{"id":28701,"date":"2015-04-06T06:30:53","date_gmt":"2015-04-05T18:30:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=28701"},"modified":"2015-04-08T22:08:09","modified_gmt":"2015-04-08T10:08:09","slug":"from-my-library-kids-books-broadly-related-to-easter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2015\/04\/06\/from-my-library-kids-books-broadly-related-to-easter\/","title":{"rendered":"From My Library: Kids’ Books (Broadly) Related To Easter"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Friday, I mentioned that April 2 was International Children\u2019s Book Da<\/a>y<\/a> (celebrated on the birthday of the great children\u2019s writer, Hans Christian Andersen<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

The purpose of\u00a0International Children\u2019s Book Day is\u00a0 \u201cto inspire a love of reading and to call attention to children\u2019s books\u201d <\/em>and since it has pretty much fallen on Easter this year, I thought I’d highlight a few children’s books from my personal library that I believe tell stories that are broadly relevant to the Christian festival of Easter.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Lion.<\/a>The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe<\/em><\/strong> by CS Lewis: I know, I know, it’s the obvious first-up book! But since a significant part of the story clearly<\/em> parallels the Easter story, it really is<\/em> the obvious first novel off the blocks. I know a lot of folk have a problem with that parallel but I never have—and yes, even as a very young reader, I didn’t miss it. But in my humble opinion, it’ s possible to enjoy the story being told without either getting or buying into that parallel, so The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe<\/em><\/strong> therefore meets the Helen Lowe First Law of Storytelling.<\/p>\n

\"Witch<\/a>\"The<\/a>The Witch Of Blackbird Pond<\/em> <\/strong>(1958) and The Bronze Bow<\/em><\/strong> (1961), both by Elizabeth George Speare, were also both Newbery Medal winners. Both are coming-of-age stories that explore differences of belief and religious tolerance (and intolerance.) The Bronze Bow,<\/em><\/strong> in particular, is also a story about war, freedom, and a young man’s personal choice between hatred and love, fear and forgiveness.<\/p>\n

\"Man<\/a>The Man Who Was Magic<\/em><\/strong> (1966) by Paul Gallico. Ostensibly, this is a story about what happens when a young man who is truly magic comes to a city of sleight-of-hand-and-eye magicians—but I have always thought the experience of Adam in Mageia parallels that of Christ with the religious and political hierarchies described in the New Testament.<\/p>\n

\"Simon\"<\/a>Simon<\/em><\/strong> (1959) by Rosemary Sutcliff is a novel of the English Civil War (1642-1651.) Although it primarily follows the friendship of Simon and Amias who end fighting on opposite sides, the story explores how the civil war was not only about the political divide between King and Parliament, but the almost inseparable religious divisions between the High and Low (Anglican) churches, with Puritans and Levellers, Roman Catholics and Anabaptists also part of the social and political mix.<\/p>\n

\"Beacon<\/a>The Beacon At Alexandria<\/em><\/strong> (1986) by Gillian Bradshaw is a story about a young woman who wishes to be a doctor in an age when a life outside the home was largely forbidden to young women. But it also charts the historical period that marked the demise of the Western Roman Empire. The Alexandrian section in particular deals with the divisions between the Arian and Nicean Christian churches as well as the changing relationships between the Empire’s former religions and the (more newly) state-endorsed Christianity.<\/p>\n

So there you are, six books for Junior and YA readers: all excellent stories, well told (imho).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Friday, I mentioned that April 2 was International Children\u2019s Book Day (celebrated on the birthday of the great children\u2019s writer, Hans Christian Andersen.) The purpose of\u00a0International Children\u2019s Book Day is\u00a0 \u201cto inspire a love of reading and to call attention to children\u2019s books\u201d and since it has pretty much fallen on Easter this year, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-writers","category-recommended-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28701"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28744,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28701\/revisions\/28744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}