We finished a great, true to life read-aloud last week called Treasures of the Snow. It's a book about a family in Switzerland and how a thoughtless, unkind deed renders their young son lame. The older daughter, really a mother to the young son, is filled with feelings of hatred to the boy who caused the accident and the story chronicles their lives as the daughter works through her feelings and sees the need to forgive and love as Christ loves. St. John deftly weaves many scriptural truths into the story line, and we can appreciate both the daughter's feelings of anger and the other boy's road to redemption. The text can get to be a little wordy at times, and I don't know that my kiddos would have kept on with it on their own, but it was a memorable read-aloud. Josh liked it quite a bit and Hannah not quite so much. Definitely far superior to so much of the fluff stuff available today...you will come away a bit changed by the reading...
On another note...it looks like my folks should be moving here possibly even within the next month! Their house is very close to finished, and they are under contract for their house in CT. God's timing is always perfect as it should be a simple transition into their new home. It will be a nice blessing to have them close by and able to participate in our lives. Here's a recent picture:
