Addicted to Books

I love books!! I can't help it. And I don't just mean novels. Last night I was at a Children's Ministry meeting at our church. We are in the middle of some changes in the way we do our Sunday night children's ministry so we were discussing all types of Bible curriculum. I believe children have a great capacity to learn great things at very early ages. I truly believe that kids are fully capable of understanding and visualizing beautiful written stories and it is a wonderful way to learn all kinds of things from science to language arts to the Bible. I don't think children necessarily have to be entertained to learn. For that matter, I am not a big fan of cartoon characters depicting Bible stories, historical events, science ideas, etc. I also believe that there little brains can memorize tons of scripture with a minimum amount of effort. Nature Girl memorized a whole poem last year to recite at a tea and it takes Little Mama two or three days to memorize a scripture verse. (Every month we review the things they have memorized so they don't forget them.) So what does this have to do with books you would like to know?? Well, last night someone presented a book that was a possibility to use for the curriculum and I was thrilled. It was character sketches based on animals using corresponding Bible stories. No funny characters of people or animals. It used the real thing. For example, Part One, Loyalty, Adjusting My Schedule to Meet the Needs of Those I Am Serving - Nature Story: Great Horned Owl - Character and Physical Features, Scripture Story, Scripture Background on Amasa, Amasa Character Sketch. It had real pictures and real stories and facts. I held on to the book for like 15 minutes. I just kept going through it and reading it and looking at it. In my opinion it was perfect! What kid doesn't like animals and what human being couldn't use some work on character traits and what a great way to teach them by relating them to real creatures God created. To me the whole book was just filled with so much potential for kids of all ages!! I was sooooo excited. It is like Christmas for me when I find a great reading, teaching tool for entertainment and education. After the meeting I was just plain giddy. I told my friend, even if we didn't use the book for our Sunday night children's ministry it was definitely a book I will be purchasing next year for our little homeschool . . .