At Christmas, bookshops stock a lot of stories about Santa, and at Easter, you can’t avoid bunnies and chocolate. If you’re looking to balance that with picture books telling the original Easter story of Jesus’ last weeks on earth, here are my top recommendations. Joy Cowley’s The Easter Story [A version of this review first […]
From Rudolf and Santa to Slinky Malinki and the proverbial Pukeko in a Punga Tree, there’s a Christmas picture book for everyone. In most bookshops, though, Baby Jesus is hidden behind Grinches, trains and elves. If you’re in the market for Christmas books for kids that tell the story of God coming into the world as […]
Yay! Advent is my favourite season in the church calendar, and it’s almost here! Actually, Lent was pretty cool this year, too, with our superduper Lent with Kids series, but the inspiration for that came from all the fun and surprisingly helpful things we did at home during Advent. So here we are! I […]
This is an all-in-one post for Week 6 of our Lent with Kids plan. To fill in some background, start here. You can also see the series index here. Charles Dickens could have been writing about Palm Sunday: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of […]
The wonderful Joy Cowley has a lot to say on how to find the sacred in the mundane tasks of housework. Here is her contemporary psalm on the subject, from her collection Psalms Down Under: God of washing, God of unmade beds, God of dented saucepans and worn-out brooms, your presence in the most ordinary […]
I’ve just reviewed a stunningly good Joy Cowley book for the Kiwi Families website: As Easter approaches, and shops are already full of hot cross buns and chocolate eggs, I know plenty of families would like to bring some balance. Exploring the original story of Easter isn’t just for Christian households, either. If you’d like […]