How to Find Good books, part 1

"Is that a good book?" I asked my friend, picking up the hardback her son had set on our couch. "I don't know," she said, "I hope so.” She seemed uncertain. “He reads so fast I have a hard time keeping up with him." She said she tries to stay a step ahead, scanning his library selections ahead of time, but not really knowing what's in the books he's reading.

I understand her challenge. Having kids who love books is a good thing. Having readers who are hard to keep up with is both challenge and joy. I'm glad our kids like to read a lot, even as I'm aware of my responsibility to guide their selections. I want them to read creative, excellent, inspiring books. But it can be hard to find those among the weeds on the library shelves. That's increasingly a problem as they advance to middle school and beyond.

With so many bad choices available for kids, how can you find the good ones?

Enter books of books.

These are collections of some of the best of children's literature, mostly classics, with some recents. Officially called "annotated bibliographies," these books contain lists of children's books with a sentence or more describing each book. And they're a great help. When my kids are ready for more books, these are the resources I go to again and again.

Honey for a Child's Heart, by Gladys Hunt

This is my oldest book of books. Written in 1969, Honey is now in its fourth edition. I have the 1978 copy my mom used when we were kids. I've read and re-read it, beginning with the inviting introduction by Stony Brook's Frank Gaebelein. He writes, "The home is still the greatest educational force, and parents who make reading attractive contribute immeasurably to their children's intellectual, emotional, and spiritual development."

Hunt inspires me further, writing,

Children and books go together in a special way. I can't imagine any pleasure greater than bringing to the uncluttered, supple mind of a child the delight of knowing God and the many rich things He has given us to enjoy. This is every parent's privilege, and books are his keenest tools. Children don't stumble onto good books by themselves ...

Hunt makes it her aim to help parents find those good books so they can lead their children well with  chapters like What Makes a Good Book?, The Pleasure of a Shared Adventure, and Who Influences Your Children? She follows these with lists of books organized by grade, from picture books for toddlers all the way up to hard chapter books for teenagers.

Read for the Heart, by Sarah Clarkson

This book of books is full of wonderful classics. Clarkson sorts her recommendations by category: Picture Books, Golden Age Classics, Children's Fiction, Fairy Tales, History and Biography; Spiritual Reading for Children; Poetry; and Music, Art, and Nature. I especially like her Appendices that list Caldecott and Newbery Medalists, as well as three well-loved series: G.A. Henty, Trailblazers, and Landmark History. I've been using the lists to build our library of out-of-print classics through used-books websites.

Read Aloud Handbook, by Jim Trelease

When I was pregnant with our first-born, my friend, a grade-school teacher, gave this book to me. It outlasted all the onesies and receiving blankets I received and set me on my way to reading to our children. Trelease convinced me early on of the vast benefits of reading out loud to your children when they're little, and never stopping. He says,

Extensive research has proven that reading aloud to a child is the single most important factor in raising a reader. It is also the best-kept secret in American education. This inexpensive and pleasurable fifteen minutes a day—either in the home or in the classroom--is more effective than worksheets or any other method of reading instruction.

You never outgrow being read to. I still like it when Steve reads to me while I make dinner. I get to hear articles I probably wouldn't find time to read otherwise and we get to talk about what we're reading, thinking through ideas together.

Additional books of books to buy or borrow:

Books Children Love: A Guide to the Best Children's Literature, by Elizabeth Laraway Wilson, with a foreword by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay, daughter of L'Abri's Francis and Edith Schaeffer.

Though not primarily a book of books, Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise's The Well-Trained Mind includes a robust annotated bibliography as part of their list of resources for educating at home. If you're looking for living books by subject (e.g., history, art, literature) and grade, this is good go to.

The Read-Aloud Family: Making Meaningful and Lasting Connections with Your Kids, by Sarah Mackenzie, founder and host of the Read Aloud Revival podcast.

If you have a good library near by, I suggest getting all of these in turn to decide which will best meet your needs and fit your style of reading. One good book of books will keep your library basket full of great books for a while.

