Books
This Books section will highlight Wild Things and Castles in the Sky: A Guide to Choosing the Best Books for Children. Also included in this section will be short reviews of old favorites or new reads and quotes from authors.
So Many Good Books!
Here are some of the books I want to read this year . . . with a few more added as others keep coming my way.
Since my teenage years, when it took me just three days to read To Kill a Mockingbird (this was a success for me, as I was a slow reader, and it was an assigned summer read), I have found great enjoyment and rest in reading. Several book “soft spots” include murder mysteries; English period-pieces; quiet, slow, and of the American land (is that a genre?) novels; and memoir. The words of Madeline L’Engle, CS Lewis, Luci Shaw, Wendell Berry, Chaim Potok, Frederick Buechner, and Eugene Peterson have been long-time companions. Also . . . lots of poetry books. And children’s books . . .Well, actually just a lot of books.
Literarily: How Understanding Bible Genres Transforms Bible Study
I’m just getting started on this book, but I love learning more about the Bible and the genres in it. Over the past couple of years, I started following Kristie Anyabwile, the author of this book, on Instagram because I saw she was one of the Bible teachers of the Charles Simeon Trust.
By understanding the purposes of each genre and how the cultures of the time also influenced how each genre was written helps us read Scripture better. We’ll learn to see that each book of the Bible was written to a certain group of people, and at the same time, God had it written for people of every time and culture. She teaches about these genres:
History
Law
Prophecy
Poetry
Gospels
Epistles
Wisdom
Apocalyptic
Crowned with Glory
Written by Dorena Williamson and illustrated by Shetlene Rodney
Dorena Williamson has been one of my heroes over the past couple of years. She loves to connect people, and because of this she helped me get connected to other writers — especially several African American women and Latina women — to write for Wild Things and Castles in the Sky. She also is included in one of the essays in the book about representing people of color and why its important to keep being intentional in this.
I loved including her books—Thoughtful and Colorful — in Wild Things. Crowned with Glory was not out when we went to the printers. But if it had been, it would have been a perfect one to share. Doesn’t the joy on the front cover — the girl’s beautiful face and twirling dress — make you want to open it up and read it?
“Hello, world! I’m a gift from above.
I already know that I am loved.
Gazing around with a great big grin—
there’s whole wide world for me to take in.”
As a description of the book says, “An ode to Black hair and Black girl joy, this joy-filled rhyming picture book invites the young readers into the world of a young Black girl as she rocks her God-given beauty.
Also, check out her other new book The Celebration Place published by IVPKids. It’s a happy celebration of diversity and unity in the church — what our theological reality is as united to Christ and one body and a reality God calls us to in the here and now. I love how Dorena shares this as a beautiful truth to live in before we get to heaven.
Steeped in Stories: Timeless Children’s Novels to Refresh Our Tired Souls
It is not hard to become a fan of Mitali Perkins—just looking at photos of her big smile and welcoming eyes made me fan. But, after reading an interview with her in Christianity Today and a review of this book at The Rabbit Room, I felt like I had stumbled upon the literature professor I never had, but wish I had. Mitali has a wide and deep breadth of experiences in countries all over the world; she’s written a volume of interesting books set in other cultures for children and young people; she grew up falling in love with stories because of classics like The Hobbit and Little Women; and she is a follower of Jesus. I love learning from book-loving Christians from other countries. I want to hear about their lives and how their cultures shape them. I want to learn from them — learn more of how God is naming the world and writing his stories in their lives and in their cultures. Steeped in Stories is a gift to the church and to all who love classics but want to have good conversation about how to acknowledge and respond to aspects of these stories that are questionable and/or don’t respect people of different races and backgrounds (sometimes not easily seen by readers of the same culture as the story teller.) Mitali talks about this and much more in the opening chapters of her book. I love her wisdom and insight. (Also she quotes Alan Jacobs and my favorite book of his Breaking Bread with the Dead.)
Mitali structures the book around “Seven Books, Seven Virtues” (the name for Chapter 2). She says, “I’ve drawn upon ancient church tradition as the source of the seven virtues explored in seven children’s novels. When it comes to good character, these aren’t an exhaustive list of attributes, but they do provide us with a start. The four cardinal virtues—justice, temperance, prudence, and courage—originated in Greek thought and were co-opted by early leaders of the church who added the three theological virtues—faith, hope, and charity (love)—that are named in 1 Corinthians 13. Each novel illuminates one of these seven virtues.
These timeless children’s stories also shed light on seven fiery vices inside our souls that are stoked by heat from our culture and era: rigidity, alienation, despair, pusillanimity, self-indulgence, favoritism, and rashness. Each virtue battles a particular vice, with love extinguishing rigidity; faith, alienation; hope, despair; courage, pusillanimity; temperance, self-indulgence; justice, favoritism; and prudence, rashness.” (pages 38 and 39) (Doesn’t that sound great?)
