Grace and Truth Books Review -TOS

Through the Schoolhouse Review Crew I was able to choose one of ten books from Grace and Truth Books.  This wonderful source for books has hundreds to choose from for the whole family.  As I browsed their site I saw several that I would love to have.  It was hard for me to choose from even the list of ten that we were given.  I wanted our family to be able to enjoy them all!  I finally did choose one title.

Collectors Edition: 7 Favorite 19th Century Children’s Stories is what we ended up with.  It contains seven stories for children from the 1800’s.  I finally decided on this book because the stories are appropriate for all of us to read and enjoy at home as well as at our Civil War Reenactments.  I find it to be very difficult to find stories that my children can enjoy when we are at reenactments and love that with a simple book jacket or period material this book will work wonderfully!

The book we received is geared towards children ages 8-14 and can be purchased right now for $6.50(normally priced at $7.50 but on sale currently). 

Of the seven stories in this book my children’s favorite was the story of The Good Shepherd.  We have a song that the kids love to sing that is about the good Shepherd and His sheep.  One of the verses includes saying that you’re a little lost sheep and baa’ing.  I secretly think that is their main reason for loving the song, but back to the stories!  In The Good Shepherd you meet a little girl who lives with her grandfather in the mountains. Below them lives a shepherd who gets out in a horrible snow storm to go check on his sheep.  Sheep of course are not the smartest animals and tend to put them in spots where they will die if the shepherd doesn’t take care of them(having sheep ourselves we know this to be true).  But sadly, the shepherd never comes back down the hill.  After the storm subsides they find him dead with the little lamb he was attempting to save.  My children summed up this story by telling me that because the shepherd loved the lamb he risked his own life to save it.  When I asked who this reminded them of they quickly replied with Jesus.

We enjoyed using this book as part of our devotionals before bedtime.  My husband or I would read them a story(or a chapter in the longer ones) and we’d discuss it.  Finding the meaning in the story and how we could use it in our life today.  I feel that my children have learned from this book and that as they grow older they will continue to learn more from it as they are able to comprehend and apply more of the lessons to their own lives.

The seven stories included in this book are:

1)  Farmer Goodwin’s Rule- “Never do anything during the day which it will grieve you to think about at night“
2)  Ruth’s Reward
3)  Little Bill at the Pump
4)  Who is a Coward?
5)  The Lost Lamb
6)  The Good Shepherd
7)  The Death of Emily

To read about the other books that were offered up from Grace and Truth Books for The Crew to review please go to The TOS Crew site and look around.  You will also find a linky on that page that will take you to all the other reviews to offer indepth looks at the ten books!