Reading can be such an interior journey, with the things we imagine all tucked away inside our minds—we sit back; we receive; if we’re being read to, we listen. But I love a hardy lift-the-flap book that invites readers to get their hands involved in the story. Back when my girls were little, those flaps were a fabulous way to encourage them to sit and listen to a whole book (one whole book!) before trying to fit a page into their mouths. These days, my girls are too old to need the flaps, but my younger daughters still enjoy opening them as though they’re doors to a secret compartment that might contain, oh, anything.
In the case of What Are Ears For?, the flaps often conceal the answer to questions just asked in the text, so those flaps give you a beat to discuss the question before revealing the answer. This series of sweet teaching books invites readers to explore why God gave us eyes, or hands, or—in this case—ears. By walking readers through some ways we can and should use our ears (and some ways we shouldn’t but often do use them), Abbey Wedgeworth gives parents and children time to discuss the beauty of God’s design for us.
But better yet, she shows us how Jesus used his ears, how we can do the same, and what we can do when we don’t quite get it right. This series doesn’t just tell readers what not to do: it engages those busy little hands while giving us a vision for what we can do, what we are made to, and what Jesus has done for us.
This post first appeared on thearosenburg.substack.com
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