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Posts Tagged ‘Books’

The Reading Rule

Posted in Fun, tagged , , , , , , on 3 August, 2011| 4 Comments »

Last month the Vicar and I spent some Nectar points on a garden swing. Sitting on it is incredibly relaxing but we had to make some rules about usage by children as we anticipated that over-vigorous swinging might ensue.

So the rule is:

You can only sit on the swing seat IF YOU ARE READING

This is working very well. I occasionally break the rule myself, but as it’s my rule I think that’s okay. Sometimes I just sit there with the Vicar or a friend and talk. But today the kids were on the swing, obeying the rule, which I found very heartening:

Reading (from L to R) Dr Who, Roald Dahl and Harry Potter

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Books for Camp: School Survival

Posted in Books, Church, Faith, Teenagers, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 13 June, 2011| Leave a Comment »

In my quest for suitable books for the young people on our Pathfinder venture this summer, I picked up School Survival by Catherine and Louise House. Louise is Catherine’s school age daughter and some of this book is based on the experiences she had when she moved school. And although it’s called School Survival, it’s particularly about friendship and working that through, with a single chapter about starting in a new school. It is very suitable for the Pathfinder age group (11-14) as it covers many issues faced as young people move on to secondary school.

The book is a combination of stories, quizzes, activities and bible study and is split into 14 chapters, including ones on making friends, bullying, gossip, prayer and church. It might be suitable for a Year Six primary school leaver to study over the summer holidays, or for family devotions or even as an outline for a church Pathfinder group to study over a few weeks (the chapters are uneven in size, so some could be combined). I’ll be ordering a few copies for our camp bookstall.

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Reading. Or Not.

Posted in Faith, Inner city, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 1 June, 2011| 3 Comments »

Last week my two younger kids were in bed, but they were having trouble getting to sleep. That was mainly because some of their classmates were still playing loudly in the street below our house. The youngest of the kids still playing out was eight. And it was 8.30pm, so I thought it probably appropriate that they go home and possibly even consider going to bed themselves.

When I proposed this to them, they were incredulous. They didn’t want to go to sleep yet. So I suggested that perhaps they could get into their pajamas and read a book before bedtime. The eight year old then emphatically told me:

Books are for BABIES!

A report from the National Literacy Trust has been in the news this week, talking about how book ownership is linked to educational attainment. We have lots of work to do here if the children of our parish are going to reach their potential. And be able to read their bibles so that they can know the living Word.

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Books for Camp: YP’s Guide to the Bible

Posted in Books, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 26 May, 2011| 4 Comments »

I’ve had another little spurt of book reviewing for our summer camp for Pathfinders (ages 11-14) as I’m trying to work out which books to order for the bookstall I’m going to be running. YP’s Guide to the Bible is a great little 32 page booklet, costing less than £3. It’s a reference guide for dipping into and includes flow charts, basic bible facts, bible help for young people, key people and topics, a time line, outlines of bible books and maps.

This guide would be great for every Christian (even grown-ups!) to have on their shelf and I’ll be pushing for every Pathfinder on our camp to take one home. It’s good value and an excellent little starter for anyone who wants to understand how the bible fits together, what it’s all about and why Christians read it. As the quote from Vaughan Roberts on p4 of the booklet reminds us ‘It is just one book written by one author with one main subject’. That main subject being Jesus Christ.

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Books for Busy Mums (and Dads) Part 1

Posted in Family, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 12 May, 2011| 1 Comment »

If you follow me on Twitter, you might have picked up that I help out at our church primary school most weeks, reading with kids who need a bit of a boost with their comprehension and language.

What’s been fun for me this year has been spending time with kids with a wide range of abilities – some are on a level 2 (just about reading) and others on a level 5 (top ability at the end of school). All the kids are in year 5 or 6 and they come to me in pairs and only have about half an hour.

Since there is so little time, I’m not able to listen to them read at length or discuss a long text, especially as I like to play comprehension board games (not very cheap but lots of fun) with them too. So over the time I’ve been meeting the children, I have gradually discovered some reading materials that are enjoyable to read but also short! And these are now coming in handy at home when bedtime is getting a bit late and the kids are still pleading for a story.

The best way to have a speedy story is to read poetry. For these year 5s and 6s I’ve been using Anne Fine’s anthologies called ‘A Shame to Miss’. Parts 1 and 2 are suitable for primary aged children and contain wonderful poems and occasional notes from Anne Fine, explaining context or difficult vocabulary. I’ve found these books really helpful for improving vocabulary and helping comprehension at school, and at home the kids enjoy the rhythm and richness of the verse. There’s enough variety to suit all abilities, but these are particularly good for the higher end readers.