That first baby shower is a distant memory now. But I’ve since followed my gift-giving friend's example and give one of these wonderful resource books to expectant moms. Second only to a silver cup or spoon, books outlast all other shower gifts. You may not be able to eat out of a book, but well chosen, it will nourish your soul forever.

I Married an Unbeliever, Now What?

Last week advice columnist Starshine Roshell answered a question at TheWeek.com from a self-described Christian woman married to an atheist man. She wrote,

I have been married for two years, and we just got pregnant. Neither of us was planning it and we were using birth control, but I guess we were the lucky 1 percent. I really love my husband... but he is a devout atheist and I am a devout Christian. I want to have the baby, and so does he, but we are having a hard time deciding how we will bring up our child. What do people do in this situation?

Albert Mohler talks about this question, and Starshine's response, on today's briefing with a strong word to Christians who are thinking about marrying an unbeliever (atheist or otherwise.). This is a cautionary tale: Scripture is clear that we are not to be "unequally yoked."

But what if you wrote the question (or could have)? What if you are already married to an unbeliever? Or what if you became a believer after you were married? This side of the altar, what are you supposed to do?

A few years ago I answered a question like that on Boundless.

QUESTION

Ten years ago, as a young girl raised with strong Christian parents and about to graduate from a Christian high school, I would have never believed that I would be where I am today. I feel sick to my stomach after reading these articles. The reason isn't because the articles are offensive, but rather because according to these articles, my life is terribly offensive to God.

I did "Missionary Date" my now-husband in college (well, actually I was in denial; his referring to himself as a Christian did not make him one), have been "unequally yoked" to him for five years now, and at the young age of 20 and 23 made "not having babies" our option. At 26, he had a surgery that made having babies not an option.

I've taken three wrong turns and I am lost. I am determined not to divorce and I'm reluctant to reverse our decision (and surgery) about not having children since the reason I decided not to still remains: I'm too afraid to raise a child without a Christian husband. Please advise me on the right way to live under these circumstances that I've created for myself.

ANSWER

Thank you for writing. I'm so glad you did because I want to assure you and encourage you that while those articles speak to where you are, they were not written to condemn you. The primary reason for the first article is to encourage not-yet-marrieds to make wise dating decisions. The purpose of the second is to exhort believers who don't yet have kids (whether married or not) to have a biblical worldview about bearing children.

In your case, the articles are descriptive. But as your email reveals, they don't go far enough to say what to do if you've already ignored such advice. You've admittedly made some mistakes. The Bible calls them sin. That's the hard truth. The good news, however, is that Christ died to cover your sins with His blood and there is forgiveness at the foot of the cross and the empty tomb.

Scripture goes on to tell believers in exactly your circumstance what you can do about it. Paul tells the believers in Corinth who are married to non-believers that,

If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. But if the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace (1 Corinthians 7:12-15).

Peter also addresses your situation, encouraging you that you can win your husband to Christ without even speaking a word.

Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives.

I admire your commitment to your wedding vows and your disdain of divorce. Both are evidence of the Holy Spirit at work in your heart and both are powerful testimonies to your husband of your faith. I would encourage you to keep praying daily for him both in your quiet time as well as in agreement with other mature believers (keeping in mind that prayer for him should not be confused with gossiping about him). God can save him and often does lead whole families to faith through the persistent prayers of a believing relative.

You can't change the past. But you can repent for your disobedience, and you can start acting from this point forward with biblical wisdom. How do you do that? By praying and asking God for wisdom (James 1:5); by studying God's Word so that you can know what it says and what it requires of you (Psalm 119, 2 Timothy 2:15, Micah 6:8); and by asking your pastor or the elders of your church for help and accountability. Have you asked for counsel and prayer from those in leadership? The body of Christ is a strong help to us when we're facing major challenges if we will walk with other believers in the context of a biblically faithful church.

Finally, even if your husband never comes to know Christ personally, you can trust God's sovereignty to ultimately redeem your situation; to bring beauty from ashes.

This is not the time to be downcast or discouraged, but the time to repent for your sins, walk by faith, and to put your hope and trust in the Lord's ability redeem your life and marriage in a way that demonstrates His faithfulness and miracle-working activity in the lives of those who trust Him.