Mitali Perkins is featured in Wild Things and Castles in the Sky: A Guide to Choosing the Best Books for Children. You can imagine how happy I am about that!
Everything Comes Next: Collected & New Poems
I just recently discovered Naomi Shihab Nye. This book of her poetry was in the children’s section in Barnes and Noble, however, I am loving all of this. Her words are alive and full of attention and love for people and places. She is a real inspiration for me.
A few poems from the book:
Please Describe How You Became a Writer
Possibly I began writing as a refuge from our insulting first grade textbook. Come, Jane, come. Look, Dick, look. Were there ever duller people in the world? You had to tell them to look at things? Why weren’t they looking to begin with?
Always Bring a Pencil
There will not be a test.
It does not have to be a Number 2 pencil.
But there will be certain things—
the quiet flush of waves
ripe scent of fish,
smooth ripple of the wind’s second name—
that prefer to be written about
in pencil.
It gives them more room
to move around.
Turning of Days:
Lessons from Nature, Season, and Spirit
I’ve slowly read this book; savoring each section with each season. Hannah Anderson’s words always fit right in my heart and mind. She and her husband know much more about nature and land than I do, so I enjoy listening into what she shares about what is happening in the natural world each season. Her ability to intertwine spiritual and Scriptural truths while writing about the seasons has kept me returning to this book. I’ll keep rereading it through this year. Here is an excerpt from the last chapter.
“Life. Life. Life.
If nature teaches you anything, its that you must concern yourself with life, and not simply your own. You must love life that even your death serves it. Because what nature knows is that one life does not stand alone any more than one seed stands alone. Your life stands in the generations. And one day, the generations planted in hope will rise together. One day, we will love as our Redeemer does. One day together we shall see Him standing upon the dust; we will in our flesh, see our God.
Today is not that day, however. Today is winter. Today, the wind and rain blow cold. So what are you to do? What you to do while you wait?
This is what you do in winter: you plan for spring.
This is what you do when the earth lies dark: you plan for dawn.
This is what you do when death seems to reign: you plan for resurrection.“(pages 154-155)
Wild Things and Castles in the Sky: A Guide to Choosing the Best Books for Children
an excerpt from Amy Knorr’s essay “Books that Sing: Rhyme and Rhythm and Other Delightful Draws”
I have this image in my mind when I think about my favorite books. I can see each book lined up on library or bookstore shelf just quivering with anticipation, ready to be cracked open, its song offered into the world again and again. It might be but a whisper of a song meant to woo in stillness or it might be a rip-roaring all-night party of a song sure to have its audience belly-laughing by the second line, but I am certain each book does have a song. Some songs, it is true, made their way into their books before they were fully formed, but the best of books sing in your head long after the cover has been shut and the book put back on the shelf. Robert Frost once wrote that a poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom. The same is true of the picture book read aloud. Begun in a delight of sound and meter, it ends in wisdom, if only the wisdom of realizing fresh that laughter is truly the best medicine.
Studying with Miss Bishop: Memoirs From a Young Writer’s Life
Dana Gioia
“Dana Gioia writes that, by the time he went to college in the early 1970s, he had “already developed a deep suspicion of all theories of art that did not originate in pleasure.” To help build on this sensible foundation, he had the good fortune, during his student days, to encounter some of the leading literary figures of the time. In his final semester as a graduate student at Harvard in 1975, Mr. Gioia was presented with a choice of teachers: Robert Lowell, then at the height of his fame, or Elizabeth Bishop, not well known and often spoken of as a Lowell protégée. Lowell’s seminar on 19th-century poetry was much in demand. “Everyone who fancied himself a poet talked about taking it,” Mr. Gioia writes. As for Bishop’s course on contemporary verse: “I had never heard anyone mention it at all.” (From the Wall Street Journal review)
(I carried this book around with me for days, reading it whenever I could. What a delightful book - full of stories about Dana and other writers. Dana Gioia has been pretty influential in my literary life and loves, especially poetry, for at least a decade. And his work with the National Endowment of the Arts in bringing poetry, Shakespeare, and good books into communities around the country made me respect and appreciate him even more. Also, he carries himself like a gentleman. Also, he is always reminding me in his writings and speakings, to enjoy the words and find pleasure in artwork and poetry… I love that!)
Learning about his childhood in the memoir was enjoyable. You can find it in this essay Lonely Impulse of Delight: One Reader’s Childhood.
Little Pilgrim’s Progress
illustrated by Joe Sutphin
I think this beautifully illustrated version of a Little’s Pilgrim’s Progress is worthy of the title “family treasure.”