My kids adore poems, especially funny ones and since they’ve been young we’ve had two books of poetry which we return to again and again. The first is The Puffin Book of Fantastic First Poems, a colourfully illustrated anthology edited by June Crebin, which is now minus its front cover and torn about the edges because it’s been so well used. The second is Mustard, Custard, Grumblebelly and Gravy by Michael Rosen. This book is hilarious, full of quirky poems about everyday situations, and has caused my children to commit poetry to memory. The first year we had the book, they wanted to spend all summer repeating ‘Tiffy taffy toffee on the flee flow floor’. They learnt it by heart and we were blessed with its silly rhymes for months.

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A Beautiful Online Easter Read

Posted in Family, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 12 April, 2011| Leave a Comment »

I’ve loved Jan Pienkowski’s illustrations since I was a child and last week I found out that his illustrated version of the story of Easter is available to read online. The words are from Luke’s gospel and the King James Version of the bible.

His site has some other lovely online reads and all sorts of lovely kids’ stuff to do. Perfect for the Easter hols!

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Books for Camp: Deadly Emily

Posted in Faith, Family, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 23 February, 2011| Leave a Comment »

As I mentioned the other day, I have a large pile of books that I thought might be suitable for kids on our Pathfinder camp this summer. Being a diligent sort of bookstall person, I’m aiming to read them all. And today I whizzed through the first one, Deadly Emily by Kathy Lee.

Emily Smith is a Christian. She’s still at primary school (I’m guessing Year 5 or 6) and her parents have split up so she, her brother and her mum have moved to live with her gran. Moving to a new place, coping with a new school, dealing with bullies and trusting God when everything seems to be going wrong are all covered.

Kathy Lee’s story is well written with an exciting plot which would especially appeal to girls who enjoy school and adventure stories. I liked the way in which Emily’s Christian faith is portrayed realistically without becoming cheesy. Emily clings onto God’s word in tough times but doesn’t always choose the godly thing to do. She’s a normal Christian girl and I think this makes her very accessible for the readers I’m aiming at. It’s not too long (138 pages), has no illustrations and would not be too intimidating for competent primary school readers or younger secondary school pupils.

Who for: 8-13 year old girls
Genre: School/adventure
Recommended for Pathfinder camp: Yes

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Christian Books and Young Teens

Posted in Church, Holidays, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 15 February, 2011| 10 Comments »

Every year the Vicar helps out on a CPAS Pathfinder venture (known as ‘camp’ even though we don’t use tents) in Devon, and I join him there with the kids. A great time is had by all learning about Jesus and having a fabulous holiday. This year I have volunteered to help out with the bookstall. They have one every year and I noticed last year that the selection of books was tailored more to the upper age of the camp and to the more literate kids.

A diverse range of children come along to our camp, from 14 year old clergy kids from the suburban Home Counties to 11 year old barely literate unchurched youngsters from the inner city. And I think it’s a real challenge to find books that will suit them. I’m currently hunting for recommendations and have bought a small pile of books to review from our local CLC bookshop.

In my review pile are the following:

Fiction

  • Deadly Emily by Kathy Lee (the Queen gobbled this up in a couple of hours and very much enjoyed it)
  • The Shock of Your Life by Adrian Holloway (recommended by the CLC manager)
  • Afterwards I Knew by Christine Farenhorst

Apologetics/Lifestyle

  • Jesus Rose from the Dead by Catherine MacKenzie
  • Friends First by Claire Pedrick and Andy Morgan

Bible/Devotional

  • For Girls Only! Devotions by Carolyn Larsen
  • No Girls Allowed Devotions by Jayce O’Neal
  • The Manga Bible by Siku
  • Esther: God’s Invisible Hand by Helen Clark

I’ve had a couple of recommendations which I’ve not managed to pick up: Hannah MacFarlane’s books and that old classic, The Chocolate Teapot by David Lawrence.

I would love to have an appropriate book for every Pathfinder this year. So I am asking around for recommendations. Have you found any good Christian literature recently? I’m not just looking for books either – how about journals, booklets or dvds?

