The Jungle Book and the Second Jungle Book

by Rudyard Kipling
Digireads.com, 2009, 188 pages 

Last month, I recommended Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories. Another pair of classics from Rudyard Kipling for somewhat older readers - but still a great read-aloud for those readers or older ones - is The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book (available together from Amazon in the link to the right as a single volume).

About half the stories tell how Mowgli, a boy raised by wolves, moves from the jungle to the world of men - and back again, for a time, when the foolish villagers fall prey to superstition about Mowgli.

Kipling's tales are far better than any of the movies based on them. The movies either remove the 'personality' of Mowgli's animal companions, or destroy their created dignity by making them far too human. In the original Mowgli tales, the animals have conflicts and personalities, but even as their interaction with Mowgli firmly nudges him down the path toward maturity, his animal mentors - and enemies - never lose the strangeness that makes them so wondrously different from us humans.

What is so compelling from a Christian point of view about the Jungle Books is that human beings, foolish and dishonorable as they often are, still have dominion over the animal kingdom - just as in Kipling's Just So Stories. The stories always uphold the message of Genesis 1 and Psalm 8 – that man is ruler over creation. As vulnerable as Mowgli the child is in the jungle, the animals cannot look him in the eye.

Parents may want to skip some of the ‘non-Mowgli’ stories, but at least one, “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi,” has several picture-book versions, and reinforces the same themes as the Mowgli stories, in telling of a mongoose who learns to protect‘his’ (human) family from poisonous snakes.

Finally, for read-aloud, it is almost impossible to find a better set of books than these two for two great reasons. First, the stories are populated by dozens of fully-realized animal (and some compelling human) characters - each with his or her own manner of speech, giving the reader the fun of recreating their unique voices in their wise and witty dialogue. Second, every story begins and ends with its own songs - amazing poems as musical  and memorable as Kipling's classic "If" - and the language in the story just as poetic.

With encouraging lessons about man's place in this world, an emotional look at the challenge of growing up as an outsider with the help of insightful friends, and enthralling language, the two Jungle Books will be as enjoyable for adults to read aloud as they are for children to listen to.

3 fantastic Christian children's books

These three picture books are all by the team of Stephanie Carmichael and Jessica Green and are wonderful for how they demonstrate how parents can “easily and naturally talk about God with [our] children throughout the day.” In that way the books are as much for parents as they are for the kids - the mom and dad in these pages serve as examples to us on how we can seize on the many little opportunities that pop up throughout the day, to show our little ones the wonders God has wrought.

You can try these three books out before buying them by visiting Matthiasmedia.com/growth/childrens-curriculum where you can read all of them, in their entirety, online (There you will find a fourth book in the series, called The Birthday Party, but it is not recommended because the lesson the book teaches - that God loves everyone - is not true. See Psalm 5:5; Lev. 20:23; Prov. 6:16-19; and Hos. 9:15).

The Rag Doll
24 pages, Hardcover, 2010

Luke, Ben and Emily loved seeing their Auntie Sarah, because “Auntie Sarah loved seeing them.” And it didn’t hurt that she had all sorts of toys at her house. Emily’s favorite is an old rag doll called Polly. A few days after their visit to Auntie Sarah, Emily’s mum surprises her with a rag doll of her own, which, of course, makes little Emily ecstatic. She names her doll Annabelle and thinks her Mum is quite clever for knowing how to make a rag doll. Mum points out that she is “not as clever as God, though. God made you. And he made you so that you can grow and laugh. You can do a lot more things than Annabelle can.” Emily realizes that not only did God make her, he made Mummy too, and her little brother Ben! The story ends with Emily thanking God for making them all.

Grumpy Day

24 pages, Softcover, 2011

On a rainy day the family is stuck inside, and the kids are all a bit grumpy. Emily can’t get her dolls to sit up like she wants them to, and little Ben can’t get the blocks to stack the way he likes. But with a little help from mum, and a hug from her too, these problems are overcome. But nothing mum does can fix Luke’s problem. He wants to go kick his ball, but you can’t do that in the rain. He wonders why God can’t make it rain some other day. Mum explains that God can  make it ran another day, but that He might want it to keep raining today. They can tell God that they are unhappy - grumpy - about the current situation, but that we need to know that “God is God, and He is in charge of the whole world [so] He knows what is best.” So they pray together, and then mum and Luke head to the kitchen for an orange, while the soccer ball sits “next to the back door, ready for when God decides to stop the rain.”

