What are our children reading?
I like to keep up with what our children/young people are reading, so when I was early for an appointment in town recently I popped into a charity shop to look at the books. I bought these three from the children’s shelf:
The Replacement is about a boy from an ‘underworld’ (which includes the living dead) who is a ‘replacement’ – left in the crib of a human baby when just a few weeks old. He has fatal allergies to iron, blood and consecrated ground which are slowly killing him. The Blue Hawk is a different kind of fantasy. Tron, the protagonist, is a temple boy who is led by his gods to follow his destiny. Dancing in my nuddy-pants is the fourth in a series of eight ‘confessions’ written in diary form, for girls 13-15. The name of God is used continuously throughout the book, but not in the way Christians do. 80,000 copies of this book were pre-sold – that’s before the book actually hit the shelves!
All these books are well written and have attractive covers. But the content of all three books troubles me deeply because the stories we read affect us. In a study on how novels affect the brain by researchers at a university in Atlanta, USA, the findings “suggest that reading a novel can transport you into the body of the protagonist [main character].” Read a short article about the findings of the study here: How novels affect the brain It’s definitely worth five minutes of your time . . . this shows how urgently we need Christian books for children and teens with characters who will encourage and inspire our young people to walk with God.
All I can say is, thank you for your support for Dernier – imagine if we could sell 80,000 books, reach 80,000 young people! Please keep praying and spreading the word, because we struggle to sell 2,000 of each of our books. There is so much tinsel around – we need to give our young people true gold. If we could sell 80,000 we could cut the cost enormously, too, to make them more affordable for us to send to children all over the world. This is my dream and my prayer! Please pray with me.
Have you downloaded Revenge of the Flying Carpet on kindle?
97 people did, during the free promotion last month! Please pray the story will touch many hearts and lives. Oh, and if you did download it, when you have read it, would you be kind enough to leave a review? Thank you! If you missed the promotion you can still buy the book here (this is the UK link) or in your own Amazon store.
Amazon Link to Revenge of the Flying Carpet
Paying the bills!
We have the final invoice to pay for the beautiful, encouraging, inspiring Beech Bank Girls, A Time Remembered books. I would be grateful for your help!
£1.99 would buy you The City Kid on kindle: Buy the City Kid
£5.99 will buy you the new book! Buy from your local Christian bookshop or right here on our website! Buy the new book here
£20.00 will buy you a pack of eight ‘seconds’ books – I have a growing pile in my office and would like to find a good home for them! More details here: Buy a bundle of ‘seconds’ books
£69.99 would give one each of our fourteen books – a fabulous present for a family, church or library:
Buy one each of all our wonderful books!
£150.00 would buy 30+ books for you to give to a school, church or library – this option isn’t on our website, but contact me if you might be interested.
Thank you for your help – very little helps!
Books change lives
Here’s an email I was sent recently: “I just wanted to tell you how much Joe and I are enjoying reading ‘I want to be an airline pilot’!! I’m reading it to Joe at bedtime and he’s really enjoying it – his favourite book so far!! And he’s read lots of books! He loves the bits about Rwanda and his bedtime prayers are full of thanks for all his blessings. We’ve had some really good chats following on from each chapter too. Each chapter he tried to persuade me to read on so he can find out what happens next – and not just delaying bedtime, he’s genuinely wanting to keep going!!! – just wanted to encourage you!! You are making a big difference, 1 book at a time, 1 child at a time.”
Isn’t that just so encouraging? 🙂
Our new website
I would love to receive your comments on this new website! Is there anything you would like to see, or doesn’t really work for you? Our designer is working on a logo so we don’t have such a big space on the home page and I have more ideas – I always have too many ideas and not enough time though!
Still, do keep in touch, it’s always lovely to hear from you 🙂
Enjoy the sun, and thanks for reading this far!
Janet
P.S. Do join us on facebook Be lovely to see you there!