Nativity Book #16 - Twelve Who Followed Jesus

This is the sixteenth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.

Happy Feast of St. Andrew the Apostle and of St. Troyen of Saintes! Both are important namedays in our family, so this is a big feast! Since St. Andrew was the First-Called, today's book is about him and the other Apostles. We read Twelve Who Followed Jesus from the Arch Books collection. I posted about these books in this previous post. This is one of the newer Arch Books, and as I've mentioned before, I often think that the older ones are better. This is the story of the calling of the Apostles, including Andrew and Peter as the first. I think the cartoonish illustrations are a little bothersome, but the text is mostly OK. Another Arch Book on the same topic, is Jesus Calls His Disciples. Unfortunately it is now out of print. I was glad to have something about the Apostles for today, but unfortunatley I don't have a good children's book specifically about the Apostle Andrew. I really think a need in English language Orthodox Education is children's books about the lives of the Apostles. We now have some good Bible story books available, especially including the very good Children's Bible Reader, which we read from almost everyday. And there are good adult-level works on the lives of the Apostles, such as red hardbound book The Lives of the Holy Apostles from Dormition Skete. But we really need something about these saints written for children. So, any writers out there, this is my call for your work. If I wait until I have time to do it, we'll all be waiting 10 or 15 years!

Nativity Book #15 - Tomie dePaola's Book of Bible Stories

This is the fifteenth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.

This morning we opened and read the Christmas stories from Tomie de Paola's Book of Bible Stories. I really love this book of Bible stories. The text is pretty much taken straight from the New International Version of the Bible. While, I don't really like the NIV translation for adult reading, I do like that this children's book uses text straight from the Bible. My oldest son, who has been reading from the Gospel of Luke at night, immediately recognized that the text was straight from the Gospel. I love Tomie dePaola's illustrations. They are gentle and lovely: not realistic, not iconographic, but respectful with a stylized sort of primitive look. We were able to use three sections from this book this morning with lots of pretty illustrations: An Angel Comes to Mary, Jesus is Born, and The Visit of the Magi.

Thanksgiving lessons

Each year I have grand ideas about how we can learn about Thanksgiving in our homeschooling. And each year, the week leading up to the holiday ends up being crazy and I get very little of what I hoped to do done. When I was growing up, Thanksgiving meant a huge dinner with LOTS of uncles, aunts, cousins, and other relatives and friends. Thanksgiving meant too many people, too much food, too much noise, too much football, and lots of good memories. 20-30 people for dinner was normal. These days, sadly, we haven't been able to travel on Thanksgiving and so our holiday keeps getting smaller and smaller. Last year we had only 7 people for dinner at my house. This year, only five. So, I've really been trying to think of ways to make the holiday special for my boys since they are having such a different experience from my childhood experience.


Last year, we started the tradition of writing what we are thankful for on colored paper leaves (which I cut out the night before). We put them all over the table as a reminder of why we are celebrating. I mentioned that in this previous post. And we also have a habit of dressing up like the Pilgrims and Indians, if I can manage to make that happen. Last year, I forgot, but luckily my oldest went to work and made the costumes himself on Thanksgiving morning. This year, my mom came to visit the week before Thanksgiving and made great costumes with my boys one morning while I was teaching at the university.


But I'd really like to find some good books to use for our Thanksgiving celebration and for learning about the holiday and history. Last year, we read this very good book: The First Thanksgiving. It was included as part of our K12 First Grade Language Arts curriculum. It's a pretty thorough retelling of the history of the Pilgrims and their relationship with Samoset, Squanto and Massasoit. It also ended with a mention of Abraham Lincoln's proclamation of the holiday in 1863. My kids enjoyed it and the oldest remembered some of the details from when we read it last year. But I know there have to be some other great books out there. Does anyone else have any suggestions for good books for Thanksgiving studies?

On the spiritual side, at church on the eve of the holiday, we prayed the Akathist Glory to God for All Things, which is absolutely beautiful. The poetry of this Akathist is wonderful, and you can't pray it without feeling joyously grateful for all of God's world and blessings. The full text is available here. We also really like to read Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, which really puts the celebration of this holiday in perspective. The full text for it is here.


Glory and Thanks to God for Everything!!