Over the Fence
24 pages, Hardcover, 2010

Luke loves to kick his soccer ball. But he doesn’t have anyone to kick it around the yard with him: his sister Emily likes dolls, not soccer, and his little brother Ben is just too little. So when a new neighbor moves in, with a boy the same age as Luke, he is eager to find out if this boy likes soccer too. He is so eager he races to his dad to find out more. His dad is busy fixing the mower, and promises that they can go visit next door after he is done. But Luke wants to know now! If Dad doesn’t know more about the boy, who does? Dad explains that the boy’s parents do, and his old friends, and, of course, God too, because God made this little boy. Just like he made Luke. A face to face meeting finally occurs, and Luke is happy to discover that yes, the boy likes soccer too!

All The World

by Liz Garton Scanlon

illustrations by Marla Frazee

Beach Lane Books, 2009, 40 pages

The best of summer holidays...family time, sun and sand, delicious fresh fruit and vegetables, fields and mountains...

If you have been blessed like I have, your memories of summer holiday trips are ones that you treasure, partly because of the amazing beauty and grandeur of nature, and partly because of the way our family enjoyed exploring new places together.

All The World captures this feeling. This book is a celebration of the world we can enjoy in two senses - the beauty of nature and also the enjoyment of fellowship with friends and family. The author highlights the way everyone responds with pleasure to the beauty and complexity of nature, and that sharing experiences in beautiful surroundings can help us appreciate each other as well.

The story is written in simple but descriptive rhyme, about a family enjoying a summer day. They go to the beach, a farmer's market, and shelter from a storm in a cozy restaurant.

The illustrations are beautiful ink and watercolor depictions of the scenery and of the different moods of summertime moments.

This would be a great book to share before or after a holiday or outing. It's aimed at preschoolers and young children, but their grownups will enjoy it too.

Cinderella

Retold by Max Eilenberg
Illustrated by Niamh Sharkey
Walker Books, 2008

I like to browse the discount tables at my neighborhood bookstore. When I saw the simple illustration of Cinderella on the cover of this book, I had to take a look. As I flipped through the book I found myself enjoying the gentle illustrations of Niamh Sharkey. They're child-like (which you want in a child's book) but somehow I found them joyful and fun at the same time.

Yet however beautiful the illustrations, you have to wonder to yourself why we need yet another version of Cinderella, a classic story that has been told and re-told for hundreds of years. The answer to that is that we need this version for the adults.

This version gently fills in missing details that most children won't realize are missing. For example, if you've ever read Cinderella, have you wondered where her father went? After all, the step-mother could only be mean in the absence of the father, so what did happen to him? Another detail that most versions gloss over is the fairy godmother's rather odd request for a pumpkin. If a woman appeared out of thin air, told you that you were going to a ball, and said you should bring her a pumpkin, wouldn't that surprise you the tiniest bit? It would surprise me and in this version, In this edition, Cinderella is a bit confused by the request, too.

The little additions here are so slight and subtle that a child who knows and loves Cinderella likely will not notice the tiny differences, yet an adult will be left quietly chuckling to himself. I can't say that, as a full grown adult, I ever expected to enjoy Cinderella for its own sake but this book surprised me. It's true to the story you already know, but it's just slightly silly and that makes it even better.

The Hunger Games

The point of this blog is to review great books and this is not one so why am I talking about it here? Because the rest of the world thinks it is a really good read. And because this is such a wildly popular book I thought it important to share why it isn't good at all. Simply put: the writer is talented, but she does not use her talents to praiseworthy ends. So without further delay, the review.

A book about kids killing other kids that is written for the teen market? If that doesn’t grab your attention, then you must not be a parent.

The Hunger Games is the first book in a trilogy by Suzanne Collins that has, since 2008, sold more than 5 million copies. On March 23rd a movie adaptation of the first book hit theatres and made a quarter of a billion dollars in just 10 days. This is the latest big thing in teen fiction. And like Twilight before it, a pivotal element of the plot is causing concern for Christian, and even non-Christian parents: this is a story about kids killing other kids.

Deadly plot does not a bad book make

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen lives in a post-apocalyptic world where what’s left of the United States has been divided up into 12 Districts, all subservient to “the Capitol.” We learn that there was once a 13th district, but it rebelled, and in the resulting war the Capitol destroyed it. Every year since then, as show of their submission, each of the Districts has had to provide the Capitol with two Tributes, a boy and a girl, to fight to the death in a made-for-TV spectacle reminiscent of the Roman gladiatorial games. Katniss becomes the District 12 female Tribute after she volunteers to take her 12-year-old sister’s place.

