PBT Redux - Miss Maple's Seeds

Recently I was looking back at my list of books I’ve featured here at PBT (approaching 500!). I especially want you to be aware of some of the books published in the last decade or so. Therefore, I’m going to re-post them with some new content. I'll be posting my favorites first.

Picture books are getting better and better! Let this PBT Redux series be proof of just that. The many newly published books featured here at PBT are one of the reasons checking out my blog regularly is worth your valuable time.

Picture Book: Miss Maple’s Seeds 

Author & Illustrator: Eliza Wheeler 

Summary: Miss Maple, a finder of orphan seeds that did not find a place to grow, sees potential for a miracle in every guest. She tenderly nurtures each seed through the up-coming seasons, taking them on field trips to consider places to grow in next year’s planting. When she decides it’s time for them to make roots of their own, she sends them off, telling them to take care, for even the smallest seed can become a great tree. Then she’s off to gather orphan seeds again. 

Hanna’s Comments: This is a beautiful book with so much application for our spiritual lives. Whether we see the seeds in this story as children, ideas, projects, or ministries, there are parallels with our meaningful work and God-given talents. I especially loved the page in which the illustrator shows the reader 20 different types of seeds. The illustrations are so clever & fanciful that you may want to have multiple copies of this book as you read it to your audience, child or adult, all will enjoy it. Be sure to encourage your audience to think hard on all the varieties of “seeds” there are. A child audience may be looking to the future; an adult audience may reflect on the past and look to future tending. Either way, this book offers possibilities for much fruit (and other plants!) that might grow in the garden that is your faith community. Don’t forget to turn it around and consider those who have nurtured and encouraged your faith such as God-parents, mentors, ministers, teachers, writers, and scriptural heroes.

Original Publisher & Date: Nancy Paulsen, 2013 

Age & Grade Appropriateness: 3 and up, Pre and up 

Formats other than Book: Tablet 

Scripture Connections: Whoever welcomes a child… (Matthew 18:5); Parable of the Mustard Seed (Mark 4:30-32); Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:18-23) 

Idea(s) for Application: This book would be a great gift for a family who adopts a child or begins foster care, a teacher, or someone doing children’s ministry.

Blessed are the Elephants

Picture Book: Pennies for Elephants

Author & Illustrator: Lita Judge

Original Publisher & Date: Hyperion, 2009

Summary: Based on true events in 1914, siblings Henry and Dorothy learn that local animal trainers are hoping to sell 3 elephants to the children of Boston for the zoo. 

Boston Globe articles are incorporated into the illustrations and move the plot along as these 2 children and others find ways to earn small change. When the siblings realize that they can visit the elephants, strong relationships develop between them and Mollie, Waddy, and Tony. 

Fundraising includes an animal-themed costume party and a Boston Globe publicity stunt involving having tea with the elephants. Movie theaters get involved as do children in nearby states. Success is marked with a big parade and an official handover in Fenway Park.

Hanna’s Comments: If you have children in your church who are passionate about social activism, they’ll be affirmed by this book. For those who are new to such projects, this book can serve as an early lesson on what children can do to better their world, which is what God calls us all to do. Point out that sometimes being a servant means being passionate about raising money. 

Other times servanthood is about working hard in small ways toward a huge goal. Point out where such patterns can be found in your faith family. Additionally, this book can help them understand how small financial gifts from many sources can make a substantial difference toward building God’s kingdom.

Idea(s) for Application: This book would be a fun component to a lesson for children about how they can contribute to the missions of their particular faith family so that all are blessed by the good work of God's creatures.

Scripture Connections: Paul urges the churches in Rome and Corinth to give generously for the Saints in Jerusalem who are experiencing famine (Romans 15:22-29, 1 Corinthians 16:1-4, 2 Corinthians 8:1-15).

Age & Grade Appropriateness: 4 and up, Pre and up

Formats other than Book: None at present

One Country, One Hope, One World

Picture Book: One Today

Author: Richard Blanco

Illustrator: Dav Pilkey

Original Publisher & Date: Little, Brown, & Co., 2015

Summary: The text of this picture book is the 2^nd inaugural poem for President Barack Obama, first read on January 21, 2013. It is a celebration of the extraordinary that can be found in the USA from dawn to dusk and coast to coast. 

The bright illustrations burst with relationships via work and play. Rituals are evidence of our rich culture. Events such as MLK’s I Have a Dream speech and the violence at Sandy Hook Elementary are touched on as this book repeats the word “one” again and again: one light, one ground, one wind, while demonstrating diversity in our languages, our geography, our skin, our prayers. 

It ends with hope, as you might expect on such a day,

Hope-a new constellation

waiting for us to map it,

waiting for us to name it –

together.

Hanna’s Comments: Today is Memorial Day in the states. It’s a day when we honor those who have given their lives to defend our country so I’m offering a picture book that is a tribute to the best of the United States of America. Regardless of your political leanings, this book has potential for you. As on days like this where we all honor those who have given the ultimate sacrifice, there is much that we all share and value in this book.

I know some who read this blog are not American. I recognize that many of the characteristics of America that this book celebrates is true for your country as well. 

One of my favorite hymns is This is My Song. We don’t sing it enough in our sanctuaries in the USA. It is a song of peace and an acknowledgement that what we hold dear in our country is likely held dear in other countries too. The words are by Lloyd Stone. It is sung to Jean Sibelius’ Findlandia. Here are the lyrics to the first 2 verses:

This is my song, O God of all the nations,

A song of peace for lands afar and mine;

This is my home, the country where my heart is;

Here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;

But other hearts in other lands are beating

With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,

And sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine;

But other lands have sunlight too, and clover,

And skies are everywhere as blue as mine;

O hear my song, thou God of all the nations,

A song of peace for their land and for mine.

Idea(s) for Application: Use this picture book in a teen or adult lesson on diversity or unity in which you are celebrating what makes our country great and thanking God for God's many blessings.

Scripture Connections: From whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Ephesians 4:16)

Age & Grade Appropriateness: 3 and up, Pre and up

Formats other than Book: Tablet