BJU Press Blog

Ben

Reading for Boys

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reading for boys

When I was six, I hated reading. All I wanted to do was build forts with sticks and gather lots of pinecone hand grenades. It didn’t help that most of the books around the house related to my older sister’s passion for a certain brand of dolls. But, eventually, due to my mother’s persistence, I developed an enthusiasm for reading.

Years later, I still enjoy reading, but as a father of three daughters, I don’t often think about reading options for boys. But my friend and BJU Press illustrator Zack does. In fact, he says that reading education is geared towards girls and that often boys are alienated. His helpful blog post is worth reading in full, but one paragraph is particularly important:

Publishers themselves provide a few obstacles to male literacy. Simply put, publishers target girls more than boys because girls share and recommend books. Boys typically read in isolation from one another. Boy-friendly publishing brings greater financial risks than girl-friendly publishing. . . .  This is easily rectified. If books that honor boyhood sell a bunch of copies, publishers will produce more. This means that parents have to be discerning consumers and reward publishers who take boy-friendly risks.”

Thankfully, when I was a boy, my parent’s provided me with books that honor boyhood. My mother was always looking for fiction books that I would appreciate and that would not threaten my walk with the Lord. Here are four titles that I enjoyed when I was younger and that parents can provide for their boys today.

A Father’s Promise

A book I read several times, A Father’s Promise tells the story of a Christian Jew named Rudi, who must survive the Nazi occupation of Poland. Rudi’s close escapes into the woods were my favorite part.

Mice of the Herring Bone

This is a fantastic adventure story about two mice that sail the high seas and frequently encounter pirates. I loved Mice of the Herring Bone and the other four books in the series! When my cousin was struggling with reading, we shared these books with him, and he loved them too.

Pulling Together

As a family struggles to keep their farm, a young boy named Matthew watches his father’s resourcefulness and strength. In the final pages of Pulling Together, the family’s hope rides on their work horses in an exciting local fair competition.

Zoli’s Legacy

Based on a true story, Zoli’s Legacy centers on a young man in post–World War I Hungary who is seeking a path to success in a nation devastated by war. Even though my dad read this book to me at a time when I still hated reading, I enjoyed the account of Zoli’s journey to manhood.

These are a few of my favorite stories for boys. What are some of your favorites?

Three Reasons to Teach History Chronologically

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Maybe I’m the only one who has this experience, but sometimes when I start telling someone a story about one of my daughters, I see a confused look on the person’s face. Realizing that I’ve left out some critical background information, I backtrack. Once it seems my audience understands, I jump back into the flow of my story, but suddenly moving through time causes them more confusion. Soon the interest and the point of my anecdote is lost.

Teaching history is a lot like that. If you jump around, it can get confusing and seem pointless. That’s why history is best presented chronologically through a textbook—from the beginning of time and progressing in order up to the present. Here are three reasons why teaching history chronologically is best for our children.

It encourages their interest.

When you teach history chronologically, you will find compelling human drama. When told beginning to end, history has conflict, interesting characters, and dramatic reversals. Chronological teaching leads to narrative that is far more fascinating than a string of dates and bold terms. Narrative communicates that history is full of real people making interesting choices.

timelines2

It provides them clarity.

One of the current trends in public education is to abandon the chronological approach in favor of a thematic approach to teaching history. For example, a teacher could present a unit on “the American identity” and crisscross history to determine what that identity is. This might be helpful for history students in a graduate-level seminar, but not for young children who are just being introduced to history.

Barbara Tuchman, one of my favorite historians, argues that the goal of history is to present the past as it really happened: “Chronological narrative is the spine and the blood stream that bring history closer to ‘how it really was.’”1

That makes complete sense. We live life in an ongoing succession of time. How else can we honestly and clearly present the past except for progressing from one event to the next chronologically? You can also help your children clearly understand history by presenting the chronology visually (i.e., with a timeline).

It develops their critical thinking.

In teaching history, we have the opportunity to develop our children’s critical thinking skills. Chronology presents the best way to develop those skills. When we study a major event, say the Civil War, we start with all of the events and people that contributed to the hostilities between the North and the South. By telling the stories of these people and events, we present the causes of the war. After the war, there are more people and events. These are the effects of the war. This approach teaches our children that events have causes and effects—a concept they can apply to the present. Where are events going? What are the likely effects of this choice? Chronological presentation of history prepares children to do the kind of analysis that will help them become wise citizens.

When something interesting or funny happens at home, I want to share it with my friends at work or church. But if I don’t plan out the presentation of the personal experience, those listening to my story often lose interest, get confused, or fail to see the joke. Teaching history requires the same kind of careful planning. Browse our history series, called Heritage Studies. It provides that careful chronological approach.

1. Practicing History (New York: Random House, 1982), 9.

The Creation Blessing

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Often when I leave for work, I say goodbye to my wife and children by offering good wishes. Have you ever thought about the common phrase “have a nice day”? Grammatically, it’s an imperative or command like “be good!”  The way it looks on paper it could be followed up with “or else” as in “have a nice day or else . . .” But no one ever says it that way. We say it more like “may you have a nice day.” We’re actually blessing one another in the form of a command.

Divine Blessing

In Genesis 1:28 we read about a blessing given in the form of a command. After creating humans male and female in His own image, God blessed them. The wording of this blessing is a command; so we often refer to it as the Creation Mandate.

Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

The-Garden-of-Eden

Divine Command

Unlike our good wishes, God’s blessing carries the weight of a command. We shouldn’t resist His blessing from Genesis 1:28 and expect things to go well for us. For example, in Genesis 11 Noah’s descendants rejected God’s command and all gathered in one place to build the tower of Babel. As a result of their sin, God confused their language and sent the people throughout the world.

