Some books we are enjoying

We really enjoy reading books as a family, and I only wish we had more free time to read even more, but these are a few we are enjoying together at the moment.

A friend had given me the idea to memorize a whole book. It is something I have thought about in the past too, but have never given it a go. I remembered a sermon by youth pastor, Rick Holland about how he and one of his young peoples groups memorized the book of James. He recommended memorizing the book of James because of the wonderful opportunity to have such a practical book stored in memory but also because it is one of the shorter ones, and so easier. We started memorizing it together, and the children picked it up faster than me, but I realized pretty quickly that some of it was just memorization with no understanding, and that kind of memorization was not likely to stick for very long, and so we embarked on studying the book of James together. I picked up this great children's commentary from Day One publications and I only wish they had this for every book of the Bible, the children are really enjoying it.
The next book purchase was inspired by a wonderful testimony we heard at our church a few months back. The book, The Case for Christ was brought up and highly recommended, so when I looked I was really surprised to see that the author had written a children's version too. It is basically apologetics for children, and the girls have already seen how beneficial it is. They do come up against friends who don't believe and have had a few arguments thrown their way, this book will help to equip them to deal with these situations better, and provide them with clearer answers, based on the Bible to help explain Christianity more clearly.
And we have just finished Corrie Ten Boom, Christian Heroes book. This has actually led us on to our next study - Holland. It could've led us on to WW2, but I think that would be more appropriate when they are older. We are really enthusiastic to learn about Holland, and if we are fortunate enough, we hope to take a short holiday there this year.