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man (Romans 8:1-3).

There is great reward, joy and life to be had in the path of obedience. I pray God will equip you for what you must do. I pray He will give you a long and fruitful marriage that bears witness to His sovereignty in your life.

Sincerely, CANDICE WATTERS

Are we ready for Christians considering childlessness?

The cause of intentional childlessness is going mainstream. Time magazine gave its cover to the cause with a lead story on the childfree life called The Childfree Life: When Having it all Means not Having Children. In that story, Lauren Sandler writes, "women who choose not to become mothers are finding new paths of acceptance. As their ranks rise, so do positive attitudes about leading a life in which having it all doesn't mean having a baby." The thrust of the article is a desire for the intentionally childfree (not to be confused with those who have been unable to conceive) to avoid any judgment for their choice and even to be celebrated. We should not be surprised to see bold advocacy for the childfree life in a culture that has come to prize the homosexual pattern of coupling with its intense emphasis on sexual expression, wink-wink attitude toward monogamy and disconnection between intimacy and reproduction. We should expect in a culture that values autonomy and sexual expression above all, a moral revolution in which the childfree are initially addressed as moral outliers, then elevated to victims of cruel judgment, then promoted to a place of moral enlightenment, while any who would esteem having children as an integral aspect of human flourishing are increasingly deemed morally backward. We should expect this among those who breathe the air of daily life in contemporary Western civilization. The preoccupation with sex as the highest good leaves little vision for the sacrifices required by the children that sex might produce.

But we should also increasingly expect to see this in our churches.  Even though Jonathan V. Last, Mary Eberstadt, and others have been explaining that churches are among the last communities who value children as part of a life with a cause bigger than themselves, we increasingly see church attendees who believe instead that the church should be more like the world around it.

A good example is a recent post by Relevant magazine, Why I Decided to Not Have Kids. This post, as well as the comments that follow an article Kathleen Neilsen wrote for The Gospel Coalition (The Problem with the Childfree Life), give us an indication for how the childfree aspiration is showing up in the church. Are we ready with the hope of Christ for Christians considering childlessness?

Are we ready first with accurate information?

JaJa Yang, author of the Relevant article raises an alarm about overpopulation. "...we have filled the earth to the tune of 7.1 billion people and one birth every 8 seconds," she says, adding: "(I am watching the world population clock ticking away as I write)." We have been hearing warnings of overpopulation since 1968 when Paul Ehrlich wrote The Population Bomb and prophesied that growing population would outrun available resources and threaten the survival of mankind. The gross inaccuracy about population growth has been the assumption that the problem comes down to so many people having so many babies.  The reality is that most of the world population growth has been tied to health advances that extend life, not to a spike in more planned births. As demographer Nicolas Eberstadt explains, "it's not that people have been multiplying like rabbits, it's that they stopped dying like flies." Even the United Nations and numerous countries that believed Paul Ehrlich's warnings and then implemented radical efforts to cut birth rates are now reversing course and warning of the population implosion that is occurring as the childfree vision is taking root and countries with expanding elderly populations face dismally low new birth rates.

Are we ready with good theology vs. a "Precious Moments" religion?

Our churches and even pro-family organizations often have little to offer those who ask the question, "Why have children?" In part, this is because people over 50 rarely heard that they needed solid answers to that question before becoming parents. Today, singles and couples are warned to think long and hard about the world they would bring children into, are counseled to count every penny those children would cost and are prodded to take on the venture only once they have compelling reasons to do so. When they ask their parents, "So, why should we have kids?' they often get blank stares from parents who never wrestled with such a question or at times will cause their parents to doubt their own course and to wonder if maybe they should have waited on kids or avoided having children themselves.

What won't serve skeptical singles and couples is a "Precious Moments" religion that simply dotes on the blessings of children ("You'll just love their first smile" "There's nothing like unconditional love of a baby," etc.). Sentimentality about babies and childhood only goes so far in the face of the counterevidence mounting in the trial against parenthood. As my wife and I wrote in our book Start Your Family,"the realist will tell you that for every precious moment comes hours of toil. The consumer in you will remember that a lot of those superficial joys can be had, or nearly so, with the swipe of your credit card. Alternatives abound promising instant gratification and generous return policies."

