The DailyAudioBible.com. Its for kids too.

Brian Hardin has been broadcasting a daily reading of the Old Testament, New Testament, The Book of Psalms and Proverbs for more than four year now. This is a great site for adults who want to read the bible from cover to cover in one year, but the website also features a reading for kids, read by his own children. The younger voices appeal to our shorter family members. This is a new and interesting way to expose kids to the bible.

The Daily Audio Bible website also features a community forum where listeners can interact with each other. There is a very comfortable family-like quality. Hardin's organization also works to combat human trafficking abroad and if you are a coffee drinker, purchasing Windfarm coffee will help to support that cause.

If your are interested, visit the link: www.dailyaudiobible.com.

Click on the button that says "listen now" and you can choose to hear the bible in several different languages including Chinese and Hindi.

Its a small world after all.

Lasky's Broken Song

Broken Song. By Kathryn Lasky. Perfection Learning, 2007. 150 pages. Ages: 9-12 or Grades 5-8. ISBN: 978-0756979621.

Order info: http://www.amazon.com/Kathryn-Lasky/e/B000APL6IK/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1

Though she is most recently popular for her children’s series “Guardians of Ga’Hoole, Kathryn Lasky is an incredibly talented author of historical fiction for children. According to her website, the author promises to deliver the same quality in her new animal series, “Wolves of the Beyond.”

On a historical level, Broken Song tells the story of a young Jewish boy who escapes the destruction of his small village in Russia by soldiers of the Czar after the death of his family. Carrying his infant sister to safety, Reuven Bloom displays incredible courage and strength of character.

I applaud Ms. Lasky for providing this genre for our children. Broken Song is written with appropriate emotion and suspense, and will increase a child’s knowledge of the Jewish pogroms that occurred in Russia during the turn of the nineteenth century, and increase sensitivity to the suffering and injustice of minority groups both in the past and the present. 

http://www.kathrynlasky.com/KK/Home.html

GRISHAM'S "THOMAS BOONE; KID LAYWER"

GRISHAM EXPLORES A YOUNGER AUDIENCE

You probably wont hear me sing about the unpredictable storyline or the depth of character development found in the Twilight Series very often, but I would like to share some books with you that I believe are interesting and fun without elements of inappropriate content that some authors use to sell their books to our kids.

So far, I really like John Grisham’s new book about a thirteen-year-old son of two lawyers who runs a no-cost practice on the side. Realistic? Maybe not completely but the possibility that a tween could perform the duties of an adult is quite appealing to that age group and it’s a nice change of pace from the vampires and demon stories that are so common lately.

John Grisham had me with his novel The Testament years ago, but I really applaud his newest title, Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer. I hope he writes more.

AUDIO BOOKS MAKE US HAPPY

Do you enjoy listening to audio books? I love to.  I pop in my earphones while I do housework when the kids aren’t home. An hour or two later I barely know I’ve been working. My children (ages 4-17) enjoy them too. There is an abundance of age appropriate books available for download from sites like iTunes and Audible.com. The local library also has some to lend at no cost. We listen to audio books during long car trips or on rainy days, sometimes when we’re doing yard work, or at night in bed. I value the opportunity our technology has provided to get my kids to read (or listen) to book they otherwise would have passed on the shelf.

Our favorite? The Junie B. Jones series.  Really! The main character of this series written by Barbara Park begins when the vivacious and brutally honest five-year-old starts kindergarten and follows her during the ups and downs of middle childhood. Junie B. ‘s brutal honest and vivid descriptions through the eyes of a child appeal to each one of us and we laugh, sometimes uncontrollably, as we listen to her stories together.

A few years back, a regularly carpooled the kids to school. It was a twenty minute drive each way, and the morning commute was especially quite as the kids slumped sullenly in the back seat. Oh, but on the mornings we had a good audio book playing on the radio, the kids were happier by the time I saluted them out of the car door.

Television Advertising

How much time do your kids spend in front of the T.V. everyday? For my family, its different every day. It depends on what's on, as well as how much energy I have left. Yes. I admit that I've used the tube as a babysitter in order to take a quick refresher nap on the couch, but while raising two biological children, three children our family adopted, and fostering two more, that what my children spend time watching greatly affects the way that children think and behave. I'm not going to cite the numerous scientific studies that attest to this fact. (At least not yet.) I started this blog to share what I've learned first-hand, as well as what I'm still learning about the books, television shows, music marketed to my most  precious and impressionable loved ones.

I often have a hard time finding reviews on the books they bring home from the school library, so I often read them myself. I listen to their music and watch the movies and T.V. shows they find interesting, and I'll share my thoughts on their content here in this blog.

Please feel free to comment on what I have to say. I love to hear from other mothers, fathers, and children too.

Here we go!