PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 155: ADDICTED TO BOOKS AND CURRICULUMS
FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell
EPISODE 155 – ADDICTED TO BOOKS AND CURRICULUMS
Christina Friedman joins me again. Christina is an addicted woman! Join me as she talks about her addiction and how it has affected her children's lives.
Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, From Our Home to Yours, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies. Lovely to be with you again today. Once again, I have Christina Friedman with me. I hope you enjoyed the podcast with her last week. Christina is the mother of 11 children. We spoke about homeschooling.
Now, you wouldn't believe it, but since our last podcast, and today, Christina has been back home to Minnesota where they live. And here she is again, down in Tennessee. Well, she has a daughter living here who's married here and having her third baby. They are on their way with a big family trip. It is wonderful!
But she came back, because last week we tried to do this podcast, and the recording wouldn't work. So here you are again, Christina. Wonderful to have you with us. You have six grandchildren now. Two are on the way with an exciting new life for you.
Christina: It's so exciting, with these new little babies coming. We just love it.
Nancy: What do your grandchildren like to call you?
Christina: They call me “Pumpkin Pie Grandma.”
Nancy: Oh, isn't that wonderful? I love Pumpkin Pie. How cute! I think it's fun when grandmothers have different names, and cute names. Actually I love the name “Pumpkin Pie,” but I don't really like to eat pumpkin pie.
I think the reason is that back in New Zealand, where we lived, because we are originally New Zealanders, we used to eat our pumpkins as a vegetable, never as a dessert. So we like to steam them or roast them. Mainly roast them, or sometimes mash them up. But we just love it as a vegetable.
In fact, the typical New Zealand meal is roast lamb, with roast potatoes and roast pumpkin, and roast parsnips, and roast kumara. That's our sweet potato. That was typical for us. But anyway, I haven't yet got to get the taste for pumpkin pie. But I love that name!
In fact, some of my daughters, who are now grandmothers themselves, they have cottoned on to quite fun names. Evangeline, now she could never have a normal name, because she never is normal. She decided that she would be Pippi, from Pippi Longstockings. So she is “Pippi” to all her grandchildren.
And Pearl, who's also a grandmother, her full name is Pearl Priscilla. So she decided she would be “Prissy” to her grandchildren. And Serene, she's also a grandmother, but she kept to the tradition. My mother was “Nana,” and I'm “Nana,” and now Serene is “Nana.” So she kept on. So a couple of Nanas around now, so the great-grandchildren call me “Big Nana,” and she's “Little Nana.”
It's great to have you again, Christina, and as I've been finding out more about you, I have found out that you are actually an addicted woman. Oh, wow. What is this Christina addicted to? Well, perhaps you can tell us yourself, Christina.
Christina: I am addicted to books, and also curriculums.
Nancy: Wow, that is something! Well, tell us how you got onto this addiction!
Christina: I have always loved books. It just has been a growing “sickness” maybe? I don't know what to call it.
Nancy: So, how many books would you have in your house?
Christina: I wish I would count them. We have books in every room. We always joke that we have more books than our small-town library has. And I'm sure we actually do. We have books in stairways and hallways, in every room. The children all have their own little libraries, and their own bookcases, so I don't think there's a room in our house without a bookcase, or more than one bookcase, actually.
Nancy: Wow! So you had to because a connoisseur of bookcases, I guess! Where have you gathered all your bookcases?
Christina: We buy them everywhere, from garage sales to strip shops. We also have in our schoolroom, we had bookcases made that all match on one wall. How many is that? That's about ten bookcases back-to-back that we set up in there that are all matching.
Nancy: So there are different ones throughout the house. How does your husband feel about all these books? Does he love them too?
Christina: I think he thinks he's OK with them, because I could have worse addictions than literature!
Nancy: (laughter) That's so great! So you've got books of all kinds. What kind of books do you like to get in?
Christina: I have every kind of book. Sections on childbirth, breastfeeding, a whole bookcase full of Teddy Roosevelt books. Health books, inspirational books, Christian fiction, young adult fiction, children's fiction. You name it, we have it.
