Honey for a Child's Heart

This is the book by Gladys Hunt that started me on this introspective journey. A friend from church gave it to me right after the birth of my new baby girl. I'm not usually much of self-help book reader and I figured I was already doing really well reading to my children. I honestly didn't expect to get much out of it, but instead, found lots of great suggestions. The first edition of this book was published in the 60s, but has been updated and republished a few times. The newest edition was published in 2002 and talks about such recent books as the Harry Potter series. I would say that Mrs. Hunt's comments are classic, so despite the fact that she's a woman probably in her 70s by now, I find everything so relevant. She's obviously a big Tolkien and C.S. Lewis fan, so I was pleased to see that she wasn't some sort of purist, that no children's book should have fantastical elements. Her requirement is that it is a good book, worthy of reading. She's got a section on reading poetry, which I hadn't realized I totally was neglecting with my children. One chapter is on reading the Bible and Bible stories to your kids, which I thought was great. The creme de la creme was the annotated book list in the last half of the book. She categorizes books by type and age group. I've decided that I have to take it with me to the library so I can start going through the list with it in my hand. I literally read every single book title in the annotated lists. Everytime I saw one that I already owned, I mentally patted myself on the back. And when I was done reading the book, I had a renewed desire to read wonderful books to my children. That counts as a good read, I think.