Choose a Book with Appeal

When choosing a book, consider the age of the child and the attention span. I’ve read to two-year-olds. However, I chose a book that had lots of pictures and things the child could look at. When reading to my own kids, I picked out books they either recommended to me or gave them an option of several interesting ones and then let them decide.

What will appeal? Good question. For younger children, I’d suggest picture books with vibrant colors. For very young ones, the Dr. Seuss books are great for that. Another good author is Jan Brett. Her books combine great story-lines with amazing drawings. Unique books also are good. Joseph Had a Little Overcoat is one such book. It has cut outs to create the drawings. For older kids, you’ll want good stories. Think of the ones that you enjoyed growing up. Blend some of the classics with some modern day stories. A good resource for a list of books to read at different ages is Honey for a Child’s Soul.

Stretch Your Child

A pet peeve of mine is when people talk down to kids. When they do this, it’s as if they’re saying the child is not of importance. I say, believe in your child. Stretch your child’s imagination, vocabulary, and attention span. Test different styles of books to read to your child. Just because it’s not in his or her age range, may not mean it isn’t perfect for the two of you to sit down and read. Often people think that children can’t understand large vocabulary. I disagree. Lemony Snicket used big words in his A Series of Unfortunate Events. Each book centered around one word that sometimes I didn’t even know what it meant. He would explain it at the beginning and then move on and continue to use it throughout the book. When I wrote the Dragon Courage series, I read it to my children who were eight, eleven and twelve at the time. The nine-year-old sat through all of them eating them up and asking for more. The other two came and went, but still have favorite characters from the stories. The series is rated at middle grade, but I didn’t talk down to them. Even when my editor pointed out words, I thought through them and often decided to keep them and let kids look them up or ask an adult what it means.

Be Active

One of my now twenty-two=year-old’s favorite bed-time stories when he was about two was the Berenstein Bears In the Dark. It wasn’t because of the story itself but because how we read it to him. We moved him around with the bears, and at the end when sister bear bends over the edge of the bunk bed and yells “boo” to brother bear, we’d reenact it every time.

With little ones, I’ve watched my mom point out the items in the pictures. She’ll ask, “Where’s the bird? Do you see the bird?” then wait until the child points with her. I’ve also used my finger to point to the words. Soon, the little ones are using their finger to follow along as well. This is not only keeping them involved, but it helps them with reading readiness which their kindergarten teacher will thank you for.

Be Creative

Change your voice around as you read. Be the different characters. Have fun with it. Kids love it when you have fun with them.

Audio books can be great at this. If you sit down and listen to an audio book with your child, you can have memories of a book read aloud that you both experienced together as hearers. From 2012-14, I had a fifty minute commute to work. I took my middle son along as he attended school where I taught. We’d use that fifty minutes one way to listen to audio books. We traveled through the worlds of Peter Pan and the Starcatchers, The Beyonders, and many more. We participated together in the unwinding of the plot and character development. We’d discuss what we thought would happen, how we’d have written it if we were the authors, and sometimes even real life values based on what we were hearing.

An alternative to a professional audio book is a self-made one. When my family moved to Ecuador for eleven months, we took the three-month-old granddaughter, and two-and-a-half-year-old grandson from my parents. They made the best of it by recording tapes of grandma reading to the grandkids. Later, when we returned, a friend we met in Ecuador sent a tape to our son of her reading his favorite books. She added a fun twist. She got books she knew he had and could follow along with. So, as she read and would get to the bottom of the page, she’d say “ding, ding, turn the page”. After that, no matter who read to him, we had to use, “ding, ding, turn the page”.  In today’s technology of recorders, it would be even easier to do this.

This all sounds nice and easy. It is. The hardest part is getting up and going to your local library and picking out a book. You can do it. Maybe try one of these already mentioned, or pick up one of your favorites from growing up. Here’s a list of my favorite books you can choose from. So, go out there and start reading to your child.

Book #1: When I signed up to share this reveal, I didn’t put together a conversation with the director of Vox Dei a month earlier with this book. The title Little Girl Mended resonated with me. I consider myself mended from a childhood sexual abuse. Then I read the blurb:

No little girl should ever have to learn about sexual abuse at the hands of her father. But I did, and I survived. This is my story.

Little Girl Mended is both a story of abuse and a story of redemption, spanning more than fifty years. From the loss of innocence at age seven, through ten-plus years of abuse, forty-five years of silence, and finally—well into my fifties—coming to understand that healing is possible. My walk through recovery coincided with a deepening of my  relationship with Jesus Christ. Through that relationship I came to experience the Father’s love—a love I couldn’t fully understand while viewing everything through the distorted lens of incest.

In this first-person narrative, I examine painful memories and difficult emotions, allowing myself to feel for the first time in my life. As I grapple with shattering hurt and long-buried pain, I come to realize there can be no healing without surrender. It’s not in my strength that I find healing, but in my complete surrender to Jesus Christ.

The power found in the pages of Little Girl Mended is there for you, too—whatever the circumstances of your own life’s story. Come along and claim it.

Being an adult survivor of childhood abuse, I said, this is a must read for me. So, look for Little Girl Mended by Niki Krauss coming out soon from Vox Dei.

Book #2: The blurb for The Gates Manor Band by Jan Hemby pulled me in and said read. See for yourself.

Julia Burch is a typical 50 year old who is tired of her typical life. But that changes when she answers the phone to find it isn’t a person on the other end of the line, but a recording of a conversation that happened over 30 years ago.