Nancy: I think you also love historical books, and the classics, and all that too. As each child leaves the home . . . how many of yours have now left the home, got married, and left?
Christina: We have six children who have left, and gone off and gotten married, or working, or going to college. We try to send with them the classic books, and their favorites. I try to make sure that each and every one of them has a set of the Little House books, and C. S. Lewis, The Lion, The Witch, And the Wardrobe series. The Hobbit, and all those books, they have them.
Nancy: I think you mentioned to me that this is how C. S. Lewis himself grew up, with books all around him, everywhere in his home.
Christina: There is a little snippet in the C. S. Lewis book, Surprised by Joy. He describes his house growing up. And I read that years ago, and every year I read it to our children, just to assure them that I'm actually not crazy. That a brilliant man like C. S. Lewis, his parents raised him in a house just filled with literature and a love for literature.
Nancy: That's so great! Now I'm sure, Christina, you just don't have a conviction to get all these books to just fill your house. What do you do with all these books?
Christina: We read them. I love reading myself. Nancy and I were just talking. I always have five different books started, at least. One being a history book, one being an inspirational book. Reading the Bible, reading novels. There's one more . . .
But also, I read to our children and read a lot. A lot. We do most of our homeschooling through reading out loud. I read all of the history, all the science books for children sixth grade and under. We read, go through all, all of the great literature and classics.
Then they also read on their own for their age level and their grade level. So, a lot of books!
Nancy: You were telling me about your oldest son who went off to college. He somehow, he was able to answer the questions there on just about any given subject. They could not understand. Where did he get all this knowledge?
Christina: That's right. His professors would say, “How do you know this? How do you know all these things?” And he said, “Well, my mom read to me. My mom read me these books.” And then, also he would read books on our reading list. So he was just well-read, a well-read child.
Nancy: And that paved the way for him to really know far more than all his peers. So, OK, you love to read to them. But how much reading a day do you do to the children?
Christina: Several hours. We do our Bible reading. Once a week, we read several chapters. We use the Catherine Vos Children's Storybook Bible. I read that through every year, every school year. It's such a good resource, because she writes in a way that children can understand, but it's not simple. It's very conversational and lovely. Then we read . . .
Nancy: What was the name of that book again?
Christina: It was the Catherine Vos Children's Storybook Bible. Then we also love reading the YWAM Christian Heroes books. So we read about half of one of those a week, or more. Those are lovely, lovely books about missionaries. They're so good that you can't put them down. And that is the truth.
We were at a homeschool conference years and years and years ago. A woman stopped us. We were walking by the booth. She wasn't selling the books. She just said, “Have you ever seen them? I have to show you these books. They're just so wonderful.” So she stood there, and she showed my husband and me all of the lovely Christian Heroes books from YWAM. She talked us into buying five.
I don't know how many there are, maybe fifty, sixty? I don't know, but several. So we bought them, and we came home, and she was right. She was right. They're very hard to put down, and they're hard to stop.
Nancy: What are some of your favorite heroes you've read about? They're mainly missionary heroes, aren't they?
Christina: George Muller. Loren Cunningham. There was one about C. S. Lewis. William Booth. I think I could go on because I don't know if there's been one that we finished that we haven't just loved. They're all just lovely. Elisabeth Elliot, Jim Elliot, Nate King.
Nancy: I think it's wonderful to inspire our children with men and women who have done great things for God, isn't it? Wonderful. Yes, I love those books too. So as you're reading to the children, and you say you read hours a day. what are the children doing? Do they just sit there like zombies, or how do you work that?
Christina: No, usually they don't sit there like zombies. Sometimes Monday mornings the older teen boys look a little zombiesh. But no, they don't. We always try to do some kind of handiwork, and we're really, really involved with Shoebox, the Shoebox ministry of Operation Christmas Child.
So everybody will, we make crosses out of pearler beads. There's kind of a little assembly line that goes on where people are sorting the beads and making the crosses. We have a person ironing while I read.
Then the other great project that they work on is making jump ropes out of sheets and old clothing. That's again an assembly line where we have people cutting the fabric, rolling it up, and then someone braiding them.
