Gifts for Moms, Dads, and Grads
Gifts for Dads
3 Considerations When Reviewing Books Your Children Want to Read
Training for a Lifetime
When my oldest started enthusiastically devouring chapter books, I panicked. How could I know whether the books that interested her were good choices? Was I supposed to preread all her books? Were there resources that could help me? Where should I even start? If you’ve also felt distress over your kids’ book selections, you’re not alone. In fact, this dilemma inspired me to start Good Book Mom. My hope here is to take the mystery out of finding books for your kids that are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and praiseworthy (Phil. 4:8). Despite unsettling headlines about objectional content in bookstores and libraries, true and lovely books are out there—you just need to know where to look.
Before we tackle tips, we first need to acknowledge that training our children to be discerning readers is paramount (Prov. 22:6). When our children leave our homes, we want them to have the skills and experience to be lifelong readers who know how to choose their books wisely. The younger our children, the more we need to shelter them from the lies and depravity the world is all too happy to throw at them. As they grow, we should introduce them to worldly points of view in measured amounts, so we can walk alongside them and hold those ideals and messages up to Scripture. The last thing we want is to send our children out into the world unprepared to hold their biblical worldview against a culture ready to tear it down. This philosophy applies to more than just books; everything we put in front of our minds has influence. My tagline has become “You are what you read,” but it’s been more eloquently stated as “You become what you behold.” As Galatians 6:7 says, “For whatever one sows, that will he also reap.”
Stories Woven in Silver
Kathryn Butler, Korrie Johnson
In this concise guide, author Kathryn Butler and book reviewer Korrie Johnson provide discernment, practical resources, and thoughtful notes on some of Christianity’s most cherished children’s books to foster gospel-centered engagement and conversations with kids.
Three Questions to Ask of Books
As a children’s book reviewer, I’ve found three questions helpful in assessing books that can help kids cultivate discernment in their own reading practices. The following prompts don’t represent a flawless system, nor are they necessary to ask every time you read a book with your kids (how quickly would that kill a love of reading?). Rather, when you see an opportunity, ask one or two of these questions as a starting point to help children think critically about the books they’re reading.
1. What Is the Goal of This Book? (And Is This a Good Goal?)
Most books for young children seem designed for entertainment, but authors rarely write for that purpose alone. More often, authors have a goal. Maybe they want to teach empathy, convey a theological idea, or calm and soothe a child before bed. There are countless goals a book could have; identifying that goal helps us appraise the book through the proper lens.
Some books make their antibiblical goal or agenda quite clear from the cover, and we can bypass them immediately, but others require a bit of investigating. Peruse the text and illustrations. Pay special attention to the first and last pages. What is the author’s aim? If the goal of a book is simply to make a child giggle, you shouldn’t expect to find gospel themes. If a book aims to teach a specific worldview, you’ll need to pay close attention to the author’s language and arguments.
2. Does the Book Achieve Its Goal? (If Applicable, Does It Do So Biblically)?
Does a book accomplish what the author set out to do? Or is the execution lacking, confusing, or unbiblical? Does the book reflect the truths we read in Scripture? For children, cultivating such discernment takes time and guidance. Regularly discuss books with your kids and train them to hold up what they read against God’s word. When your kids encounter books that reflect unbiblical perspectives, seize these opportunities to foster discernment. Ask a question like “What does God’s word say about that?” Then open your Bible and read a relevant passage together. Throughout, point them to the practical wisdom of Philippians 4:8. Teach them to be active readers, always comparing what they read to the truth of Scripture.
3. Does This Book Glorify and Normalize Sin, or Does It Condemn It?
As your children grow older, the books they read will adopt increasingly mature themes. Stories that tackle sin can be instructive as kids age, provided the delicate issues are handled with care. Kids need to read about characters who make mistakes, make poor choices, and do the wrong things. In a fallen world they’ll also have such experiences, and characters who navigate hard moments with integrity can help prepare our kids for similar struggles.
God uniquely selected you to shepherd your children, and he’s uniquely equipped you to determine what’s best for them.
There is a difference, however, between acknowledging sin and glorifying it. As an example of the former, Lois Lowry’s Newbery-winning title, The Giver, tackles hard subjects including euthanasia, murder, sexual thoughts, and more. The book challenges readers with big questions. And yet, while the book confronts such issues, it doesn’t condone sinful actions. Such an approach offers opportunities to guide and instruct readers through difficult scenarios which is particularly needed here as the secular nature of this title lacks a biblical framework for understanding them.
By contrast, many books that populate shelves today glorify sin. How can you identify such books? Sometimes it’s glaringly obvious—so obvious that normalization of sin is the goal of the book, and we can eliminate the title using question 1. As your children grow older and read more fiction titles independently, however, they’ll need to have a keen eye to discern for themselves. How do we equip them?
One helpful strategy is to examine the primary and supporting characters’ attributes. How are the major characters portrayed? Does the author celebrate their rudeness and disrespectfulness as funny? Are their selfish, self-seeking behaviors described as enlightened? Does a character encourage others to sin, and does the author depict such temptations as loving?
All characters may have undesirable traits, but how an author portrays those traits can reveal the tone and possible goal of the book. Having open-ended conversations with your children about these subjects is crucial. At age-appropriate levels, help them identify actions that normalize or applaud sin. Throughout the process, know that you are the keeper of your home, and you get to decide what comes into it. If many believers around you think a certain book is great, but you aren’t comfortable with the content, that is okay. God uniquely selected you to shepherd your children, and he’s uniquely equipped you to determine what’s best for them.
As a final thought, consider the following two questions, which I routinely ask as a reviewer: (1) Does a book offer appropriate content for the target age range? and (2) Is it well-written? The former question helps you determine whether to give a book to a child in the first place. The second helps to foster in our kids a love of language and nourish them as they read more and more on their own. These points can help guide you as you build a home library and as you train your kids to seek out the true, lovely, and worthy.
This article is adapted from Stories Woven in Silver: Pointing Kids to the Gospel Through Children’s Literature by Kathryn Butler and Korrie Johnson.
Related Articles
Careful Bible study helped my seven-year-old grasp God’s work in suffering and our hope in Christ. And once those truths took root, a journey through Middle-earth brought them to life.
7 Tips for Building a Library for Your Children
Children who grow up in homes filled with books also tend to have better attention spans and greater academic success.
Podcast: Unicorns, Allegory, and Stories That Give Us Hope (Kathryn Butler)
Kathryn Butler talks about writing Christian fiction and how she has crafted books that weave together biblical themes and compelling storytelling.
Katie Butler and Korrie Johnson discuss the value and challenges of children’s literature and how to sort through both good and bad themes with your kids.
