Monday, April 02, 2007

Thinking Outside Our Box

For Children's Book Monday, hosted by Elise at A Path Made Straight, I will highlight two books that you can share with your children about other peoples and cultures around the world. In America, we live rather egocentric lives on the whole. The world can seem to revolve around our culture. As Christians, I believe it is so important to teach our children about people around the world, to pray for those people and the missionaries sent to bring them the gospel of Christ. We want them to "think outside their box." Through this focus on others, we teach to follow Christ's example of compassion and service to others.



All the Children of the World by Karen Mesek Leimert is a book that highlights twelve children from various countries, in addition to the United States. It describes how they live and important cultural distinctions, giving parents a great starting point for discussion. The illustrations are amazing, as well! You may find a new copy at biblio.com or search for a used copy at amazon.com. I found mine at the used book store.


From Abeku to Zapotec by June Hathersmith is a book that we read a part of the Sonlight Curriculum. The subtitle is "a book of Bibleless peoples." From A to Z, it highlights 26 peoples around the world that still do not have the Bible translated into their language, from the Abeku and Zapotec peoples to the Kulango and Safwa peoples. It gives a brief description of the people accompanied by beautiful illustrations by Alice Roder.

Blessings!

8 comments:

rcsnickers said...

My SIL got All the Children from the library. It was so interesting to read about the cultures and foods. I have not heard of Akebu to Zapotec. I will have to get that one. Thanks for adding it to your review today!

Letisha

Elise @A Path Made Straight said...

Oh, good - I love books that teach! These sound great, Kelly, thanks!

Anonymous said...

These sound great! Do you think they are appropriate for a 5 year old?

Delete said...

Kelly,

I love Sonlight's books. We don't use their curriculum but I often use their suggested readings to select books for my girls. I was so excited about your review of All the Children that I went to Amazon and ordered a copy. With shipping it was $5.36! The description says that it is in very good brand new condition and is a hardback. I can't wait to receive it!

Blessings-
Jenny
Little Acorns Treehouse

Stacy said...

Kelly,

I'm with Jenny. I've got to get these books! I checked but our library doesn't carry them, but I'll add them to my wish list at Amazon!

Thank you for posting about such wonderful, purposeful books!

~Stacy

Cyndi said...

I have been reading through "From Akebu to Zapotec" to the children in our Family Bible Fellowship (Sunday School class) and we have loved it! I recently came across an article by a man who's been working with a people group (the Umeda, I believe) that is in the book, who had been seeing an amazing breakthrough and God doing some awesome things among them. He heard about the book through Wycliffe and found out that unbeknownst to him, thousands of children had been praying for them. I love how our kids can truly have an impact through prayer like that!

PS- I nominated you for a Thinking Blogger award! Come visit and find out the details. :)

Mike said...

All the Children of the World seems to be a great book. I should check that out.


Mike
http://somethingaboutparenting.typepad.com/

Much Ado said...

Oh, these look like great books, I want to be able to teach our kids similar things.....and especially since we are adopting from China.