Good Books

Just Choose One

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Here in Oxford, carol services are in full flow. Nativity costumes are being aired, Christmas jumpers are enjoying their annual frolic, turkeys are ordered.

14 more sleeps (as I write).

Christmas is nearly here.

If your to-do list is as long as mine, can I suggest adding just one more? It won’t make much difference to the list but it will help keep the magic alive for the independent readers in your life.

 

Choose a book.

Just one.

Gift of knowledge concept with a pile of books and reading glasses with Christmas ornaments

As the children wait impatiently for Christmas, rather than you getting overwhelmed by the endless festive titles adorning the shopfronts, or feeling burdened by the long lists pouring into your inbox, just choose one.

Let’s keep life simple, and dare I say it, a little more enjoyable.

Take time to just choose one book your child might enjoy as they wait for Christmas – it could already be sitting at home on a bookshelf collecting dust, or be picked up on a quick trip to the library or local bookshop, or bought online.

So as you scroll the list below — Just Choose One.

CHRISTMAS CHAPTER BOOKS

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Continue reading →

Over 10 Books for Boys 11+

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“Books crowbar the world open for you.”

Rooftoppers, Katherine Rundell

As our children and teens grow up, their values and vision are forever being moulded. Reading, as we all know, plays such an integral part in their lives, “crowbarring the world open” to them. But with 1000s of books to choose from, and our busy lives pulling us in every direction, it’s more important than ever that we take some time to keep our youngsters reading. It might be a trip with them to a library or bookshop, browsing the bookshelves at home, encouraging them along to their school library, or buying them a book for Christmas. Continue reading →

Christmas is Coming 2021

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…the most startling thing about this wonderful tree was that hundreds of tapers glittered like stars in its dark branches, and the tree itself, shining with an inner light, invited the children to pick its blossoms and fruits.

– The Nutcracker, E.T.A. Hoffman Continue reading →

Over 10 More Children’s Books 9+

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I opened a book and in I strode
Now nobody can find me.
I’ve left my chair, my house, my road,
My town and my world behind me.

I’m wearing the cloak, I’ve slipped on the ring,
I’ve swallowed the magic potion. Continue reading →

10 More Audiobooks for Children

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There is always room for a story which can transport people to another place.

— J.K. Rowling

As lockdown starts easing here in the UK, and getting back in the car becomes more normal, whether travelling to school, the supermarket, or to see friends and family, audiobooks are always a winner on journeys. Even for short trips around our city, we normally have an audiobook on the go.  There are already a number of audiobooks listed here, but here are some more that we’ve enjoyed with my children (11,9 and 5). Continue reading →

20 Children’s Books 9+

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Those who write for children are trying to arm them for the life ahead with everything we can find that is true.  And perhaps, also, secretly, to arm adults against those necessary compromises and necessary heartbreaks that life involves: to remind them that there are and always will be great, sustaining truths to which we can return.

— Katherine Rundell, Why You Should Read Children’s Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise

Rundell’s words are ringing in my ears. Continue reading →

Children’s Fiction 8+

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The children should have the joy of living in far lands, in other persons, in other times—a delightful double existence; and this joy they will find, for the most part, in their story-books”

— Charlotte Mason (Vol. 1, p. 153)

So it looks like holidays are off the cards this summer for most of us but in Charlotte Mason’s words we can still “have the joy of living in far lands, in other persons, in other times…”  So at a time when we can’t travel and see people so easily, books are a magical way of doing just that both for us adults and our children. So let’s help our children travel this summer and choose books to take them places.  They may even make some friends along the way. Continue reading →