Monday, August 28, 2006

Little Pilgrim's Progress

Yesterday, we looked at three parables in Matthew 24/25 that Christ uses to urge us to "live alert" for his coming. (Listen Here!) In the message I mentioned that our famiy has been reading Little Pilgrim's Progress, an adaptation of John Bunyan's classic for younger readers by Helen Taylor. (I just read that the book is 55 years old, so it's an enduring classic in its own right!)

Here's a parable.com link for more info:

http://parable.com/parable/item_0802449247.htm

We are so committed to the concept of family reading. It doesn't happen every night and we try not to make it a stressful thing, but we're pulling it off several times a week. We've found that even the littler ones, for whom the reading material is over their heads, enjoy the time. Our kids bring us the current book after dinner and beg for more after every chapter. Also, we don't only read Christian material, but also other "classics" since we believe reading "classics" teach virtue and form character through the power of story. They are "classics" for a reason!

Make family reading a habit in your home! We all love it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What books are you reading / have you read during family reading time?

Some of our successful family reading was The Lion, Witch and Wardrobe, Charlotte's Web, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle and Nate The Great. One story that required a bunch of parental editorializing was Illustrated Classics version of Tom Sawyer. Reading to a first-grader about Injun Joe framing Muff Potter for the murder in the graveyard (for example) was not the best thing, and we've become more selective since then.

Anonymous said...

Ohh.... this brings back the memories. My mom read Little Pilgrim's progress all the chronicles of Narnia (and all the books listed above)as well as greek mythology, classical literature and everything in between. My mom let each of us pick a "chapter book" and read one chapter to each of us every day (3 chapters a day)plus one chapter of the bible until I was a senior in highschool and was too busy. I will never forget that special time in my life and while I haven't graduated to reading "chapter books" with my young ones yet I go through stacks of books with my kids almost every night. It is the most special things that we do. So... read to your kids! It's time well spent.