If you’ve done youthwork, or have kids between the ages of 11-14, give or take a couple of years, or have any ideas at all, I’d love to get your recommendations. Have you run a bookstall on a summer camp? What sells well to younger teens? I’m especially interested in books that will appeal to boys, who I know are often not keen readers. All help gratefully received!

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The Vicar’s Wife Recommends: Holiday Reads

Posted in Faith, Family, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 7 September, 2010| 2 Comments »

I know, I know, we’ve all finished our holidays and everyone’s gone back to school and work. But I’ll forget this if I leave it till the right sort of time next year. And this year I really enjoyed my holiday reading, so here they are – maybe you could stick them on your Christmas list or something. Or even do some reading out of holiday time… So, in no particular order…

  • Hearts and Minds by Amanda Craig – great novel about the experience of immigrants and the interconnectedness of people’s lives.
  • Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym – I enjoyed this far more than Excellent Women, which was the first Barbara Pym I read, possibly because Jane is a Vicar’s wife who always looks as if she’s about to go and feed the chickens.
  • The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford – I’m rather embarrassed I’d not read this before. It was a fun read, rather than a brilliant one, and I’m looking forward to reading some more of her books. I notice that India Knight cites her stuff at the top of her recommended comfort reads. I’m going to check out some of the other’s on that list – I’ve not read (quite) all of them…
  • 1,000 Years of Annoying the French by Stephen Clarke – lighthearted non-fiction about Anglo-French relations since William the Conqueror. Although I kept the cover out of sight as I read it beside the pool in Brittany.
  • Armadillo by William Boyd – funny and clever novel about identity and fitting in.
  • The Bad Book Affair by Ian Sansom – I first came across Ian Sansom by accident, looking for stuff by C J Sansom (totally different, but excellent too). This is the fourth (I think) in the very funny mobile library series, about a North London Jewish librarian running a mobile library in the far north of the north of Northern Ireland. Hilarious characters and gentle mysteries in all the books in the series.
  • The Gospel-Centred Family by Tim Chester and Ed Moll – excellent and challenging short book on Christian parenting. Would be easy to use as a course or to read with a friend.
  • A Shelter in the Time of Storm – Paul Tripp – I’ve recently been using this book to help me get my devotions back on track. I’d rather lost the plot with my Bible Reading Plan for Shirkers and Slackers (rather too much shirking and slacking, alas). I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It is a series of meditations on Psalm 27, each with a couple of thought provoking questions to take with you through the day. It’s subtitle is ‘Meditations on God and Trouble’ and I think it would be brilliant for any Christian who is low, tired or struggling, which is probably most of us…

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The Queen, Enterprise and the Back Leg of a Goat

Posted in Faith, Family, Kids, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on 17 May, 2010| 2 Comments »

As regular readers will know, on this blog I refer to my 8 year old daughter as the Queen. This originated when she played the Red Queen in a school performance of Alice in Wonderland. She was particularly good at shouting:

Off with her head!

She also has bossy tendencies. Can’t think where she got those from.

Anyway, the Queen’s organising and enterprising streak appeared in force a couple of weekends ago when she and four friends appeared in a ‘fashion show’ at the end of our monthly church coffee morning. The Queen and her pals have spent the last few months dressing up every time they get together.

The Queen, the Joker and friends looking fashionable

After reading a Christian kids’ book called ‘The Back Leg of a Goat‘ by Penny Reeve, where the heroine puts on a fashion show to raise money to buy a goat for a family in Africa, the Queen decided that she and her friends would do the same. So they put together their dressing clothes and also an old duvet and some other old outfits, liberally snipped about. The Joker was recruited to play some ‘jazz’ (actually some mellow acid jazz cds from the Vicarage collection).

They recruited kind neighbour Beauty, who knows everything about makeup and nails. Beauty came and preened them all up and the event was ready. We arranged for them to put on the show at the end of the monthly church coffee morning, so they had a captive audience. The Queen had worked hard at getting her Kids Klub leaders and other adult friends to come along. They’d made posters and flyers which they’d handed out.

The Queen and her friends enjoyed themselves  enormously as they paraded around the hall, although I don’t think I’d say that the fashion was ready for showing alongside the next Valentino collection. And with the help of the coffee morning bric-a-brac stall they cajoled over £60 from their audience. We are going to send off the money to the Barnabas Fund, for their education fund. The Queen and her friends wanted the money to go towards educating ‘poor children’.

I just hope that I can now throw out all the snipped up clothing and retrieve a small part of our very messy Vicarage…

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