“There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.”
― C.S. Lewis
In July I had the pleasure of being interviewed by the delightful Sarah Mackenzie for her Read-Aloud Revival podcast. It was more like a friendly chat over coffee as Sarah and I shared thoughts about life, literature, reading-aloud, children’s book publishing, history studies and our mutual love for good books. The podcast is now up and you can access it here.
Sarah has recently published a book about home schooling entitled Teaching From Rest: A Homeschooler’s Guide to Unshakable Peace. As a young mom of six little ones, Sarah knows how hectic and demanding the homeschooling lifestyle can be and offers great advice for letting go of striving and finding a deep peace in your heart and home.
One of the topics we discussed briefly was the current educational trend of teaching history by “beginning at the beginning.” Those who are interested in a little more in-depth look at this topic might enjoy reading, “When Should I Teach Ancient History, which you can access here. Memoria Press has also written a brief intro on this topic entitled “History is Not Chronological, which you can access here.
In closing, one of the questions Sarah asked was what book I had read as a child that most impacted me. I always come back to Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time for the book that I believe truly, as C. S. Lewis coined, “baptized my imagination.” I read it as a teen or young adult, but it opened the eyes of my imagination in a way no other book ever had. We never know which book will do that for us or our children–thus the reason to read, read, read! But read the best books first, because you never know if you’ll have time to read them all!
That book for me was The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe that my mother gave to me when I was 9. I still have it! When I was 14 I received a boxed set of the 4 Tolkien books. I was riveted although I didn’t understand them until I was in my twenties! All my kids love to read and they all favor different genres. I’ve enjoyed watching their interests develop over the years. Thanks for sharing, Rea!
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A Wrinkle in Time is the same for me!!! Of all the books I read as a child it is the one I remember the most and am so excited to introduce my children to. I’ve scheduled it as a read aloud this year.
Wrinkle in Time is really a gorgeous book!
I hope parents will prefer reading rather TV these days, cause they help our children to significantly improve their imagination.
To Kill a Mockingbird is the one book in high school that I loved and can’t forget. I did not enjoy reading while I was young (weird I know especially when my mother was an english/writing teacher) and this book I could not set down.
Hi Katie,
Yes, I agree. To Kill a Mockingbird is such a powerful read, and if more of the high school choices were like this classic more students would be engaged with the power of truly fine literature! But falling in love with reading isn’t something you get genetically, as you noted, but something that has to happen in each individual heart. I think parents have a lot to do with that, but sometimes (as in my case) falling in love with reading happened to me all by myself, with the help of a few good guides and lots of time under my sheets at night with a flashlight!