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Hi,

Does anyone have any experience with christian missionary biographies for kids? my ds5 is doing LHFHG this year and I'm trying to build up my book list for next year, and wanted to use christian missionary biographies as read alouds... So far I've found two sets of series, one the trailblazer books by david and neta Jackson, and the other is the books by ywam publishing, christian heroes now & then. Does anyone know if these are well written for a read aloud, and would they be appropriate for 6 years old? Would they work well with beyond?

Also, does anyone know any good living books on David or the apostle Paul?

Thanks very much!

Yen
Ds5 LHFHG
Ds1

You are ahead of your time I think . It's great though that you are looking ahead to what you can read and ways to inspire your children in loving the Lord. Missionary Stories with the Millers is one that we read, it has short stories in it that are very appropriate for 1st grade or so. I think the Christian Heroes are scheduled in the Preparing guide, at least one of the books, look at the Preparing packages for that. Which means, it might be a good read-aloud for 2nd grade or so, but if you continue using HOD then it would not be good to read that before Preparing, it's better for them to see it as new material.

The issue with some of these missionary stories I am finding, even though they are inspiring as far as the missionaries' faith and seeing God work in mighty ways, there are some things that it would be hard to discuss with a very young child. Pagan religions, human sacrifice, cannibalism, war. Not that I don't think you should read about them but K or 1st grade might be a bit young for it. I prefer literature that inspires us to the good instead of having to explain such strong evil to them at this point. Every parent has their own preference and wisdom on what is best for their own children though.

Part of post removed per board rules by board moderator. They had three books in their literature program dedicated to Chrisitan missionaries: Christians Courageous, Christians with Courage, and Children's Missionary Library. They are geared for younger children to read 2-5th grades so they don't go into details you might not want to discuss with a six year old but offer up the stories of God's missionaries. Each chapter is a brief overview of the missionaries and each book is more detailed than the previous. We have them in our personal library despite not using the curriculum.
Christians Courageous by Anne E. Schraff: Jedidah Smith, Elijah Lovejoy, Sojourner Truth, Joseph Brant-Thayendanegea, and Clara Barton
Christians with Courage by Ruth Johnson Jay: John Hudson Taylor, Wilfred Grenfell, H.A. Ironside, John Knox, William Booth, Charles T. Studd, Martin Luther, John G, Paton, Adoniram Judson, John Wesley, Billy Sunday, Robert Moffat, Charles Spurgeon, and David Brainerd
Children's Missionary Library by Vernon Howard and Alice Bostram: Hudson Taylor, Wilfred Grenfell, David Brainerd, John G. Paton, Ann Judson, Pandita Ramabai, and David Livingstone

I've read Missionary Stories with the Millers to my daughter this year and a few of the stories are scary but it's probably the best option for the age of your child. It's easy to skip a chapter if it would be too much for a child. I've been collecting the YWAM series. They are well-written. My 10 y/o son reads them on his own and I've read a couple aloud to my 7 y/o. I think some (maybe most) of them have difficult subjects for that young age. Some really hard things happen to the missionaries and they don't all have happy endings. If you're looking ahead to the future, then by all means start picking them up, but I wouldn't read them to a 5 year old.

I would really recommend the Miller Family series for young kids, each story has a Bible verse that the family applies.

Since living books are generally historical fiction, I would not want a book about real Biblical figures because the author would have to make up events and conversations and that would be going beyond the Scriptures.

Wow, thank you so much for these responses! MelInKansas, haha, I didn't know they were scheduled in Preparing, I guess that means we can just old off on some of these books! but thanks too, ladies, for the other book options, looking forward to checking them out. I do remember Carrie explaining about holding off on explaining things like pagan worship and other extremely negative stuff until the kids are older, so i guess it might be easier just to go ahead and use the book sets that she recommends!

Also, good point about historical fiction and bible characters, luv2homeschool, I guess I never thought of it that way. Thanks for pointing that our!

One of the YWAM books-Gladys Aylward-is recommended as a read-aloud in Beyond. We enjoyed it very much!

Part of post removed by board moderator per board rules. Adoniram Judson is one I specifically remember reading when my son was in 1st grade.

Ladies,

I'm going to close this topic out, just because we try to stick to discussing books actually recommended in the HOD guides on the HOD forum. Beyond has 3 wonderful sets of books meant to allow you to customize your read alouds that way. While missionary stories are truly wonderful, we do encourage waiting to read many of them until your kiddos are older and more grounded in their faith, simply due to the mature themes in many of the stories.

You'll actually see quite a few missionary biographies come up all along the HOD path, so I would recommend sticking to the Beyond suggestions and waiting to read the missionary biographies until they come up in the various guides.

Blessings,
Carrie

Thanks for clearing things up, Carrie! I guess I just got a bit too excited when I ran into some missionary biographies, hehe but your explanation makes sense about waiting til the kiddos are older. thanks very much for the time you put in arranging book recommendations for our kiddos' levels and needs!