A series of inexplicable events leaves Julia searching for answers – and forces her to face the source of her unhappiness. But this is only the beginning; there are others who desperately need what Julia has rediscovered. Prisoners to their past, they have lost hope for anything better, and for some, time is running out.

What follows is a journey that crosses social status, racial lines, and even time itself to unite a group of people called to an adventure that will surpass anything they could have imagined.

Add this title to your list.

Book #3: It wasn’t the blurb (although good) that got my attention for Wheelman by Brian L. Tucker, nor was it the cover, it was the excerpt. I’ll let you decide. I’ll show you the blurb and then the excerpt. I’m hoping to interview Brian on an upcoming #VoxDeiChat in January.

Teen Cy Vance wants to do one thing: D-R-I-V-E. Except he has nowhere to go and no way to get there. But when he’s given a note at church, he discovers his dad–one of the FBI’s Most Wanted–is alive and well in Mexico…and he wants Cy to meet him ASAP!

With the help of a best friend, Cy escapes Child Protective Services and flees to Mexico. What he doesn’t know is that his father is going to ask even more of him when they meet. How far will Cy go to help his family, and will it cost him his life?

RUNNING AWAY IS ESCAPE.

STAYING PUT IS UNTHINKABLE.

THE ROAD AHEAD IS ANYTHING BUT STRAIGHT…

So, what caught my attention? Three excerpts. I’ll share the most powerful one with you. I’m sure Wheelman will be on your to-be-read list as well.

The appearance of the outside of the bar fit its namesake. There weren’t adornments or décor to speak of, and the clientele walking into the swinging, saloon-style doors added to its appearance. Vance Sr. reached over to Cy’s shoulder and gave it a good shake. “We’re here now. No backing down.”

“Wouldn’t think of it.” Cy swallowed, feeling how dry his throat was for the first time. Please God.

Just then, two men exited the swinging doors: one noticeably older and grey-headed and walking with a limp, the other more robust and beak-nosed. The Franco father and son wasted no time in their assemblage of several seedy-looking thugs. A group of three sluggish, somnambulant girls were gathering around the corner. What in the world? The girls, who seemed drugged into submission, all stared dejectedly down at the cobblestone street and made eye contact with no one. The El Zorro clientele who passed the girls tried to grab their wrists and lead them back into the bar through the swinging doors. Each time this happened, father or son Franco walked up and shoved the patrons, yelling for them to back off.

Cy was about to ask how long they would wait, when a nondescript Ford Fiesta crept up to the bar’s entrance on Hidalgo, lights off—stopping just short of the girls. The elder Franco spat some words at the girls. They held hands, Cy noticed. He watched as they stooped to get inside the compact car, and he saw that each face looked younger than him. He started to get out of the Camaro, but felt his dad’s hand.

“Just another minute,” he said.

“If we wait another minute, we’ll miss them,” Cy urged.

“Patience and hastiness were never friends. Just count to sixty. Breathe. And start again.”

“What?”

“Just count.”

The Fiesta’s door shut, with the girls inside, and the driver looked around calmly, unwilling to step out himself. Cy couldn’t make out the man’s face. Being the chauffeur in a sex trafficking ring didn’t appear to weigh too much on his conscience though, as he casually held onto the steering wheel, giving some demands to the Franco men through the window. Cy counted six heads duck into the Fiesta. The car weighed down with its new load. Cy heard a click sound, looked over and saw the passenger seat empty. His dad held his index finger to his lips outside the car’s window. Just as the man inside the Fiesta started to shift his car into drive, Cy saw his father running into the Fiesta’s path. How could he be so fast?!

“Let go of the girls!” Teddy shouted in English and waved his arms at the Fiesta, the Franco men beside it. No one moved. He reached into his pocket and pulled a .38 pistol out, pointing it straight at the men. Cy felt shock—fear, even—as the gun remained steady in his father’s hand. Both Franco men, and their thugs, ran from the alley to the side of the bar, to its safe illumination. The driver lifted his hands from the wheel, as Teddy approached. He kept his stainless steel pistol pointed squarely at the car. He only had time to open the door and pull three of the young ladies from the car, when the driver thrashed the car into gear and sped off recklessly, with three occupants still in the backseat.

What do you think? Ready for these three books? I sure am. So, how do you contact these amazing authors? Here is their info:

Contact Brian L. Tucker

Website, Facebook, Twitter

About Jan Hemby

Facebook, Twitter

Contact Niki Krauss

Website, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads

All three are available for personal appearances and interviews; contact Becki Brannen to schedule.

Becki Brannen
Book Marketing Manager
Booktrope Publishing
becki.brannen@booktrope.com

All three books are available internationally – please contact us directly if you do not see it on your preferred book purchase website.

Discounts or customized editions may be available for educational and other groups based on bulk purchase. For further information please contact vox.dei@booktrope.com.

ABOUT VOX DEI

Our name rhymes with Fox Day. We’re an imprint of Booktrope, a new type of publishing company founded in 2011 in Seattle, WA that’s pioneering a model called team publishing. Our mission at VoxDei is to provide books for a primarily Christian audience that edify and entertain, encourage, and inspire. While Christian themes are woven throughout our fiction, our purpose is not to preach a sermon but rather provide a quality alternative to the secular market for entertainment. Our non-fiction titles are intended to help readers explore the Bible in a more personal way and grow in their walk with Christ, while being informal in voice and approach. Whether fiction or non, our goal is to shine the light and love that is central to the Christian faith into a dark and messy world. Learn more at voxdeipublishing.com.