Joe Sutphin created wonderful characters for this timeless classic. I wish I had had this when the girls were younger; we have enjoyed books with talking woodland animals (Narnia, Brambly Hedge, Beatrix Potter, and even Redwall). I confess I’ve never been the biggest Pilgrim’s Progress fan, but this version has captured my imagination and I plan to read it to myself. Or maybe film myself reading it and send it to some of my young friends.
Here is a short youtube trailer for the book: Little Pilgrim’s Progress.
Learn more about Joe Sutphin through this Moody Publishers interview and his website.
Joe and his wife Gina are long-distant friends through the Rabbit Room and have been huge encouragers for Ned and me.
Wild Things and Castles in the Sky: A Guide to Choosing the Best Books for Children
Coming in 2022.
Curated and edited by Thea Rosenburg, Carey Bustard, and me, this book, with 40 writers and 45 essays, will discuss many topics in the world of children’s literature. Just a few are imagination, Shakespeare, classic children books, books for middle schoolers, Young Adult fiction, talking to your children about race, and black children’s book writers and illustrators…. and much more!
Check out my essay from Wild Things and Castles in the Sky: Love.Think.Speak.
Check out the photos of Ned, Carey, and me working on the book cover. I am very excited about the work we did.
Books I don’t plan to get rid of…
This list is probably missing books (especially stories and novels, as I plan to share that in another post). As I’ve looked over my book shelves, the ones on this list have informed my mind and filled my imagination about living everyday life “before the face of God.”
The O in Hope
This November, Luci Shaw’s poem “The O in Hope” comes out as children’s book illustrated by my husband Ned from IVPKids. What a dream come true for him, as well as for me, as I have been a fan of Luci Shaw’s work for about 20 years. Below, Cindy Bunch at IVP posted this on facebook. . . it’s such a wonderful way sum up what was happening concerning this poem and Ned’s vision with it.
From Cindy Bunch at IVPKids: “The O in Hope by Luci N. Shaw and Ned Bustard arrived at IVP this week. The back story for this book is one of serendipity and Holy Spirit action. During Covid I started thinking seriously that IVP should dive into children’s book publishing. And then one day Luci Shaw copied me on a group email in which she shared this beautiful book that Ned Bustard had created from her poem “The O in Hope.” Luci got me in touch with Ned, and this project became a part of the early group of books that made up our @ivpkids project proposal. The result is a delightful, uplifting project available everywhere November 2. Early copies are available now at ivpress.com."
A Habit Called Faith: 40 Days in the Bible to Find and Follow Jesus
Jen Pollack Michel
“There’s nothing accidental about this party appearing at the very beginning of Jesus’s public ministry. For a Gospel that began with the cosmic, esoteric declaration “in the beginning was the Word.” John 2 is a quick and jerky descent. Here we have a Jesus who is as earthy as he is eternal. He’s not a ghostly, gauzy figure from another planet. He attends weddings. His mother expects regular phone calls.
John’s account of the wedding at Cana takes a sledgehammer to the divide that we’ve often erected between the sacred and the secular, the spiritual and the ordinary. Although Christians have a long, unfortunate history of making every pleasure a guilty one, this narrative doesn’t tolerate asceticism for its own sake. No, it tells us that God can be as comfortable at a party as he is in the church pew—that our habits of faith can be as celebratory as they are contemplative.
Imagination, Mystery, and Wonder
Junius Johnson
an excerpt from the intro essay of Wild Things and Castles in the Sky: A Guide to Choosing the Best Books for Children
“When I was a child, the world seemed infinite. The horizon, which ever recedes no matter how far you chase it, seemed literal: perhaps the world really did go on forever. Omniscience was easy to envision: perhaps my dad really did know everything. When I learned from the old professor in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe that nothing was more likely than that “there could be other worlds—all over the place, just round the corner,” this was not much of a surprise. My response, though not in these words, was something like: “I knew it!” The excitement immediately turned into action: I of course began looking for them. Many a closet failed to yield to my questing hands as I vainly sought passage into the world of magic and talking animals. Of course, the professor had warned that we shouldn’t go looking for them, that if we were patient and lived our lives, they would come to us; but how could I be sure they would find me if I didn’t look? Perhaps the violent could seize the kingdom of Narnia by force. I never succeeded, of course, but it always felt like I might. Like Lucy in Prince Caspian, I felt that I had come just a little too late, or asked in not quite the right way. The reality I sought had always just disappeared around the corner as I came into the room: you could still smell its scent. And so the search continued.”
I am looking forward to reading this book with some friends. Lancia Smith’s interview with Sarah Clarkson in the summer issue of Cultivating. is rich and encouraging. She shares who story of mental illness and how God used Beauty to bring restoration.
