Children's Reading Material

This past weekend our church had a family retreat/camp out. While the adults were learning and having discussion time, I was asked, along with some teen helpers, to watch the younger children and have some discussion time with them. Overall we all had a good time together. (they got restless by the end of the day...not that I blame them... :-) ) During our time together we went over some children's tracts, watched a cartoon movie biography on Jim Elliot, and read some books. As a result, I thought I'd briefly review/summarize the books we read. The kids seemed to enjoy them, and the four I will be writing about are all geared toward the younger reading levels. Here they are!

The True Princess--Angela Hunt
The book has colorful illustrations making it very appealing for kids. Along with other places it is available through Lamplighter Publishing. The story is about a princess and her father the King. In the book, the King has to go on a journey, and he leaves his young daughter behind with her nurse--Nana. The princess up to this point, has not had to do any work and is used to people taking care of her. While the King is gone, Nana and the princess go into hiding. They go into disguise and work in a bakery. Through the course of the story, the princess must learn to work/bake, dress herself, sing to herself, and laugh at herself. The King finally returns, and by this time, several girls in the kingdom have "dressed up" as the princess, hoping the King will think that one of them is his daughter. The "true princess" remains in the background while the other girls talk to the King. The King asks them if they will do some work, or tell a joke, or sing for him, the girls say that they can't because "a true princess" has someone to do those things for her. Finally, the "real princess" comes forward and does the things the King asked, and the King welcomes back his daughter! It's a fun story and at the end asks the readers what God would have us to do for him. (serving others etc.)

Trusty: Tried and True--Mark and Deborah Hamby
The authors, are the ones who own the Lamplighter Publishing Company. This is another colorful story book written for kids. The story is about how a train gets stuck, and needs help getting pulled up a hill. Several other trains come that could help, but they don't want to. Finally, Trusty, the smallest train comes, and helps them! It's a great story and again teaches kids the importance of helping others.

Two other books we read were "They Didn't Use Their Heads" and "If Everybody Did" by JoAnn Stover. These books have black and white illustrations and are available through Bob Jones University. Again they are written for the young readers, and are great teaching tools. The kids really enjoyed the humor in these books. They Didn't Use Their Heads goes through a series of events about how people didn't use their heads and got hurt.
If Everybody Did teaches what happens if everybody did the exact same thing (example--jumping in the mud, slamming the door) and the consequences of it.

All four of these books are great for children and if you're looking for quality reading material I'd recommend them! Have a great day!