Just So Stories

by Rudyard Kipling

illustrated by the author

Chartwell Books, 2009, 128 pages

A great book for fathers to read to their daughters is Just So Stories, because Rudyard Kipling actually wrote it in memory of his oldest daughter, who died of illness. In the book, he calls her his Best Beloved, which is a good thing for fathers to call their favorite daughters (all of them, of course) as they read, for instance, how a father and his daughter invented the alphabet.

There are some details that merit caution. Some stories need pre-reading – since they feature “gods” and djinns and a magic-wielding King Solomon, or a somewhat stereotyped Ethiopian character – to see if parents want to read them to their daughters (or sons).

However, the moral lessons taught are always sound. For instance, when there are people in the stories, the tales assume that man is meant to "have dominion" over creation, as God commands in the creation mandate of Genesis 1, and as David wonders at in Psalm 8. (SPOILER ALERT!) As an example, the Camel's refusal to work for the man is what eventually gets him his "humph." The Whale's tiny throat results from his swallowing a mariner with "infinite-resource-and-sagacity and the raft and the jack-knife and his suspenders, which you must not forget."

That last phrase - "infinite-resource-and-sagacity" - is the sort of vocabulary that Kipling loves to use in the Just So Stories. Kipling's word choice may challenge both parent and child as you read it aloud (look it up if you need to!), but it the quotation above is also a catchy refrain. Kipling's catchy catchphrases will stay in your mutual vocabulary as the best kind of private joke that readers of a classic tale can share.

The version shown here also has Kipling's original illustrations, which have the charm of showing how a father with an endlessly inventive mind, and drawing skills that almost (but not quite!) match his imagination, explains the 'good part' of the story to his young daughter, including the invention of the letters of the alphabet, as seen through her child's view of the world.

In conclusion, this is a book I have read aloud to children in my family, both at six years old and at eight - but like any intelligent children's classic, you could also read it to much older children who will appreciate its charm and humour. Highly recommended.

The Journey

A Spiritual Roadmap for Modern Pilgrims
by Peter Kreeft
InterVarsity Press, 1996, 128 pages

This is an allegorical journey, reminiscent of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. But in this case the pilgrim - author Peter Kreeft - has Socrates as his guide, and instead of facing trials and temptations on the road, he runs into one  Greek philosophers after another, every time there is a fork in the road. Each one of them offers up their own particular worldview for consideration and Kreeft then has the choice of either staying with them, and subscribing to their philosophy, or rejecting it, and continuing on his journey in search of Truth.

Though these philosophies are ancient, they are also current. Take as example the first philosopher Kreeft and Socrates meet: Epicurus presents the "Eat, drink and be merry." He tells Kreeft that the Truth isn't even worth seeking after - not when there is so much partying to do! Today we might call this the Hugh Hefner philosophy - why think about things such as Truth and the purpose of life, when there is yet another woman to bed, more money to be made and spent, and more parties to attend. And indeed, when the pilgrim rejects this worldview, he notices that Epicurus bears a strong resemblance to Hefner.

As he continues he meets more ancient Greeks, each with their own challenge to present, and each with their own modern day counterpart. This is what makes the book a valuable tool. Just as Socrates is a guide to the pilgrim Kreeft as he is confronted with ten different errant worldviews, so too this book can serve as a guide to anyone bumping up against these worldviews today.  Some of the philosophers he meets include:

• The Skeptic
• The Cynic
• The Nihilist
• The Materialist
• The Relativist
• The Atheist
• The Pantheist and Deist

It is a very well written, fun read, but because the book is deliberately philosophical this slim volume could seem a bit intimidating to anyone not already familiar with ancient Greek philosophy. But you don't need to be able to tell Socrates from Plato to enjoy this book. All you need is an interest in learning to discern how these philosophies are still being practiced and promoted today.

One note of caution: the author is Catholic, and in this book that comes out in an Armininan flavoring to some passages. But Kreeft is also a great thinker, and when he targets secular errors, as he does in this book, there are few writers his equal. He has a whole series of books that feature Socrates and his questioning method, including The Unaborted Socrates: A Dramatic Debate on the Issues Surrounding Abortion and the Best Things in Life, both of which I would also recommend. But Kreeft is also a dedicated apologist for the Roman Catholic church and has written innumerable books on that subject too, so I would not recommend all his books with equal enthusiasm, and would warn off an undiscerning reader from most of them, these three excepted.

