(note: this is a guest review from my wife, Christie, who offers a different, and I’d argue, better perspective than I)
The Challenge
Between changing cloth diapers, trying to keep perfectly arched eyebrows and making some homemade vanilla how will I ever find time to teach my children (and myself!) some basic church history? And why(!) would I want to submit myself to said task? It seems like a daunting, boring and unnecessary burden amidst all my other domestic goddess responsibilities. I would never entertain the idea unless our very hip homeschool curriulum penned it in or some really rad mom were to fawn all over the idea thus inspiring me to be just as cool as her. BUT (and you knew that was coming) Erik brought me home this witty little hardback book titled, The Church History ABC’s by Stephen J. Nichols and Ned Bustard.
You Can Judge this Book by Its Cover
The cover is alluring! “OOO,” was all I said as I cracked the stiff cover for the first time. And if the snazzy cover isn’t enough to bait you and keep you hooked, reading even one of the entries will. Each of the 26 memorandums of a church history pioneer is organized in alphabetical order, hence the title “The Church History ABC’s.” They’re short, perky and visually appealing.
The Content
For example for the the letter ‘E’ is says, “E is for eggs, elephants and Johnathan EDWARDS”. A small paragraph follows that tells shorts snippet facts like his having 10 sisters, pinning scraps of cloth to his jacket for memory’s sake, being part of the great awakening, being a missionary to the Mohicans, being president of Princeton and then ends with a thoughtful purpose statement of what Edwards was all about: “Everywhere I went I wanted people to enjoy God and to enjoy what God has made – even spiders.” Each entry is written in first person which easily lends itself to drama or reenactment to completely captivate an audience.
The page dedicated to Edwards has a huge ‘E’ font with him peeking out from behind it chomping on a chocolate bar and a completely gross (LARGE) spider running across the bottom of the page. The font for each letter of the alphabet and person in history is so large that it’s excellent for engaging your little ones! They can trace it with their fingers allowing you to reiterate their abc’s in a kinetic way. While Edward’s page pictured chocolate and a spider each church history hero has pictures which are meant to spur you on to read further than the concise paragraph on the page of that particular person. In the back of the book each individual of the diverse group of men and women are expounded upon. You’ll have to pick this book up to find out why Edwards is pictured with a chocolate bar instead of a diary and quill (plume for you Fancy Nancy readers).
The Conclusion
Amidst sewing my girls some ruffle pants for fall, helping with Algebra II and preparing chicken tikka masla for dinner it turns out I do have time to teach some church history! And I want to! This spellbinding, brisk paced book makes it easy, piques curiosity and allows ones heart to easily submit to learning. All of this while reflecting “the breadth of church history and reminding children that theses great figures of the past were living, breathing people who lived and died for the glory of God.”.
p.s. I don’t think I said that I like the illustrations…I really like the illustrations. There’s the coolest unicycle on the inside cover and, well…you just need to get the book and see for yourself 😀
Discounted copies are available at Westminster Bookstore or trusty old Amazon.com