Nativity Book #14 - The First Christmas Candy Canes

This is the fourteenth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.

Today's book is a new one to us. My mom brought it when she visited last week so that I could wrap it up and add it to the basket. It is The First Christmas Candy Canes, a legend told by Berniece Rabe. It's a sweet little legend about a shepherd girl who makes little red striped candy canes which are then involved with the birth of Christ. I've heard different stories about the Christian symbolism of the candy cane, and seen a couple different books, but never this one. This is just a nice little story and the kids enjoyed it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Turkey Day from my dramatic little Pilgrim and Indian! I was sort of sad today not to be with lots of family, but we had a nice day anyway. The great costumes were thanks to my mom who shared her creative skills and supplies during her visit last weekend.

A few other memories:

Writing down what we are thankful for on paper leaves to decorate the dinner table. 7yo is thankful for his family, trees, the sky, the earth, friends and Looney Tunes!

Starting to set the table for dinner.

Nativity Book # 13 - The Miracle of St. Nicholas

This is the thirteenth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.

This morning we opened and read a wonderful book called The Miracle of St. Nicholas by Gloria Whelan. It is a beautiful story about the reopening of a church dedicated to St. Nicholas on Christmas in a Russian village in the late 20th century. I can only ever get about halfway through the book before I start crying. The story is so beautiful, because it is so true. Since I lived in Russia in the 1990's I saw many such examples of abandoned churches being reopened after 60 or 70 years. The empty, dirty churches were slowly refilled with icons which had been hidden in homes for years and slowly also refilled with faithful believers. My boys really like this book. This year, even the 3yo loved it. And he told me at the end, "I don't like those soldiers! They were mean." (He was speaking of revolutionary soldiers during the Civil War or a bit later in the Soviet Union.) Good book to read as we celebrate today the freedoms and gifts we have as Americans!

Nativity Book #12 - A Child's First Bible

This is the twelfth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.

The book we opened this morning is A Child's First Bible, a simple bible story book written for very young children. We read the Nativity story from this book, beginning with the Annunciation and ending with the Presentation in the Temple and the Flight to Egypt. All of those stories spanned about 10 or 12 pages. I have mixed emotions about this bible story book. The illustrations are OK, though not great. It's certainly not enough text for older children (and in fact, my 7yo didn't really even want to sit and read this with us this morning). Most stories are told in just two or three sentences (about 3 sentences for Jonah and the whale). But, it's been good at times for a very quick intro to bible stories for my boys at ages 1 and 2. And actually the 3yo really enjoyed it this morning, though he's already ready for more text and was sure I hadn't read all of the story when we were finished. Still, it was a quick way to tell the whole Nativity story as we continue to remind ourselves of the details of this story throughout the fast.

Feast of the Great Martyr Katherine! . . . and a Saints' book review

Happy Nameday to all Katherines today (or yesterday) . . . and this includes my sister! This is a funny feast because it is November 24 on some calendars and November 25 on others. We have Tsaritsa Catherine the Great to thank for that craziness, but that's a story for another day. What a wonderful story St. Katherine's life is! We read it this morning and my boys loved hearing how St. Katherine showed the philosophers to be fools and even converted the Emperor's wife (who was then herself martyred).

I wanted to take a moment to use this feast to plug another book I really like. It is Saints: Lives and Illuminations published by Eerdman's. It's not specifically an Orthodox book, but it is a collection of brief lives of many pre-schism saints, so all are saints of our Orthodox tradition. The lives are quite short: just a paragraph or so. And each is illustrated with a lovely colorful depiction of the saint. They are not iconographic. They are much more Western and realistic, but are still respectful and quite lovely. I was pleasantly surprised to find this book in a children's bookstore about six years ago. We've been enjoying (and giving it as gifts and buying it for our church bookstore) ever since. I really like that these stories are quick and easy to read, but beautifully tell the lives of our major saints. This morning instead of reading the life of the saint from the Prologue, we used this instead. Anytime we can read a life with an illustration, my kids are even happier. Some of the other saints included in this book are John Chrysostom, Nicholas of Myra, Great Martyr Barbara, Scholastica and Benedict, Columba, Mary of Egypt, Moses the Ethiopian, Brigid, Nina, Constantine and Helen, Patrick of Ireland, Monica and Augustine, Great Martyr George, Spyridon, Ephraim the Syrian and many others.

