Welcome to this week’s Reading Journal entry! Thanks for joining me again here on Substack. These entries serve as short, weekly posts where I can digest some of what I’ve been reading throughout the week and provide recommendations for reading.
This week, I began Anthony Esolen’s book, Defending Boyhood, and Rudyard Kipling’s, Just So Stories. I didn’t plan it intentionally, but both books are focused on children, although in different ways. Kipling’s work is written for children, while Esolen’s is about them. These books have helped me to remember that, while it’s tempting to be discouraged when looking around at the childhood most children have right now in the U.S., Christians need to work to provide a better, godly childhood for their children. Giving up is not an option, as overwhelming as the situation seems and as much of an uphill battle as it is to provide a godly upbringing.
Let’s go ahead and get to the books.
Defending Boyhood
The first few chapters of this book were mostly Esolen remembering what his boyhood was like, how natural all the differences between boys and girls and men and women seemed to him and the other children he knew. He references Augustine’s idea of the tranquility of order, pointing out that a lot of the security he felt as a child was a result of people around him recognizing that they had a place in God’s order and focusing on fulfilling that role well. People went to church on Sunday because that’s what people were supposed to do. He traces a lot of the social ills of today to the fact that most Americans are rejecting God’s order for humanity.
He ties these memories in later, though, using them as context for his discussion. He particularly focuses on a boy’s need to be outside exploring. Unsupervised time outside allows boys to test themselves and learn how to navigate the hierarchies that men naturally form. Learning to navigate those hierarchies is especially important because that helps them grow in strength and maturity. Boys naturally want to rise in the hierarchy, so they work hard to be good at what they can.
Esolen’s stories about what boyhood used to be like compared to what it is now make me both angry and sad. I want to provide for my boys the kind of adventurous boyhood that he talks about but also know that the evils with which we’ll be faced are different and require wisdom to navigate. Both of Esolen’s books I’ve read so far have had this kind of effect on me: causing me to feel sadness at what’s been lost and anger at those who are continuing to work for the destruction of what’s left of Christendom. As Christians, though, we can walk in obedience and hope, trusting that He will bless our efforts to enable our children to take one more step toward rebuilding what’s been lost.
Just So Stories
This is a collection of stories by Rudyard Kipling. I hadn’t read much Kipling, so I decided it was time to read a full work of his. These are fun stories that are like fables. They discuss things like how the elephant ended up with such a long nose, how the armadillo came about, or why whales, as big as they are, only eat small fish. Usually, there is a moral in there, as well, and the writing is definitely geared toward children. However, it’s geared toward children in the same way that the Chronicles of Narnia is geared toward children: the writing is engaging for children and they find it fun, while it’s also deep enough to engage adult readers.
These stories will certainly be fun to read with my kids once they’re a little older. Some of the stories were clearly written to things Kipling saw in his own children: a lack of desire to learn to read or a never-ending list of questions. The stories and rhymes are very clever but, as I mentioned above, have some deeper meaning plain to adult readers. I also think that children pick up on these meanings, even if they can’t articulate them just yet.
These stories have caused me to think more lately about how powerful stories are. It’s not that children reading them would actually believe that the elephant got its long nose from a crocodile biting it and the elephant pulling back and back until the crocodile finally let go. It’s that these stories are memorable and have lessons packed inside of them. Every time they see an elephant, they’ll remember that story and its moral. It’s the same reason we have fairytales and fables; they’re not necessarily realistic but they’re dramatic enough that they stick in one’s memory. The lesson gets embedded along with the story. Although not the only reason, this memorability is one of the reasons Jesus spoke in parables. God created man to respond to stories and revealed Himself to man in the form of a grand story, in which we get to take part.
That concludes this entry in the Reading Journal! Thanks for coming back this week. Feel free to share what you’re reading in the comments.
If you know someone who might benefit from or enjoy this content, please share it with them. I want this to be helpful, so if you have suggestions for these entries or the Notes from the Fray essays, go ahead and let me know in the comments or reply via email.
As always, thank you for reading the Reading Journal!
In Him and for His Glory
Looking forward to read both of these at some point!