Those who have received the Spirit of God should have answers that are compellingly distinct from those who are limited to the spirit of the world. Our answers must be marked by:

1) a reverence for a God who created us with the miraculous ability to create new life from sexual union

2) a trust in His revealed Word that is filled start to finish with an expectation of fruitfulness that will spread His glory to the ends of the earth--a vision of fruitfulness that clearly grows from a biological context to a spiritual context, but continues to stand in bold contrast to a consumeristic culture that rejects both biological and spiritual fruitfulness

3) a theology of sanctification that doesn't whitewash the sacrifices children require, but demonstrates the kindness of God in making one of the primary means of our sanctification also one of the greatest means of our blessing

4) a compassion for those who have been unable to have children, who worry that past abuse will make them poor parents, or who feel overwhelmed by debt and other financial obstacles to starting a family--but a compassion that points to the hope of Christ and not identity politics or other hopeless cultural grievances

5) and a life that incarnationally bears the fruit of the Spirit and demonstrates loving marriages that spill over into new life, a commitment to not only bear new life, but to bear the responsibility to discipline and disciple that life as unto the Lord.

The child free moment is here, are you ready with the hope of a God who is faithful to all generations?

Blessings of family

Forming a family, raising children, being faithful in the daily tasks of home keeping and baby nourishing can feel draining. But there is hidden treasure in the making. Here is a moving reminder of the real wealth in family relationships: Watch this video

How to Find Good Books, Part 2

One of our favorite things about summer's longer, less-structured days is all the time we can spend reading. To make the most of the time, I'm calling ahead by pre-ordering a bunch of books from our local library using their website, something that's available in most public library systems.

Today my focus is geography books. With so many to chose from, how can I know which ones to order? Especially for kids that range widely in grade and reading level? My favorite online book-finder resides at SimplyCharlotteMason.com. It’s a searchable database of “living books” (the sort that make a subject come alive). If you don't know about Charlotte Mason, see Karen Adreola's Charlotte Mason Companion, a fine way to kick off your own summer reading.

Today I was looking for geography books for all of our kids (ranging from Pre-K through 8th grade) so I simply clicked the geography category with no set grade range. The site generated more than 20 pages of results. Lots to choose from. Many are available from our local library. A few that looked especially good aren't, but they’re likely on Thriftbooks.com or Abe.com.

Happy reading!

Camping in the basement

Our camping trip with the church got cancelled. So we pitched our tent in the basement.

Complete with a roaring fire

...which we made our s'mores over.

...with a little help from these products...

This Beautiful Mess

Finally, nap time. I had just tackled the morning mess, including breakfast and lunch dishes and a few soaking pans from the night before. Being 30-weeks pregnant with baby number three, I was desperate for some sleep. Mercifully, our four-year-old went down without complaint. Our six-year-old was just as eager for some playtime by himself. I left him with Legos, books, crayons and the run of the living room. All was well.

I awoke an hour later to loud whispers in my ear. “Mommy, come see what I made!”

I rolled out of bed as he led me by the hand to see his masterpiece. At the foot of the stairs, the living room was shrouded in couch cushions, coordinating throw pillows, wool wraps, and freshly washed sheets.

“Don’t you love it? It’s my fort!”

“Honey, this is great,” I mustered. “But remember, we’re having company for dinner and Mommy just cleaned, so you have to put everything away.”

He looked at me with his puppy-dog eyes. “It’s like you care more about the couch than me,” he said.

“No, of course I don’t,” I said, knowing he wouldn’t understand my dilemma. I was proud of his creativity. But did it have to come at the expense of my peaceful, beautiful, orderly home?

What Matters Most

How could we have known, back when I was pregnant with our little fort builder, that the most important test of a good couch was not its construction, comfort, or color scheme?

pirate couch large-4

What mattered most once the kids arrived, was how easily all the cushions and pillows could be removed and made to resemble a pirate ship, volcano, or secret hideout. At least we’d had the foresight to spring for the Scotchgard treatment.

