205: What's on Carole's Nightstand - Church History for Children, Inspiring True Story Picture Books, & More
Mar 13, 2024Season 4Episode 205
Carole Joy Seid, Homeschool Consultant
Do you ever wonder what's on Carole's nightstand? In this episode, Carole Joy Seid shares a wealth of book recommendations for building your family library, including Church History resources, American History books, and a collection of captivating picture books. She highlights the children’s church history books by Luke H Davis, a comprehensive book on American History by Wilfred M McClay, and a variety of engaging picture books on inspiring true stories. Get ready to expand your family's home library with these enriching and educational books.
Do you ever wonder what's on Carole's nightstand? In this episode, Carole Joy Seid shares a wealth of book recommendations for building your family library, including Church History resources, American History books, and a collection of captivating picture books. She highlights the children’s church history books by Luke H Davis, a comprehensive book on American History by Wilfred M McClay, and a variety of engaging picture books on inspiring true stories. Get ready to expand your family's home library with these enriching and educational books.
Help us share the message of homeschool made simple with others by leaving a rating and review. Thank you for helping us get the word out!
Rachel Winchester:
We love to help families build their own libraries, and one way we do that is by sharing new to us books here on the podcast. As Carol has been updating the book lists for the 2024 seminars, she's come across some treasures, including a new church history resource and a stack of picture books you don't want to miss. You're listening to the Homeschool Made Simple podcast with Carol Joyside. This is a podcast to help you homeschool simply, inexpensively and enjoyably. Carol has been helping families make their children lovers of books for many years now. She always says a bad book is a big thief. They steal your time and your shelf space. So if you're looking for a new stack of great books, you're in the right place.
Carole Joy Seid:
Listen in. Hi friends, I've been reading a bunch of new books and I wanted to share some of the beautiful discoveries that I've been making and thought you would want to make them as well. First, I want to tell you that we have been revising our handouts for our seminars for this new year and we're super excited about some of the beautiful treasures that we found. One is a group of books on church history. That has just been really a gift, because teaching church history to young children can be very complicated and a bit of a challenge. We don't want to water it down, but we also don't want to just take it above the top, where nobody is understanding what you're saying, because church history is the most compelling true story you could ever tell a child and we want them to fall in love with the heroes of the faith. So a gentleman who's a school teacher his name is Luke Davis, he teaches at Westminster Christian Academy in St Louis and he has written books for adults. He's a hymn writer he's actually written 70 new hymns and he is a pastor as well an Anglican pastor and so he has written five books on church history for children that are really top notch. They all start within our redemption reign, reform, renewal and I don't have the fifth book yet, but I'm looking forward to it. And so the first book is the church in ancient times, then the second reign is the church in the Middle Ages, then the third is the church at the birth of Protestantism, which is the book reform, and then the book renewal, the church that expands outward. And then the fifth is the modern day church, and he breaks it up with biographies, chapter by chapter. So the one on renewal, there's a chapter on William Wilberforce, there's one on George Whitfield, david Brainer, jonathan Edwards, john Owen, john Bunyan. These are people that our children need to grow up knowing about and making them kind of personal friends. And then the beauty of a series like this is it ties in with our church history handouts, and so each of our sections of history we use this one of his books as the spine for then the other books that are listed. So after you read an overview of these different periods of church history, then you can also expand, you can use these books as springboards. That then you say I want to know more about William Wilberforce or John Bunyan or David Brainer. Tell me more about these people, jonathan Edwards. And so it's so great for your kids to grow up making these people the folks that they want to emulate and grow up to be like, instead of you know, some ditzy person on television that you wouldn't want your child to even know about, let alone grow up to be like. These books are solid gold for developing our character for cataclysm and discipling our children, so I highly recommend them.
Carole Joy Seid:
The author's name is Luke H and then Davis. Luke H, davis and the name of the series are Risen Hope, risen Hope series, and they're published by Christian Focus. They're published by Christian Focus in Scotland and you won't regret reading these books. So that's for church history and then for American history. My son is a real researcher and when I'm looking for a great book on a particular subject, I call him up because he usually has read 40 books on the subject, and so he does all the sifting and at the end of the day he'll say, okay, these are the two best on this particular topic. So he got busy.
Carole Joy Seid:
On the topic of American history, I think we all can agree that people have fallen off the horse on either side with American history, that America can do no wrong and that the Promised Land is not in Israel but it's actually in America. So that's one you know extreme view. But then the other extreme view is that we're a bunch of murderers and evil. You know I won't go into the details, but you know what I mean. So either side of the horse has its problems, and so JJ was very determined that we could find a spine book on American history for your children, and he did a lot of research and I am so grateful for him finding these books.
Carole Joy Seid:
First of all, there's an adult edition which is used in colleges like at Hillsdale College and things. This man is a professor at Hillsdale College who wrote these books and his name is Wilfred M McClay. Wilfred M McClay, and his original book is called Land of Hope, an invitation to the great American story. Land of Hope, an invitation to the great American story. So he wrote the I guess more of a college textbook level book which is still very readable and very, very good. But then I think at Hillsdale they asked him to write what they call the Young Readers Edition and they use it in their school they have like a classical school, I think they're at Hillsdale and so he wrote it in two editions, two volumes I should say volume one and two, and so they're called the Young Readers Edition.
