Honey for a Child's Heart: A Recommendation

I just finished reading Honey for a Child's Heart (The Imaginative Use of Books in Family Life) by Gladys Hunt. It is a quick read, about 4 hours, and very encouraging. I believe I first heard of the book from Nancy Wilson's blog Femina . She had recommended it for a book on books and also linked to Ms. Hunts current blog by the same name Honey for a Child's Heart. I link to her post on Christmas books since that is timely.

I finished this book after two evenings of reading on the couch with Wyatt. It was nice to dialogue on our own experiences of books from our childhood. We had quite different experiences with books. This book brought back many fond memories of countless hours at the library and reading.

Honey for a Child's Heart advocates books as being a fundamental part of the family. She recounts how reading books aloud was a daily part of her family. I was quite impressed that her family read the Bible every meal (3 times a day) and additionally read other books aloud each evening. This is a traditional that was passed down through generations of her family.

She includes a chapter on "Making Decisions About Books". She emphasizes that there are so many good books at each maturity level that you don't want to rush your child into reading higher level books just to see how advanced she is in reading. She also discusses building a child's library and the influence that owned books have over ones just borrowed from the library. Seattle has exceptional second hand book stores and thrift stores, so we have been fortunate to build up our own library. One of our favorite family activities is going to the bookstore.

Ms. Hunt includes a large reading list at the end of book that is helpful for choosing good books. I had fun going through it and reminiscing on some of my childhood favorites. Wyatt uses a reading list that has been very helpful while hunting at Half Price Books. I recently brought home several books I found at Goodwill by B.B. Warfield including one missing from his reading list. Wyatt called me the Proverbs 31 woman for the rest of the day, I don't think anything else would have made him happier!

Encouragement from the book: The choice will sometimes be between a clean house with television as morning baby-sitter or a partially clean house, no telephone conversations, and a half-hour of sharing a picture book.