My children have loved the YWAM Publishing books for years! Our introduction to these books began at a missions conference. There, you could purchase entire sets of these books for a discounted price. So I did. I bought an entire series of missionary books. My children were not terribly interested in them, so I sweetened the pot by bribing the girls with a huge payment of $1 per book. I figured if they read all 20, I would owe them each 20 dollars, and it would be well worth it. Well, I was not surprised when they started reading the books, discovered that they really loved them, and then told me not to bother with the payments. 🙂 Mommy bribery for the win!
I, too fell in love with the books and read the entire set.
Then when my daughter had to write her “Literary Autobiography” for college, here is what she said:
When I was 7, my mother bribed me with $1.00 for every book that I read of a series entitled Christian Heroes: Then and Now. I read Hudson Taylor first, and quickly became addicted. I would read one of these books in one or two days. They strongly influenced my desire to become a missionary.
My favorite book in this series was about Nate Saint. His faithful ministry, even to the point of death, inspired me in my faith.
Now, in addition to being strongly influenced by these books as a young learner, she was also introduced to C.S. Lewis, who has sense become her favorite author.
My favorite author is C. S. Lewis. In elementary school, I listened to Narnia on tape with my sister. When I reache
d middle school, I tried to read Mere Christianity. Due to its level of difficulty, I took three tries to get through it. Then, I was hooked. I began reading many of his books, including Screwtape Letters, The Space Trilogy, and An Experiment in Criticism. I still read C.S. Lewis’ books today.
So, when we were given the chance to review Christian Heroes, Then and Now, C.S. Lewis, we eagerly agreed. This was the best of both worlds- A book series we loved, coupled with one daughter’s favorite author. This particular daughter, however, is already graduating from home school this year, and was not quite the age to read this book in the middle of a very busy semester, so we had David (age 11) do it. Let me begin by admitting that David is not as voracious a reader as his sisters. But he does still enjoy reading. I did not bribe him, but I did make this into required reading, for 30 minutes per day. He can easily finish a book this size in a week reading it daily.
In addition to the book, I was provided with a Digital Unit Study to use as well. This unit study was downloadable. As a busy mom with several I am homeschooling, it is not always possible for me to keep up with everyone’s reading and check for comprehension and understanding.
The unit study contained many useful elements:
- This not only covered the book itself, but also how this particular book in the series fit in among all the other books in the series.
- A variety of writing projects
- Hands-on Activities
- Comprehension questions
- Suggestions for enrichment activities
. I really would love to take the time this summer to get this back out and complete more of them, but for now, we had to move forward and complete it.
I can’t say enough good things about this series, and this particular book. They inspire my children, and they inspire me. In every case, the children reading the books would come and share interesting things they have learned because the book is written in a very engaging style that they love. Although Anne Mary read these when she was 7, I would say that for the most part, I would recommend them for children a little older (say, age 10). And they were engaging to me as an adult. I love that the stories tell about the life of the person from their childhood, and even shares things that one might expect the series to gloss over. For example, in many of the books, the person would have had struggles with their faith, or suffered many personal losses. This is also true in the case of C.S. Lewis, suffering not only the loss of his mother at a young age, but also a long struggle with his faith and his rejection of Christianity, only to come back to it later in life. These books help students to see the reality- we all have struggles and make mistakes. All Christians have times of wrestling through the intellectual and emotional parts of what it means to be a Christian. As a mom, I appreciate the opportunities to discuss these times and let our students know it is okay to question things and to seek wisdom.