Nativity Book #11 - Grandpa Bear's Christmas

This is the eleventh of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.

Today's book proves why it's good for us to do this tradition. It's a Christmas book which has been on our shelf for years . . . and we've never read until today. I honestly can't remember where or how we got it. Maybe one of my reader's gave it to us a while back?

Grandpa Bear's Christmas is a set of four Christmas stories about a bear family. It's not really my favorite book and a little too wordy, but as is usually the case with such books, my kids were transfixed. Why do they often love the books which I find to be a tedious? Anyway, not a bad book, just not my favorite. Two of the stories are about Santa Claus, so if you like to avoid such stories, avoid this book. It's not really at all about the Nativity, but is a nice look at a family and a good relationship between a Grandfather and his grandchildren.

When little brother learns from big brother . . .

. . . sometimes it's disastrous (like light saber fights and mean language), but other times its delightful and funny. Today, is one such example of the latter. I've realized that 3yo has been learning Ancient Roman History. Seems he's pretty clear on the date of the fall of the Roman Empire. All day he's been walking around reciting:

"476, Rome was in a fix, Little Romulus bid farewell, and powerful Rome fell."

Nativity Book # 10 - The Shepherd's Christmas

This is the tenth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.

Wow! It's already day 10 of the Nativity Fast! We're already one quarter of the way to the Feast of the Nativity (at least for those of us on the New Calendar)! This fast always passes too quickly.

Today's book is a nice Christmas book from the Archbooks collection available from Concordia Press. I wrote about this collection here. The Shepherd's Christmas is one of the better books in this series. The illustrations are a little too cartoonish for my taste, but the story is nice. It's short (good for wiggly three year olds) and is a retelling of the Christmas story from the perspective of the shepherds. It is specifically about a little boy shepherd who witnesses the Birth of Christ (and the coming of the angels) on his first night to watch over the sheep with the other shepherds. The message in the end is that though the boy is afraid, he finds comfort in Christ. Today it provided a nice opportunity to stop and talk to the kids about this idea when we're already otherwise distracted by preparations for Thanksgiving!

Nativity Book #9 - The First Christmas, A pop-up Nativity book

This is the ninth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.
Our book for yesterday was The First Christmas, A pop-up Nativity book from DK Publishers. My boys got this as an Advent gift from my parents several years ago. It was really fun that year because it comes with a little pop-up Nativity set made from card stock. It was quite fun to play with these that first year. After that, the clutter got the better of me and the little paper figures went to the trash. But the book is still fun because it has some great pop-up scenes on the pages.

Nativity Book #8 - The Little Boy's Christmas Gift

This is the eighth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.

Today's book was one of my favorite books by John Speirs: The Little Boy's Christmas Gift. It is a lovely tale about the journey of the Magi which is akin to the story of The Little Drummer Boy. It is illustrated with gorgeous illustrations inspired by the work of the Brueghels and old illuminated manuscripts. My boys love to find the little boy following at the back of the caravan in each illustration.

Nativity Book #7 - The Story of Mary the Mother of God

This is the seventh of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.
Yesterday's book was The Story of Mary the Mother of God written and illustrated by Dorrie Papademetriou. Since Nov. 21 is the Feast of the Entrance of the Mother of God into the Temple, we opened and read this book. I love this book mostly because I really love the bright illustrations. It tells the story of the life of the Mother of God in simple words for all ages, including her birth, her entrance into the temple, her and the Annunciation.

Nativity Book #6 - The Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple

This is the sixth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.
Today's book we opened and read as a preparation for tomorrow's feast: The Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple. It is part of the Feasts of the Church series by Sister Elayne which I described here. It is available from Archangel Books here. (By the way, Archangel books has a very nice online store, but their storefront is even better. If you are ever in the St. Louis area, it is really worth the trip. It's a lovely store with lots of Orthodox books, icons, unique gifts and many neat "finds" which I haven't seen in other Orthodox book stores.)

I love the story of the Entrance of the Mother of God: how she entered the Temple at the age of three led by virgins carrying lamps. This morning my boys were really surprised to realize that she went to live in the Temple at the age of three and was fed by the angels. What a beautiful history we have as Christians!