Carole Joy Seid:
And I will tell you. I picked up volume two the day it got here and I stayed up nights reading this book. Now I began volume one and they are profound, and I want you to know a little bit of what some critiques have said about these books. Wilfits Hughes in the Concord Review said Professor McClay has brought faith, hope and charity to this comprehensive and readable narration of our national story. Robert Jackson from the Institute for Classical Education said every page pops with the extraordinary achievements, near misses and frustrating failures of a nation formed by the common pursuit of liberty and happiness. Andrew Zimmerman from Cana Academy said our children stand at risk of not knowing who they are as inheritors and keepers of American freedom.
Carole Joy Seid:
Enter Wilfred M McClay. This latest edition of his beautiful narrative forms a compelling vision of America's past. But my favorite is the review by Michael Ferris. He says this our nation is facing challenges from those who contend that America was founded on evil principles and should be effectively dismantled. This superbly readable volume tells the story of America accurately, critiquing what we got wrong but praising the many things we got right. This approach will produce fair-minded citizens who are loyal to our ideals but who are also willing to challenge our leaders to live up to them. I love it. The critiques are so encouraging and the books are brilliant. So he starts at the beginning of American history and ends pretty much at contemporary times. I think maybe he ends with Ronald Reagan, if I'm not mistaken. So it is just such a great book and I just can't recommend it highly enough because we need to teach American history accurately, truthfully, but with the bright side of what has been accomplished in our country, instead of apologizing for our country to be grateful and loyal and proud for the freedoms and the things that have taken place here.
Carole Joy Seid:
So the Land of Hope by Wilfred M McClay it's published by Encounter Books in New York and you will not read it. It's designed for late grade school kids maybe you know sixth grade and then into junior high, and I would even recommend it for high school kids. If you don't want to tackle a college-level book, I would recommend these books all the way through high school and your kids will know more about American history than most American citizens do. So I recommend both sets of these books and we want to just keep giving our kids history from God's perspective, his story. And then I also want to turn to the corner here and tell you about a bunch of picture books that I've been reading in the last month or two.
Carole Joy Seid:
One is a brilliantly done book by Brian Wildsmith. If you don't know who he is, he's an illustrator. He did several biblical, beautifully illustrated books for Erdmans. He did Joseph the Exodus. I can't remember all of them, but you can find his books. Some of them are probably out of print but you can still find them used.
Carole Joy Seid:
But this book is very different from the other books that I've read of his. It's called Brian Wildsmith's Birds and he talks about this idea of what you call a group of birds, and there's all sorts of books on this and things like that. So usually books refer to birds as flying in flocks, but there's a lot more detail, like a clutch. There is a clutch of little chicks and then we talk about a brood, but then there's things like a gaggle of geese and a duration of starlings and there's just all these really fun things. A covey of partridges, a bevy of quail, a nye, let's see, perhaps from the French for nest, so a nye of pheasants or a congregation of plover. It's really, really fun. An exultation of larks that's my favorite, an exultation of larks or an ascension of larks. He also talks about a rafter of turkeys, a watch of nightingales, a company of parrots, a colony of penguins, a muster of peacocks, a walk of snipe, and then here's a real kicker, an unkindness of ravens or a stare of owls, so a group of birds, and then he paints them in the most creative, wonderful ways a siege of bitterns. So this is just a wonderful, fun book. It also will help you to identify birds, but learning new vocabulary is always so much fun.
Carole Joy Seid:
And then a book about a true story about a famous potter called Dave the Potter. He's actually a slave. He was an artist, a poet and a slave, and it's written by Laban Kerak Hill and I believe it was in Southern living. Recently there was an article about him and how collectible and special his pots are. They're still available today. People collect them. He lived in South Carolina in the 1800s and he, even though he was a slave, he made some of the most beautiful pots in our history and the illustrations the illustrations of this book are so beautifully done and he wrote poetry on the pots and he was a Christian. It's just beautiful the story of this man, and I think you'll really, really enjoy him. So it's called Dave the Potter, artist, poet and slave.
Carole Joy Seid:
And then another book about an African American that was just so much a part of our history. Her name was Laura Wheeler Wearing. Laura Wheeler Wearing and this is a book by Nancy Churnin, and she writes some really great books, nancy Churnin, very creative books. But the title of this one is Beautiful Shades of Brown and it's about a little girl growing up and Laura Wheeler Wearing and how she would look at paintings and she one day said why don't any people in paintings look like me? Because she was an African American child. And so she began painting African Americans and portraits and many of her paintings are in the National Gallery in Washington DC, which is an arm of the Smithsonian Institute, and it's just a really cool true story. Beautiful Shades of Brown, the art of Laura Wheeler Wearing.