Unbelievers can share in God’s blessing by following the Creation Mandate. In fact, many do. In BJU Press science and math textbooks, we highlight how scientists and mathematicians use their knowledge of God’s world to “have dominion.” They use their skill to care for the creation and use the creation for others’ benefit. Many of those professionals following the Creation Mandate are experiencing the common grace of God’s creation blessing in their lives.

Divine Reach

Because I’m human, the blessings I speak are little more than well-wishing. I may say, “I hope you have a nice day.” But while I’m at work, I have little immediate control over what happens at home, and some days my wife feels overwhelmed. In contrast, God’s blessing on the first man and woman had power behind it to confer that blessing on all of humanity.

God’s power is infinite, so His action in Genesis 1:28 reaches through time and space to all people. Not even the Fall overthrew His blessing to fill the earth and exercise dominion. The long line of impressive civilizations throughout history with all their remarkable achievements, technological advancements, and beautiful artwork evidences God’s power and kindness to humanity expressed in His first words to mankind.

As parents, we have a tremendous opportunity to demonstrate God’s blessing. We get to teach our children how to follow God’s blessing to care for the world. Since our teaching is influenced by the textbooks we use, it’s important to choose a homeschool curriculum that reinforces the truth of God’s creation blessing.

How Can Illustrations Be Used to Engage Your History Student?

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Right outside the BJU Press art department, the room is lit with the glow of florescent light bulbs. But when I cross the threshold into the artists’ workroom, I find myself in a room without much artificial lighting. Instead, large windows allow natural sunlight to illuminate illustrators, ceramic artists, fiber artists, and their work. In the far corner of the room, close to the window is Zach’s desk. His workspace is dotted with illustrations he has done.

Zach is one of the illustrators working on a new edition of Heritage Studies 5, a fifth-grade history textbook from BJU Press. His artwork does more than add to the beauty of the book, it enhances your child’s education.

BJU Press engages with illustrations of Plymouth colony and watering jar

Artifacts in Their Historical Place

Zach pulls up several of his illustrations on the computer to show me. One textbook page shows a woman from Plymouth holding a water jug over an herb garden. On the left there is a photograph of the illustrated artifact.

“The depiction of the watering jug is direct and depicts the simplicity and genius of the jug in a way that text alone could never do.” Zach explains. The illustration transports us back in time to see what life was like at Plymouth. A photograph alone could show only small pieces of life. Illustrations give us opportunities to expand our understanding.

04-colonial-b-whaEmotional Connection to History

Elsewhere on our blog, Zach has explained the emotional impact of illustrations. It’s an impact that text alone is incapable of portraying. So when Heritage Studies 5 takes up the subject of the American colonists’ emotional state leading up to the Revolutionary War, text needs the support of pictures. Zach created a series of nine three-inch-tall colonists reacting to the acts of the English government. As the text describes successive grievances that lead to the revolution, the colonist moves from shock, to disbelief, to anger until he shouts: “This means war!”

“Illustrations free the student to perceive information as not only factual, but also emotional.” Zach says. “They work hand-in-hand with maps, photos, and text to create a collaborative experience where artistic disciplines are woven together to form an immersive tapestry of history.”

History books should be accurate in the information they convey. History textbooks should also engage children so that they understand an event, remember it, and make use of it. As illustrations work in conjunction with text, maps, photographs, and informational graphs they empower children with a desire to better understand the event. All the art and information develop interest and insight into the setting, circumstances, and surrounding emotions of what they’re studying.

Returning to the tapestry metaphor, Zach argues: “A tapestry is worth more than the cost of spools thread: just as the act of weaving thread creates value, the act of weaving artistic disciplines [together] creates value for the child.”

To see more of Zach’s work in Heritage Studies 4, click on “Look Inside the Book.”

It Is God That Teaches

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daffodil in the grass

“For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him” (Isaiah 28:26).

My family recently received some flower bulbs to plant. The package told us to plant them in early spring. Of course, our children wanted to plant the bulbs right away and asked why we needed to wait.

“Because the package says to wait or the flowers will die in the ground.”

“How does [the package] know when to plant?”

I really didn’t have a good answer for my daughter. Actually, I myself don’t know how farmers figured out when to plant different bulbs. But the Lord knows. In Isaiah 28, He asks the people of Israel a rhetorical question. To paraphrase the question, God asks the people of Israel if farmers prepare the earth by plowing and then plant different seeds in their appointed places (Isaiah 28:24–25). The answer is, of course, yes. That’s what good famers do.

If you asked those farmers who taught them to carefully prepare for harvest, they would probably say, “My father and his father before him.” But God declares that He is the one who instructs the farmers how to plant their crops (Isaiah 28:26).

Careful Attention to Creation

So how exactly did farmers learn how to effectively grow crops? The Lord didn’t reveal these methods in the Bible. In the beginning, God created the world to function in certain ways. Even after the Fall, God’s world works in predictable ways. When farmers pay careful attention to creation, they learn to use it to serve their needs. So every farmer who discovered an effective way to produce crops learned from God’s good creation.  Or in the words of Isaiah 28:29, every one of these advances “cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working.” Yes, the farmers learned from their fathers, but that knowledge ultimately came from God.

God Teaches in Education 

The instructions for planting and caring for my family’s new bulbs come from skilled horticulturalists, who have learned from God by studying His world. If we follow their instructions in the spring, we’ll enjoy beautiful flowers.

And the same principle applies to other knowledge. When we open a science book or math worktext, we’re beginning to learn about how God has ordered creation. Have you learned about gravity and long division? Have you mastered an algebraic formula or dissected a fish? When we do, we’re learning from God.

When Christians, including children, study with faith in the Creator, they’re worshiping Him. For it is God that teaches.