When I first set out to write an article for April, I planned to discuss the sufficiency of Scripture. But as I wrote, it morphed into something else: the importance of being present in children’s lives. So I scrapped the original and rewrote the article to be about presentness. But I could not quite figure out how to say what I meant, and it started to sound a bit like a lecture, which was not at all what I intended (and who of us wants to be lectured? I certainly don’t). And now, on this third attempt, I am writing about something else entirely: biblically faithful children’s literature nourishing the soul.
My mom began teaching me to read when I was three or four. I remember doing phonics flashcards at a very early age. When I was four, my parents gave me a box set of the Little House series for Christmas, and my mom promised that when we moved into our new house, she and I would begin reading them together. She instilled a love of literature in my brothers and me when we were very young, and the three of us became avid readers.
I also found that I loved to write stories very early on. I wanted to be like Jo March from the moment I first saw the 1994 Little Women. One of my elementary school teachers encouraged us not only to write stories, but also to illustrate and even bind our own books. We had Author’s Teas several times a year, where we read our stories aloud and showed the pictures to an audience of classmates and family members.
My love of Scripture did not begin as a child. I participated in church and Scripture memorization as far back as I can remember, but for the sake of performing and pleasing—because it’s what I was “supposed to do.” I developed a love of God’s Word as an adult while seeking comfort in it during some hard years. I began taking the study of Scripture seriously at age nineteen, but I did not really understand how to read the Bible. I thought the Bible was a book of histories, morality lessons, instructions, and the story of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. While it does include those things, it is so much more. I did not yet know or see that the Bible was collectively one story pointing to Christ. I did not know Jesus was present in the Old Testament and that all of Scripture leads us to Him. As I began learning this, everything changed. The gospel actually began to make sense to me. Seeing Jesus as the ultimate salvation that was long promised, that was long offered through insufficient means (like a ram or a rock or an ark or a brazen serpent or a king or a prophet or a priest), even in the midst of human sin and failure and frailty, made the gospel mean something to me, whereas before, it had merely been a safety net.
In 2018, I was gifted a copy of A Gospel Primer for Christians by Milton Vincent. I read and reread it and carried it around with me. I bought copies of it to give to the people I cared about. I was particularly impacted by “Part III: A Gospel Narrative, Poetic Version”, and during the summer of 2022, I began thinking about how kids should have a gospel primer that they could grasp. Some of my favorite children’s books are rhyming, and I liked the idea of a poetic version of a gospel primer for kids with one stanza for each letter of the alphabet. So I began to write one. As an artist, my imagination was also abuzz with ideas for how to design and illustrate it. Four years later, I still have several letters of the alphabet to go (I am currently working on T), but it is a work in progress and will hopefully be one of our next projects at Apologia.
Truth can be so hard to find in the world we live in. Literature has such a huge capacity to teach and work its way into our hearts and minds. I know the impact it can have, both for good and bad. Good children’s literature is one of my favorite things, especially a well-written allegory. I find that such stories are rich in truth, full of hope, and nourishing for our souls. They engage and teach children biblical truth, but they can also penetrate the numb familiarity adults sometimes find themselves experiencing with the Scriptures and provide us with opportunities for a deeper understanding of biblical truth.
I desire biblical truth to be accessible and digestible for kids without being watered down. I love the written word, and I believe it is vitally important. My love of story, imagination, and creativity is a conduit through which I work to produce theologically rich stories. It is my heart to provide children and families with literature that communicates biblical truth and helps them comprehend God’s grace, care, and character more deeply and fully. CS Lewis wrote, “The value of the myth is that it takes all the things we know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by ‘the veil of familiarity.’”1 That is what good stories do for us–for children and adults alike. He also wrote, “A book worth reading only in childhood is not worth reading even then.”2 Good children’s stories are not just for children. The Bible is primary, and no story can take its place, but I do believe that we can understand biblical truth and hope in the midst of an untruthful and hopeless world, through stories, even as they fall short of God’s Word.
May the grace of Christ be with you,
1: Lewis, CS. “Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.” Essay. In On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature, 138. HarperOne, 2017.
2: Lewis, CS. “Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say What’s Best to Be Said.” Essay. In On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature, 71. HarperOne, 2017.
Coming soon for subscribers:
- Free downloadable resources
- A simple, summer study for kids
Featured photograph by Ellie Koutny.
Discover more from Apologia Publishing
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.