“But art, for me, offers a visceral and immediate encounter with beauty that arrests me in the moment, that summons me to the present. I think we are halted in our steps by the visual confrontation of a powerful image; the artist cannot politely ask us to look, we are, rather, compelled by the potency of what has been created before us. Image and symbol, they bypass so much of our constant constant interior argument and commentary, requiring us instead simply to ‘look’. And in that startled looking, I think we often begin to be aware of the world and ourselves in a different way.”
Erwin Ince, Jr and The Beautiful Community: Unity, Diversity, and the Church
Ned is not quick to praise a book over and over, but while reading this book, he did and then kept telling others to read it. I haven’t yet, but do plan to. I found this interview with him in The Washington Institute. As I have read some of his essays and listened to his interviews, he has become someone I learn much from and deeply respect.
Théa Rosenburg
Théa Rosenburg was one of my first editors. When I was writing about women being Strong Allies/Ezers, and my church was encouraging me to either write a book or get published somewhere, I reached out to Deeply Rooted about my desire to write, the topics I was writing about, and my admiration of Deeply Rooted, Thea responded. She was both interested in my topic and also said she loved working with new writers. And to top it all off, she loved my husband Ned’s 3 children’s books with Crossway Books (Church History ABCs, Reformation ABCs, and Bible History ABCs). What a gift to work with her. Now Théa proofreads/edits our Square Halo books and is part of the Wild Things and Castles in the Sky editing triad (which also includes my daughter Carey and me). In the world of books, what we have read, and what we loved, we are kindred spirits. Check out her book website called Little Book, Big Story. It’s a delight.
A Crazy Holy Grace
“The sad things that happened long ago will always remain part of who we are just as the glad and gracious things will too, but instead of being burden of guilt, recriminations and regret that make us constantly stumble as we go, even the saddest things can become, once we have made peace with them a source of wisdom and strength for the journey that still lies ahead. It is through memory the we are able to recommend much of our lives that we have long since written off by finding that in everything that has happened to us over the years God was offering us possibilities of new life and healing which, though we may have missed them at the time, we can still choose and be brought to life by and healed by all these years later. “
Reading the Bible Like a Grown-up Child
“To read the Bible the way it is written, you have to give up your own agenda. You have to dwell in the text and see the whole woven tapestry of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. When you do, you will find that God speaks to you and with you”.
“What’s crucial is not to treat the Bible like a block of wood that you cut and shape and customize for your project. When you do that, you read the Bible with an obscuring veil over your eyes (2 Cor. 3:12-18). Reading the Bible argumentatively also ruins the fun and scariness of hearing God’s voice, which can caress your cheek lightly or suddenly hit you in the solar plexus.”
A Little Book on the Christian Life
John Calvin’s words are both challenging and comforting. He points me to holiness and shepherds me with grace.
“. . . none of us is capable of running swiftly on the right course while we remain in the earthly confinement of our bodies. Indeed, most of us are so oppressed with weakness that we make little progress—staggering, limping, and crawling on the ground. But let us move forward according to the measure of our resources and pursue the path we have begun to walk. None of us will move forward with so little success that we will not make some daily progress in the way. Therefore, let us keep trying so that we might continually make some gains in the way of the Lord, and neither let us despair over how small our success are. For however much our successes fall short of our desire, our efforts aren’t in vain when we are father along than yesterday. So let us fix our eyes on the goal with sincerity, aspiring to that end. . . Let us press on with continual striving toward that goal that we might surpass ourselves. . . we will only possess it when we have escaped the weakness of the flesh and have ben received into HIs perfect fellowship.
Little Women Comprehension Guide
I loved the books we read during out homeschooling years. Little Women was one that I was glad to introduce to my girls. This is a comprehension guide my daughter Carey and I made for homeschoolers about the classic book, Little Women. This thorough comprehension guide includes questions and answers for each chapter, projects based on each character, vocabulary studies, and delicious recipes. This guide is recommended for readers in 6th - 8th grade. Please note it is for the first book of Little Women, and you should feel free to use it in a way that works for you (you don’t have to do everything). You can order it through Veritas Press.
Hearts and Minds
After I met Bryon and Beth Borger of Hearts and Minds Bookstore 20 years ago, I knew I had met some very special people. Hearts and Minds has been owned and operated by the Borgers for decades; their store is a book lover’s paradise. And, they were Square Halo Books first friends and promoters; they have been part of the ongoing goodness of our book company. Hearts and Minds is my go-to for buying books for myself and for family and friends. If I am sending books as gifts, they will even wrap my packages in “brown paper… tied up in string.” I really try to stick to in my goal to buy my books from them (or other local book sellers) . . .and not from Amazon.