READ ALOUD LENTEN LITERATURE

A good book my husband and I couldn't have done without in our years of raising a family was Making God Real In the Orthodox Christian Home by Fr. Anthony Coniaris.  I love this quote about Lent:

"It is significant that Lent happens to coincide with spring.  I think there is a wonderful lesson for us in this happy coincidence.  Lent should be for all of us a period of placing ourselves in the position where the best things can happen to us...in the presence of Christ, where the Sun of His love and power can shine into our arid souls to bring about a real awakening..."

source

For many of us, that awakening comes by slowing down, turning off the television, and making more time for daily prayer, spiritual reading, fasting, and participation in the special church services of Lent.  


In our family, we also tried to carefully choose good books to read aloud with our kids during Lent, that would help underscore what we were doing.  


There are the obvious choices of Bible and Saints stories, but today I thought I'd highlight some good literature for kids, that you may not have considered...please let me know if you have any to add!


SIR GIBBIE by George MacDonald, Kathryn Lindskoog. (ages 8-12) From Publisher's Weekly: George MacDonald's 1870s' Sir Gibbie, about a destitute Scottish orphan, was reportedly a favorite of C.S. Lewis's. An edition of the novel, prepared by Kathryn Lindskoog, inaugurates a Classics for Young Readers series, while a companion, Sir Gibbie: A Guide for Teachers and Students by Ranelda Mack Hunsicker, is available for teachers, students and home-schoolers. In the Guide, Hunsicker contends that Sir Gibbie served as a source for Huckleberry Finn, although Mark Twain (a friend of MacDonald's) upended MacDonald's religious message. Noting that previous editions of Gibbie "cut out much of MacDonald's Christian teaching," Hunsicker adds that Lindskoog's goal was "to restore [the book] to its original Christ-centered plot."  (218 pages)


HEIDI by Johanna Spyri, illustrated by Ruth Sanderson. (ages 7-12)  I hope you can find this adaptation with Ruth Sanderson's gorgeous illustrations. In any case, try to get a good unabridged version. Spyri's descriptive telling of Heidi's struggle to learn to read, as well as her relationships with her grandfather, the Alps, the goats, Klara, and Peter and his blind grandmother are not to be missed. What touched me most was the underlying story of the stern grandfather ("Alm Uncle") as a prodigal son figure who has his heart softened by his tender granddaughter. (285 pages)



THE BRONZE BOW by Elizabeth George Speare. (6th grade and up) Newbury Medal Winner. Daniel bar Jamin is driven by only one passion: to avenge his father's death, by driving the Roman legions from his land of Israel. He joins an outlaw band and leads a dangerous life of spying, plotting, and impatiently waiting to seek revenge. Headstrong Daniel is devoid of tenderness and forgiveness, heading down a destructive path toward disaster until he hears the lessons taught by Jesus of Nazareth.  Elizabeth Speare said she wanted to make young adults feel what it would be like to live during the time of Christ. I think she succeeded!

A "DO UNTO OTHERS" KIND OF STORY

A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Philip and Erin Stead is a love of a book about faithful friends. As the debut project for this husband and wife team, it won the 2011 Caldecott Medal!  And I'm sure it will win over you and your child. 



Though the story has the timelessness of an old classic, the muted woodblock print and pencil illustrations bring a freshness that perfectly complement this gentle, yet rather quirky, sweetly told tale.

We meet Amos, an elderly gentleman, and observe his early morning routine as he gets ready for work:  he wakes up to his alarm, swings his legs out of bed, puts on his freshly pressed uniform, winds his watch, and sets a pot of water to boil.

Nothing out of the ordinary -- until he arrives at his job via the number five bus. He works at the City Zoo, where (among other things) he lovingly plays chess with the elephant, wipes the rhinoceros' runny nose, and reads stories to the owl (who's afraid of the dark). 

But one day Amos wakes up with the sniffles, and realizes he is too sick to make it to his job at the zoo... 

He swung his achy legs out of bed, curled them back again and said, "Ugh.  I don't think I'll be going to work today."  

So the animals catch the city bus to visit him. 

They spend the whole lovely day keeping him company...the rhinoceros is even ready with a handkerchief.

Because that's what faithful friends do.

PUBLIC DOMAIN MONDAY: THE STORY OF DR. DOLITTLE!

Cover from first edition, 1920

Inside page.  Click here to peruse the entire book, then go find it
at your local library, or children's bookstore!  Also look for
THE VOYAGES OF DR. DOLITTLE.

THE STORY OF DOCTOR DOLITTLE, by Hugh Lofting
Excerpt:  First Chapter - PUDDLEBY

ONCE upon a time, many years ago when our grandfathers were little children—there was a doctor; and his name was Dolittle—John Dolittle, M.D. "M.D." means that he was a proper doctor and knew a whole lot.

