian with the impressive-sounding legal career… “Anne Shirley! You haven’t […]
A Philosophy of Children's Literature: The Little House Series
Posted in Children's Books on Nov 29th, 2010
The Little House series is almost universally recommended for young girls, but that shouldn’t stop us from making sure that it measures up to the standards we have for our children.
A Philosophy of Children's Literature: Part Six
Posted in Children's Books on Nov 22nd, 2010
(Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five) Why Does This All Matter? Okay, at this point you may be thinking we’re compulsive about a relatively unimportant area of our children’s lives. After all, it’s just books! For our family, books are the single most influential media form we encounter. We watch very little TV, we rarely […]
A Philosophy of Children's Literature: Evaluating Elsie Dinsmore
Posted in Children's Books on Nov 17th, 2010
I wanted to wait on this until more people had had a chance to read it (you can do it online here), but I think we’ve discussed her so much in general in the comments that I need to address my concerns with her now.
A Philosophy of Children's Literature, Part 5
Posted in Children's Books on Nov 17th, 2010
One more day to discuss the importance of literary standards of excellence… 3. Good Literature Develops Our Literary Palate If the aesthetic merit of a book matters, how do we teach young children to discern it? We learn the difference between great and badly-written literature by studying the rules of grammar, composition, and rhetoric. We […]