In my own novel, a therapist suggests the main character write a life list of eighteen things to complete before turning eighteen, sending her and her friends on an unexpected journey they’ll never forget. One of the items her B.F.F. makes her write down is to give up the habit of thinking it, and not saying it. I thought, we live in a time where too many people who shouldn’t be speaking are, and vice versa. As a parent, teacher and children’s ministry volunteer for the past eleven years, I’ve found that in this permissive world, too many parentals have forgotten to raise our boys to be gentlemen and our girls to be ladies. One of the easiest ways to teach this is to read the classics.

My middle schooler has already read Little Women, The Narnia Series, Anne of Green Gables, & is currently reading the prequel, Before Green Gables. She’s not forced to read these stories–she LOVES them! One of our favorite things to do on family nights is to sit around the fire pit, eating s’mores as I read aloud to them from a classic.

I’ll end tonight’s blog with 2 challenges:

1) In this hectic world, make time to read to a child today. If you don’t know a child, go find one at a store & sit them on your lap & read a story (ok, scratch that last recommendation unless you want to get arrested). But seriously, good things happen when you share stories. I’m convinced our world would be a better place if more people turned off that hypersexualized crap on the TV and read together as a family (oops, hope I didn’t offend someone by saying it and not just thinking it;).

2) Recommend a good modern-day middle grade or YA novel  that teaches us a good moral lesson about life, safe for my middle schoolers ears. Have you recently read a book that you think could become the next “classic”? If so, please share:)