Carole Joy Seid:
And then another book about an African American and this is a true story as well. It's called Henry's Freedom Box and he was, I think he was a slave and he saw people shipping boxes at the post office and he decided that he was going to figure out a way to get out of slavery and not get caught. And so he packed himself in a great big, huge box and he shipped himself to the north and he got like turned upside down and right side and he was hot and of course I'm sure he needed to use the restroom. He was probably hungry and people sat on the box and I mean he had this terrible crossing in a ship. But finally he arrives and some men in the underground railroad are waiting for him and they pry open the box and the gentlemen are all waiting and they say Henry, henry, are you all right in there? And they're knocking. He pops up and they smile at him and they say welcome to Philadelphia. So he had his first day of freedom in 1849, on March 30. And then he had a middle name given to him. Afterwards Everyone called him Henry Box Brown. Henry Box Brown. He was one of the most famous runaway slaves on the underground railroad, the man who mailed himself to freedom. I love it and the illustrations are so beautiful, the cover with this little, gorgeous little boy's face when Henry was a little one, and the author's name is Ellen Levine and Kadir Nelson did these illustrations and you must see them. Wow, yeah, really creative and brilliantly done.
Carole Joy Seid:
The William Hoy story is another book by Nancy Churnen and it is a true story about a young man that was super talented in playing baseball but he happened to be deaf and nobody knew sign language and he couldn't read lips when he was on the field. But he taught the umpires hand signals so he could see the calls. And then he started to play and he went on to the major leagues and he was one of the most beloved baseball players of all time and he's in the, you know, the annals of baseball history and in the museums and things. I mean he's really, really famous and he did not let his infirmity, you know, of being deaf, hold him back from being one of the great baseball players of all time. It is a great book. So the William Hoy story, true story by Nancy Churnen, illustrated by Jez Tuya I don't know if I'm saying that right T U YA, they called him dummy hoy, but man could he steal his way around the bases and score and even though he couldn't hear the cheers, he could see them and he knew people. He was in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. It's a great book.
Carole Joy Seid:
Okay, and then I'm going to close with a book about a famous museum in Boston. If you ever get to go to Boston you have to go see where Make Way for Ducklings takes place and there are statues in the park there to commemorate Robert McCloskey's famous book. But the other place you have to go after the park is the Isabel Stewart Gardner Museum. It is the most unique museum in America and I sadly have still not been able to go there and I am dying to just fly to Boston and just go there and fly home if I have to.
Carole Joy Seid:
But it's the story of a young woman who was married to a very wealthy gentleman and she was very eccentric and she would have these big, you know really interesting parties and she would walk lions on leashes and she and her husband traveled all over the world and they bought works of art and she learned about art and artists and sculpture and she just began to collect and collect things, even things that were kind of illegal, I think she snuck out of countries that probably shouldn't have even been taken, but her husband died and so she decided that she was going to go ahead and create a home for all of her artifacts. So she had this beautiful mansion built and she lived in the top floor of the mansion and the rest of it she designed every inch of. And she doesn't just have like one painting on one wall, but she has covered the walls like you would with wallpaper. They're covered in art and artifacts and all these beautiful things that she spent her life collecting. And the name of this book it's a children's book about her and it's called what Isabella Wanted what Isabella Wanted, and it's on a tree line street in Boston, in an old mansion, lived a prickly self-assured, fiercely independent woman named Isabella Stewart Gardner. She was brash, extravagant, inspired. When she set her mind to something, she was unstoppable. One day she wore baseball gear to the symphony, the next she greeted house guests from a potted palm tree, and another she strolled zoo lions up Beacon Street. She outraged polite society and that was just the way she liked it. But she found her passion traveling the world. She collected treasures and she created a museum like no other. So it was been untouched for 70 some years.
Carole Joy Seid:
And then there was a very, very famous robbery that took place. Some men appeared as security guards and the guards left, or I think they were policemen. They were dressed as policemen and they said that they were sent by the police force, whatever, and so the security guards let them in, and these men took knives to some of the greatest treasures in art history, the most famous being Rembrandt's painting of the Christ in the boat in the storm, and these were all stolen and after the theft of these paintings, they have never been recovered. It's the most famous art heist of all time, and you want to learn more about the theft of the art, but also just the history of the museum and all the beautiful things that Isabel Gardner collected, so put that on your must-see list. Go to Boston and spend some time there. There's also a lovely restaurant there, from what I've heard. So spend a day at the Gardner Museum and I don't think you'll be sorry. Okay, that's all the things I wanted to share with you. Hope that they're fun and inspirational. Thanks, blessings.
Rachel Winchester:
Thanks for joining us this week on the Homeschool Made Simple podcast. If you want help building your family's home library, we have a book list of over 150 titles to help you do just that. Every book on the list is worth reading multiple times. We don't have time or shelf space for bad books. You can get the book list by clicking the link in the show notes. Be sure to join us next time as we help you homeschool simply, inexpensively and enjoyably. Blessings.