Read Aloud Thursday–Little Pilgrim’s Progress by Helen L. Taylor

Hi everyone!  Welcome to Hope Is the Word.  I hope there are at least a few new Read Aloud Thursday (otherwise affectionately known as RAT) participants this week thanks to this week’s Top Ten {Tuesday}.  To all participants, new and old, I am so glad you’re here this week.  Really–you’re what make RAT so wonderful!  I thought today would be a good day to go over a bit of RAT etiquette, something I’ve been meaning to do for a while. Here you go:

• When you enter your link, please, please, please do it in this format.

Blog Name (Book title)

 Example:  Hope Is the Word (Little Pilgrim’s Progress)

 

Doing this makes it possible for readers to quickly decide which links are of interest to them.  It will probably increase the number of hits your link gets.  🙂

• Take a moment and visit someone else’s RAT post if at all possible.  I know how valuable your blogging and blog reading time is, so I get that it’s not always possible.  (In fact, I don’t always get around to every single link.  I try, but sometimes it’s just not possible.)
• Spread the word.  The more folks who participate, the better RAT is.

Now, on to this week’s post!

Way back in March I decided to read Little Pilgrim’s Progress to my girls because while I really wanted to read Pilgrim’s Progress for the Reading to Know Bookclub, I didn’t have the amount of quiet time or concentration necessary to work through John Bunyan‘s classic.  I read Little Pilgrim’s Progress by Helen L. Taylor as a child and loved it, so I knew my girls would enjoy it.  In general I try to avoid abridgements and paraphrases.  However, I’m also coming to appreciate a story that will enable them to approach a classic work later with much less fear and trembling.  I hope that reading Christian’s and Christiana’s stories in this child-friendly format will turn into investments in future intellectual and spiritual pursuits.  While this story is a rather ponderous allegory, I have to say that it is exciting and suspenseful and that my girls always wanted me to read just one more chapter.  There’s plenty of danger and evil and trouble and toil in this story, of course, but ultimately there’s wonderful victory and triumph for the Pilgrims.  I found myself tearing up at several of the instances in the story and wishing myself that life were as clear-cut as an allegory.  😉  As for the spiritual implications of the story, I tried very hard not to lecture or point things out to my girls, which I think is the biggest danger in a story like this.  I’d rather have their imaginations furnished with all the pictures this wonderful story provides  (Christian losing his burden at the cross; the dangers of Vanity Fair; the bravery of Greatheart; you know) at this stage in their moral, spiritual, and intellectual development than overburden them with the meanings.  As Charlotte Mason herself said in volume five of her works,

We miss the general principle that critical studies are out of place until the mind is so “thoroughly furnished” with ideas that, of its own accord, it compares and examines critically. 

Of course, the fact that this is an adaptation (albeit a good one) would probably disqualify it for use by Charlotte Mason herself.  😉  At any rate, the girls found this adaptation challenging enough.  The only problem, if it can be called that, that I had with the story is that the very short chapters actually made it more difficult to get through, I think.  It was way too convenient (though truthfully, often necessary, with the DLM and his interruptions) to stop after a few pages.  Of course, this might also be considered a plus, so I guess this is just a bit of FYI.  I guess the most telling proof that this was a winner at the House of Hope is that Lulu, a rather discriminating reader (at times), took it when we finished Christian’s story and finished the rest–Christiana’s story–in no time.  Now that’s a good story.  I really consider this story a must-read for Christians–really, it’s a must-read for anyone who wishes to be an “educated” person.  I’m glad my girls have a headstart on this story.  (Moody Press)

Related links:

• Review of The Pilgrim’s Progress at Reading to Know 
• Review of Pilgrim’s Progress for Kids at Reading to Know
• Reading to Know Bookclub post
• Review of Pilgrim’s Progress picture book at Learning How Much I Don’t Know

Also, don’t miss all the wonderful read-aloud posts this week at the iHomeschool Network blogs and at Top Ten {Tuesday} at Many Little Blessings.  There are enough book suggestions in these posts to last several lifetimes of reading aloud!

Have a wonderful Thursday, friends!