That said, this particular title would be perfect for anyone in university, or heading there, as a great tool to help them see through and answer the secular worldviews they'll run into on campus.

Box Socials

by W.P. Kinsella
1991, 222 pages

Box Socials is the story of how Truckbox Al McClintock got his chance at fame when he got to play against the Major League All Stars in Renfrew Park in Edmonton. Though that's the thread that holds the entire book together, what it's really about is life in small town Alberta in the 1940s. For me the book was fun, in part, because I grew up in Alberta and a lot of the places referred to in the story are places I know, though I think at least a few are made up.

If you don't come from Alberta, the book is still entertaining, for though it's set in a specific place it's really about any small and close knit community. That could be your home town, or possibly the church community you're part of. The characters you meet in this book have parallels in any community. There's the gossips, the jokesters, the steady folks who are always there to help, and the wise and understanding sorts. Perhaps you'll recognize some of the characters in the book, but it's more likely that you'll discover yourself in here, for we're all made up of parts of the better and worse people that we meet in this tale.

The story is told in a folksy sort of way which is a bit repetitious. This gives it a flavor like you might have if you were sitting out on your front porch and being told the story by one of the community old timers. It's a tale that really should be read aloud even if that's only done in your head.

Though the story is told in the first person through the eyes of Jamie O'Day, a boy of about 10 or 11, there are some scenes described that are a bit crude. There's few inappropriate words, because the narrator doesn't always know what he's witnessing and consequently describes it using euphemisms, but you will know what he's talking about. The descriptions are not graphic and are only a sentence or so. These are things that you will recognize in your community, too, and the hypocrisy that's often associated with them. However, you'll need to decide if that's something you want in your fiction.

Overall it's a well told story about life in a small community. Though it's set in the 1940s the characters could fit in well in most communities today. It's touching, warm, and funny. It's a surprisingly good book.

The Girl's Like Spaghetti

Why, you can't manage without apostrophes!
by Lynne Truss
illustrated by Bonnie Timmons
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2007, 32 pages

A children's book on the proper use of apostrophes doesn't sound like it would be all that engaging. A punctuation picture book? Who thought that would sell? But, as author Lynne Truss knew from her adult's punctation bestseller Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, there's a lot of comic potential in the misuse of punctuation. The title of that book was the punch-line for a joke:

A Panda walks into a  bar, orders a sandwich, and after eating it, draws a gun, shoots a couple of holes in the fellow next to him, and then walks out. The waiter rushes after him and demands to know why he did that. The Panda pulls out a badly punctuated dictionary and shows the waiter the entry on Pandas. It reads: "Eats, shoots, and leaves."

An extra comma in an unfortunate location led to two holes in an unfortunate fellow.

Spaghetti is a children's version of part of Truss's adult bestseller, and it uses a series of paired cartoons to explore how an apostrophe can make a world of a difference. For example, on the left hand side of one two-page spread, we see a whole bunch of dogs jumping on and licking a friendly older man. The caption reads "The dogs like my dad." On the facing page is a man with a dog that looks just like him, with the caption: "The dog's like my dad." An apostrophe can be pretty powerful!

The rest of the book continues with similar pairings - "See the boys bat" versus "See the boy's bat" and "Look, it's behind" versus "Look, its behind." It concludes with two pages that review exactly what the apostrophe was doing in each pairing, and how it impacted the sentence.

So this is a fun book that would be a fantastic resource for a school, especially Grades 2-4.

There are two other titles in this punctation picture book series. The first shares the title of Truss's adult bestseller  Eats, Shoots & Leaves. It tackles commas, and is as entertaining, but includes a minor instance of potty humor. The caption to a picture is "Eat here and get gas" and the picture shows someone in a restaurant flying around the room, being propelled by their gas. So any teacher with more than their share of giggling little boys may want to skip this one.

The other title is one I would advise everyone to skip. It is Twenty-Odd Ducks and tackles semicolons, question and quotation marks, periods and exclamations , hyphens, parantheses and colons. It is also entertaining and instructive, but marred by the concluding two page spread, which uses all the various punctuation marks to turn a speech by a student praising his teacher into a speech complaining about how horrible the teacher is, and how she has ruined them. It uses all the same words as the first speech, so it is quite a clever demonstration of how the power of punctuation, showing how it can make a speech mean its opposite.. But it is also repeatedly and incredibly rude to an authority figure that our students need to respect whether she is talented or not. I think the last thing we need is another book encouraging disrespect of teachers.

