More Books

Watching TV (even making it through a serious season like 24) isn't anywhere near as rewarding as finishing a book! I've been doing a good bit of reading lately and have a few more books to ad to my list.

Baby Care Books:

Don't Make Me Count to Three The other day I was babysitting our friends' child, Thor, and while both he and Grace napped (it was amazing that they both were asleep at the same time!) I picked up their copy of Don't Make Me Count to Three. It is a fantastic book!!! Grace is a little young for discipline but there's no reason not to start learning about it. In this book, Ginger Plowman, shows how she has applied heart-based parenting to raising her children. (Heart-based parenting is the idea of not just training our children to do what is right but to do it in light of the Gospel, always pointing them to Christ. One of the most well-known books on the topic is Shepherding a Child's Heart by Tedd Tripp. It is on my "to-read" list and is the book that Don't Make Me Count to Three is kind of based on.) Don't Make Me Count to Three is so practical and helpful. Ginger Plowman walks her readers through several examples of how she uses questions to get at the heart behind her children's behavior and to help them understand what they did, why they did it and what they should have done. She is amazing at using the words of Scripture to instruct and correct her children. I was inspired to start memorizing many of those verses now in preparation for needing to use them at the spur of the moment to train Grace.

Christian Non-Fiction:

Fields of the Fatherless I picked up this book at Mom 2 Mom at our church (a MOPs-type ministry to mothers of preschoolers) during a talk on adoption. Both Zane and I read it. It's not the deepest Christian book but discusses a very important topic of being obedient to God in caring for those who need it most. It has challenged our family to reach out more and actually is one of the reasons we decided to help my friend Tina by keeping her son a few days a week.

What a Difference a Daddy Makes I just finished this book last night. Last fall, Zane and I read Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters in preparation for having a little girl. Our good friends, the Dickens, loaned it to us. What a Difference a Daddy Makes is similar but written by a Christian dad (and well-known psychologist). I learned a lot. I am so thankful for the wonderful Daddy I have and fully confident that Zane will be a tremendous dad to our little girl! I mean, just look at them...




Fiction:

Anne of Avonlea and Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery.  I have continued listening to the Anne of Green Gables saga during my days at home.  I've been listing at Librivox, a website that has free audio recordings of books in the public domain.  I don't think I need to write a review of these.  If you haven't read them you should, period.