We were naïve. Lost in a steady stream of Pottery Barn catalogues, we shopped with dreams of showroom furniture artfully arranged in our first home. The only problem with that fantasy was the people, or lack of them. If you notice, there aren’t any in most furniture catalogues. Apart from the occasional dog or monogrammed towel suggesting a human presence, those catalogues are lifeless. But aren’t people what matter most?

The Purpose of a Home

In Home Comforts, a book about how a home works not how it looks, author Cheryl Mendelson writes, “When you keep house, you use your head, your heart and your hands together to create a home—the place where you live the most important parts of your private life.” When kids are little, the most important parts have a lot to do with making messes.

Stephen Curtis Chapman captures this idea in his song Signs of Life:

I’ve got crayons rolling around in the floorboard of my car,
Bicycles all over my driveway, bats and balls all over my yard,
And there’s a plastic man from outer space sitting in my chair.
The signs of life are everywhere.

Eternal Treasures

At times when Steve complains about the landscaping rocks the kids have thrown in the grass, I remind him, “Honey, we’re raising kids, not grass.” Recently he turned it back on me, saying, “We’re raising kids, not occasional tables and leather ottomans.”

pirate couch large-3

Those things aren’t eternal. No matter how perfect something is when you get it—or what you do to keep it that way—it won’t last. As disappointing as that may be, it’s freeing to just accept it. One motivational writer says she knows her stuff will break sooner or later, so she just looks at it and thinks, It’s already broken. That saves her the stress of trying to keep it perfect.

For me, it makes sense to look at our stuff and think, It’s already sticky. This attitude of not frantically trying to keep our stuff pristine is consistent with Matthew 6:19: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.”

My goals for our home no longer include maintaining the look of a decorating magazine. Our home wasn’t built to be a showroom. The life encompassed within its walls—loving husband and children, having babies, teaching them to know and love God—is far too important to be diminished by such low aims. Even if it means having to work my way through a cushion fort to finish my nap.

[Note: I wrote this article back in 2006. We've since passed our pirate-ship couch on to some friends and replaced it with a cushions-attached sectional. But the realization of what matters most is even more true now—with four kids and evidence that the mess-heavy years really do fly by—than when I wrote it.]

Family requires sacrifice

It is the right of little children to have individual love all day long and to have more than the tag ends of affection. But this situation will not change until the family is seen as an institution so precious that men and women will sacrifice something, even in excitement and personal expression, in order to maintain it.

--Elton Trueblood

Kitchen Help

They were so excited to help and I was thrilled to realize four is old enough to wield a potato peeler! Taking turns alternately peeling carrots and potatoes for our harvest soup, their joy in being able to help make dinner made light work of it. It was a surprisingly cold day, but unexpectedly cozy in the kitchen. I almost hated to clean up all the peels; evidence of delight all over the countertops.

A New Problem with no Name

Fifty years ago today, Betty Friedan released the book The Feminine Mystique in which she described “a problem with no name.” She described how educated women felt trapped in suburbia, gazing longingly toward unrealized opportunities in corporate offices. Today, women enjoy those opportunities in the workplace, but are now experiencing a new problem with no name as they find themselves looking out their corporate windows wondering about life with a family. Writers ranging from conservative Danielle Crittenden to liberal Sylvia Ann Hewlett describe women who find it tragic that their corporate success came at the expense of having the opportunity to invest in children. Crittenden writes, “In the richest period ever in our history...the majority of mothers feel they have ‘no choice’ but to work.” In just 30 years, Hewlett says, “we've gone from fearing our fertility to squandering it--and very unwittingly.”

This is what it's come to. The successes of women in the twenty-first century are diminished by their sacrifices. For all our relative wealth, we can't afford babies. For all our learning, we don't understand the limits of fertility. For all our advances as women, motherhood seems unreachable.

Adapted from Start Your Family: Inspiration for Having Babies

What to Expect When No One is Expecting

Jonathan Last has written the best book to date on the dramatic global retreat from family making.  It has the creative title What to Expect When No One is Expecting and we mentioned it briefly here where we included an excerpt published by the Wall Street Journal. Recently, Last gave a talk for the American Enterprise Institute that provides an excellent overview of the book.