So to sum up, one highly recommended book in this series, one very much not so, and one somewhere in between.

Faithfulness Under Fire

The Story of Guido de Brès
by William Boekestein
Reformation Heritage Books, 2010, 32 pages

“Church history” and “picture book” are almost mutually exclusive terms, but William Boekestein, author (and URC pastor), and Evan Hugues, illustrator, show that they don’t need to be. Faithfulness under Fire is the story of Guido de Brès and how God used this man to craft the Belgic Confession.

De Brès was born in 1522, and once he learned to walk, always seemed to be on the run. Persecution drove him to leave his hometown of Mons, Belgium, and head across the Channel to England. We learn that, for the brief period of Edward VI’s reign, Protestants could find refuge here, but the king’s death prompted Guido to return to Belgium, where he became a traveling preacher. Preaching was against the law, so he was always on the move, and didn’t even dare use his real name. He had some calmer years studying in Geneva under John Calvin, but soon returned to preaching… and to running.

About midway through the book, we see a great picture of de Brès throwing the Belgic Confession over a tall castle wall. This is where the Catholic King of Spain lived – de Brès hoped he would read the Confession and stop persecuting Protestants. That didn’t happen. But God decided to use de Brès’s efforts another way – the Confession has since spread around the world and been a gift to strengthen and instruct millions of Christians.

As you may recall, Guido de Brès was eventually captured, imprisoned and hanged - that's how his story ends. A hanging might not seem a good way to conclude a children’s book, but as Boekestein makes clear this was not the end of the man, but only the means by which he entered “the comfort of his Lord” (and the hanging is never pictured).

I’m not sure if this is a book children will read on their own, but it will certainly keep their attention if mom or dad reads it to them. It is an exceptional church history resource, loaded with active, engaging pictures, accompanying a very readable simplification of de Brès’s life. That makes it a fantastic resource for elementary schools and church libraries.

Understanding the Koran

A Quick Christian Guide to the Muslim Holy Book
by Mateen Elass
Zondervan, 2004, 192 pages

To say it in a sentence, this is the most readable and most loving Christian book on Islam I've yet read, and while it isn't a very big book, there is a lot packed in it.

Discernment label
(For more on this, see "Discernment labels" in our articles section)

CONTENT: This is a 192-page introduction to the Koran by a Presbyterian pastor, who was raised in Saudi Arabia. It outlines how the Koran is a compilation of muddled Bible stories, Gnostic accounts, and Jewish folk tales, and it compares and contrasts Christian views on our Bible with Muslim views about the Koran.

CAUTIONS: In Chapter 6 “Is Allah a False God?” the author argues that, like the Samaritans in New Testament times (see John 4:22), Muslims worship the real God, but in ignorance. This is a controversial stance, but it becomes much less so when the author makes it clear he isn’t arguing for any sort of equivalence between Islam and Christianity or that Muslims can be saved apart from Jesus.

CONCLUSION: Introductions to Islam can generally be divided into those that have nothing but good to say about Islam, and those that have nothing but bad. The strength of this title is that it takes a third approach – the author is Christian, but one knows and loves Muslims, so while he is direct, thorough, and quite devastating in his critique of the Koran, he always remain calm, and never resorts to rhetoric. Understanding the Koran is small (and engaging) enough to be read in a few evenings, but the depth of material, and the review questions for each chapter make this one worth rereading at a more studious pace.

Caps, Hats, Socks and Mittens: A Book About the Four Seasons

by Louise Borden

illustrated by Lillian Hoban

Scholastic, 1989, 30 pages

What characteristics of each of the four seasons is important to a small child? Well, here are some highlights from this book:

Winter is a lot of stuff to put on and a lot of stuff to get off!

Spring is grass, grass, grass.
 Dad cuts the grass and cuts the grass and cuts the grass.

Summer is hot, hot, hot. 
 Lots of hot dogs. Hot dog and hot dogs.

Fall is lots of smells. Nuts and pumpkins and corn in husks.

(The comment about spring is the most amusing for our family.)

This book has been read to pieces by our children, and we're not done with it yet. It describes what children notice, and what interests them. It's a great teaching tool for the changes that happen through the year. And the illustrations are friendly-looking and contain lots of details to talk about.

It would be most appreciated by toddlers and preschoolers, and would also be good as a book for beginning readers.