Some Good Children's Literature

Lately Marian and the boys have especially enjoyed several books by Geraldine McCaughrean (pronounced "Ma - cork - run"). She is a British author whose specialties are mythology and children's literature. Her retellings of classic stories are excellent. They have read Hercules, Pilgrim's Progress, Moby Dick, and several of Shakespeare's plays. Additionally she has some excellent adaptations of Bible stories.  The Jesse Tree is one such title they enjoyed.  A Jesse tree is a depiction of Jesus' family tree in wood, stone, or stained glass so that the unlettered might learn.  She writes in her introduction:

A priest could point to the figures or symbols an tell the stories of those Old Testament kings, prophets, heroines, warriors.  And the tree itself served to show how the New Testament grew out of the Old Testament; how, for Christians, the birth of Jesus was not just a beginning, but a completion.  He was the flowering of a tree planted long before, by God's own design.  By tracing his earthly ancestry back to King David and beyond, it was easy to see Jesus as a real historical figure.

I even appreciate how she laments the "Puritan vandals" of the seventeenth century who attempted to destroy these Jesse trees in their attempt to eradicate all "graven images." Someone needed to say it.
The book is the wonderful interplay of a young boy who comes upon an old man who is making a Jesse tree at a church. The boy is full of questions for which the old man hasn't the time; but he begins to tell the boy the stories behind the symbols on the tree.   We look forward to reading many more of McCaughrean's books.  There is a link at the bottom of the right sidebar to many of her books on Amazon.  Take a look!