Toddlers love books!! Shouldn't we all say that about ourselves? I do believe so. Yet, toddlers (my Rylee included), love to be read to. They enjoy talking about the pictures in the books, sounding out the animal names, etc. When Rylee was born a good friend of the family gave us a large picture book by Richard Scarry. Many of you know Richard Scarry through the anthropomorphic animals riding in silly cars and doing things that normal humans doing (except that one scene where a group of pigs go out looking for some ham). Anyway, I cannot help but love his books also. His book entitled, Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks form A to Z is a piece of sheer wonder! In this title, all of the animals are riding in cars that best relate to their character and their overall stereotypes. My favorite is the bananamobile. Can you picture a gray bearded monkey in a red baseball cap riding in a banana shaped mobile while eating a banana and tossing the peel casually to the side. Ingenious! This illustration reminds me of those banana shaped bicycle seats kids would ride (I stayed away from those seats with all my power due to the fear of being racked on a sudden stop). Anyway, if I ever saw a monkey riding a bananamobile I would probably keel over laughing, Another car that is fascinating in the book is the toothpaste car. Of course, a little mouse is driving this one (everyone knows that mice and toothpaste go together, go figure?). I have the image of a car not being able to slow down and slamming into the toothpaste car in which the result is a smattering of toothpaste coming out onto the closest nearby car. These kind of weird exchanges are absolutely hilarious!
The Romance of Grace by Jim McNeely III To be honest, when I received this book in the mail I had visions of what it might be like with a title like, ‘The Romance of Grace.’ The emotional rollercoaster and one-sided perspective on how our emotions fuel our faith was my presumption about the book, but this was the furthest thing from the truth as I started reading. The Romance of Grace by Pastor Jim McNeely III is a careful look at the movements of grace in the way God pursues us with his love and his desire to get us to love him back. McNeely writes, “We are entering a cosmic romance with a passionate lover, and He is interested in our heart’s truest desire. His deepest objective isn’t to make us more moral; it is to get us to love Him back. Virtue is the fruit, not the root” (18). Why is this helpful? For one thing, beginning with God’s initiating grace frees us from starting out on the wrong foot in the way we tell the story and...
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