He lived in a little town called, Puddleby-on-the-Marsh. All the folks, young and old, knew him well by sight. And whenever he walked down the street in his high hat everyone would say, "There goes the Doctor!—He's a clever man." And the dogs and the children would all run up and follow behind him; and even the crows that lived in the church-tower would caw and nod their heads.

The house he lived in, on the edge of the town, was quite small; but his garden was very large and had a wide lawn and stone seats and weeping-willows hanging over. His sister, Sarah Dolittle, was housekeeper for him; but the Doctor looked after the garden himself.

He was very fond of animals and kept many kinds of pets. Besides the gold-fish in the pond at the bottom of his garden, he had rabbits in the pantry, white mice in his piano, a squirrel in the linen closet and a hedgehog in the cellar. He had a cow with a calf too, and an old lame horse-twenty-five years of age—and chickens, and pigeons, and two lambs, and many other animals. But his favorite pets were Dab-Dab the duck, Jip the dog, Gub-Gub the baby pig, Polynesia the parrot, and the owl Too-Too.

His sister used to grumble about all these animals and said they made the house untidy. And one day when an old lady with rheumatism came to see the Doctor, she sat on the hedgehog who was sleeping on the sofa and never came to see him any more, but drove every Saturday all the way to Oxenthorpe, another town ten miles off, to see a different doctor.

Then his sister, Sarah Dolittle, came to him and said,

"John, how can you expect sick people to come and see you when you keep all these animals in the house? It's a fine doctor would have his parlor full of hedgehogs and mice! That's the fourth personage these animals have driven away. Squire Jenkins and the Parson say they wouldn't come near your house again—no matter how sick they are. We are getting poorer every day. If you go on like this, none of the best people will have you for a doctor."

"But I like the animals better than the 'best people'," said the Doctor.

"You are ridiculous," said his sister, and walked out of the room.

So, as time went on, the Doctor got more and more animals; and the people who came to see him got less and less. Till at last he had no one left—except the Cat's-meat-Man, who didn't mind any kind of animals. But the Cat's-meat Man wasn't very rich and he only got sick once a year—at Christmas-time, when he used to give the Doctor sixpence for a bottle of medicine.

Sixpence a year wasn't enough to live on—even in those days, long ago; and if the Doctor hadn't had some money saved up in his money-box, no one knows what would have happened.

And he kept on getting still more pets; and of course it cost a lot to feed them. And the money he had saved up grew littler and littler.

Then he sold his piano, and let the mice live in a bureau-drawer. But the money he got for that too began to go, so he sold the brown suit he wore on Sundays and went on becoming poorer and poorer.

And now, when he walked down the street in his high hat, people would say to one another, "There goes John Dolittle, M.D.! There was a time when he was the best known doctor in the West Country—Look at him now—He hasn't any money and his stockings are full of holes!"

But the dogs and the cats and the children still ran up and followed him through the town—the same as they had done when he was rich.

  

FUN (FREE!) BOOKPLATES TO PERSONALIZE YOUR CHILD'S HOME LIBRARY

Ex libris is Latin for "from the library of..." 

Bookplates, also known as "ex-libris", have been placed in books to declare ownership since the 15th Century. Many artists, some famous such as William Hogarth, Aubrey Beardsley and John Piper, have designed bookplates, and many significant people (e.g. Samuel Pepys and Rudyard Kipling) have used them, but a personal bookplate is available to anyone owning a library and wishing to place in the books a printed design as a mark of possession. -from the BOOKPLATE SOCIETY web page.

Did the word 'FREE' get your attention??  Read more HERE about the interesting history of bookplates on the website, MyHomeLibrary.com, which has a large selection of FREE printable children's bookplates in all different sizes.  Some are black and white, some are color.  They are all done by children's book illustrators. You'll find lots of fun designs like these that you are free to download and print!

Bookplate by ALIKI

Bookplate by Helen Craig, illustrator of ANGELINA BALLERINA books

Valerie Greeley bookplate.  You'll love her website & Etsy page!

CLICK HERE to download this free bookplate from Mo Willems!

JAN BRETT also has some printable bookplates HERE on her website...

HEDGIE bookplate, by Jan Brett

Feeling creative?  FAMILY FUN has a fun photo bookplate project you can do with your kids...

And lastly, for a purchased option, you can always look online or at your local craft store to buy ex libris rubber stamps, which you can stamp directly into the book, or onto a sticker, that can then be adhered to the page. But however you choose to personalize your child's library, know that it will be fun! The possibilities are endless...

This one's from Etsy.

LENTEN SPRINGTIME AND 4,000 RAINDROPS

(photo from Gwinnettmagazine.com)

"LENT IS A GIFT! Lent is a gift from God to us, a gift which is admirable, marvelous, one that we desire. 

Now a gift of what? I would say that it is a gift of the essential – that which is essential and yet which suffers most in our life because we are living lives of confusion and fragmentation, lives which constantly conceal from us the eternal, the glorious, the divine meaning of life and take away from us that which should “push” and, thus, correct and fill our life with joy. 

And this essential is thanksgiving: the acceptance from God of that wonderful life, as St. Peter says, “…created out of nothing…,” created exclusively by the love of God, for there is no other reason for us to exist; loved by Him even before we were born, we were taken into His marvelous light. 

Now we live and we forget. When was the last time I thought about it? But I do not forget so many little things and affairs that transform my whole life into empty noise, into a kind of traveling without knowing where.  
Lent returns to me, gives back to me, this essential - the essential layer of life." (Fr. Alexander Schmemann, from a talk delivered on Forgiveness Sunday, March 20, 1983, at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary Chapel.  You can read the sermon in its entirety, HERE.)


BE STILL...

For Christians, Lent is a journey toward the Hope and Joy of Christ's Resurrection. It is a chance for us to slow down with our families and to focus and examine the condition of our spiritual life - which like a seedling plant, needs to be cultivated through prayer, fasting, acts of charity, and repentance.

    
The gift of Lent is that it is a time of preparation - to draw closer to God and to acknowledge that He is the reason that we exist.  We need to seize this opportunity with our children to grow spiritually, so that it doesn't become just a "what-food-are-you-giving-up-for-Lent?" experience.
 

Which brings me to "4,000 Raindrops"...a 40-day Lenten campaign that is seeking small donations from all over the world, a drop at a time, to build a new well for an orphanage for young girls in India.
  
CLICK HERE find out how you can "buy a brick" or get involved! (There are family projects and homeschool/sunday school lessons and activities about India).


WATCH 4,000 RAINDROPS (short and cute!)


Watch the LUCKY GIRLS MOVIE.  (Lucky Girls was filmed in January 2009 with the purpose of raising funds and awareness for a Greek Orthodox Orphanage near Kolkata, India.  It's a 16-minute film, exploring the plight of the young Indian girl-child and the remarkable stories and dreams of the girls from the orphanage.)

GOOD BOOKS FOR CHILDREN WHO LIVE WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITES

Reading aloud to children helps with language development and literacy, as well as listening skills.  This can be especially important for kids with various developmental disabilities, including ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), because understanding and using language can be very difficult for them.


Dr. Monica Ultmann has created a "Developmental Disabilities Literacy Promotion Guide", that can be obtained here at ReachOutAndRead.org. This guide (specific to seven different disabilities) includes handouts, activities and reading tips, suggested books, and lists of resources for parents.

CLICK HERE for the "Doctor Recommended Book List" for children who live with developmental disabilities...the seven that are addressed include: Speech and Language Problems; Autism Spectrum Disorder; Intellectual Disabilities (mental retardation); Inattention and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder; Cerebral Palsy; and Vision and Hearing Impairments.

A CLOSER LOOK AT AUTISM & READING
As a follow-up to my post on Library Story Time for Autistic Readers, I want to highlight some specifics about Autism Spectrum Disorder and how books can help.  ASD  impacts the way children react to situations and people.  Children with Autism often have trouble making eye contact and sharing their thoughts with words or gestures. Non-verbal communication is especially difficult for a child on the autistic spectrum.   Body language, gesture and facial expressions are not understood as clues to communication.

TIPS FROM REACH OUT AND READ:
 Borrow books from the library that have photos and drawings of babies and people’s faces. This can help your child recognize emotions.
 Read the same story again and again. The repetition will help her learn language.
 Read aloud. Talk about the pictures and read the text.
 Find books that have lots of repetition of phrases. Also find books with rhymes. Softly clap your hands and help your baby clap along to the rhythm.
 Find books that have buttons your child can press that have sounds.

PREDICTABLE STORIES ARE IMPORTANT:
"Predictable books play an important role in developing early language and literacy skills for infants and toddlers (Miller, 2000). Books that allow children to guess what will happen next in the story, books that provide repetitive catch phrases (e.g., Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Martin/Carle, 1996),
and books with a predictable rhyme pattern (e.g., Fox in Sox by Seuss/ Geisel, 1965) contribute to language and literacy growth. Cumulative patterns also contribute to predictability, with new events being added with each episode, as in the book I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly (Westcott, 2003). 
All books become somewhat predictable with repeated readings and children enjoy hearing them over and over again. Books with familiar sequences and those in which pictures exactly match the text are usually predictable for children. Predictable books provide the emergent reader with a satisfying and enjoyable first experience."  -from the article Birth to Three: Building a Foundation for Literacy, SpeechPathology.com

Even MORE book recommendations...from AbilityPath.org


Leave a comment to let me know your favorites!