Wise Words

Wise Words: Family Stories that Bring the Proverbs to Life, by Peter Leithart
(Canon Press), audio, 4 CD’s
Ages 5+

This book is also available in print, but I bought the audio to listen to as we travelled over the holidays. It is excellent and we all enjoyed it greatly. The stories are read well, and Leithart has done an amazing job weaving these stories. He has taken common fairy tale motifs and woven in common elements from biblical stories creating fun stories that illustrate themes from Proverbs. Each story is concluded with a “moral” which cites a specific passage from Proverbs. This moral though only points out one of the many lessons contained in each story. I enjoyed asking my boys if they caught the various allusions to biblical stories, motifs, etc.

I highly recommend this book. It is fun and instructive. My boys begged us to continue listening. It is also a great opportunity to check and develop biblical literacy as you see what biblical allusions your children catch. The book is also a great training in learning to read all sorts of literature (fairy tales in this case) in light of the gospel.

NB: You can hear audio clips here.