Also just other projects around Christmas time. You'll find them making Christmas presents. Our younger boy likes those Ultimate Dot to Dot. I don't know if you've ever seen those. They have a thousand numbers. So he often does those. Just different handiworks.
Nancy: So how did you get into doing those jump ropes? They're braided, are they?
Christina: Yes.
Nancy: Tell us more about them.
Christina: Well, our family has a huge passion for making shoeboxes to send out with Samaritan's Purse Operation Christmas Child. So always, always looking for ways to fill these shoeboxes. We have big days where we get together with our family and cousins and friends and neighbors. We sew bags. We make crosses.
The jump ropes, I'm not sure where . . . we’ve been making them for so long. I'm not sure where we saw the pattern, but our number nine and ten girls have really taken off with the jump rope making, especially our tenth.
People in our town know to save their old sheets and their old clothes for us to cut into strips. So it's our joint effort and we're so excited to get shoeboxes into the hands of children who never, who sometimes never even get gifts. So it's a big passion for our family.
Nancy: Such a beautiful thing. I love that Shoebox ministry, but I've never done it on your scale. How many shoeboxes would you send out every year?
Christina: I think the most we've sent out is maybe 1400 or 1500 in a year.
Nancy: Wow! Up to 1500! That is amazing! Goodness, I thought I was doing well, putting one together! Oh, goodness me! That is amazing! That's a vision for us, isn't it?
Christina: Well, I just want to say we're so grateful to people who hopped on our train of excitement. It's not just our family who does it. We have our t-shirt shop in town that has their mistakes screen printing. They call us to come pick them up.
We have hotels that are excited to save soap for us. We have neighbors and friends who will pick things up and bring them over or let us know of a good deal. It's just such a great effort and the community coming together for this. It's really fun.
This year, my girls are hoping to do 3000. It seems like a lot but with God's help.
Nancy: It's amazing, a vision to prepare and fill 3000 shoeboxes to go out all over the world to bless children. Oh, that's so beautiful. They're just working away with their hands and you're reading into them great inspirational books. That is just so fantastic. I love that. Yes.
What other ways do you think the reading of these books has been a help to your children as you've been teaching them?
Christina: I think it's a great model for their lives, especially the missionary stories. They can see how people have lived to spread the gospel and have suffered for it. They've worked so hard.
Also, the history books. I think we can learn so much from history and from historical figures. That has been wonderful. And also just teaching simple lovely books like the Little House series. There's many, many books, but just how to live a nice life with a nice family.
One of my favorite quotes that I read to my children every year on the first day of school is:
“Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.”
I would say, “People, remember this. Write it down.” I have them write. They have a reading notebook. So when we get done reading a missionary story, they write a little bit about it. Or a history story, what stuck out for them. So I have them put that quote. And that's from Harry S. Truman.
Nancy: I think that is so good for them too, to not only just listen, but then to write about what they are reading. I love to do that. I have a hard cover notebook and every book that I read, I write the title and the author. One of the reasons I do that is that I do forget! I forget, oh, who wrote it, and I'm trying to tell somebody about a book, and think, “Oh, goodness, what was it called now?”
But if I've got it in my book, I can go back to it. I usually write a little bit about the story, whether it's a, whatever it is, inspirational, or historical or often just meditative. But I'll write a few quotes from the book and a little bit about it. I find that a great resource, just to remember. Do you happen to write down what you read?
Christina: I have a hard-cover notebook too. I fill them up with the books that I read. I wish that I would have done that for the books I've read with my children. But I never did that. I guess I have the teaching planning book, but I wish I would have done that with them. But I didn't.
I have one for my personal reading and I also always write when I read it, and what I was doing when I read it. We were just at the Above Rubies Retreat and I was happy to write the books that I read there. “I read this sitting out on the beaches at Panama City Beach.”
Nancy: That's right! I remember walking up from the beach and seeing you there on the sand and you were reading. I said, “What are you reading?” How lovely .Yes. I find, don't you, Christina, that I always like to have a book with me because sometimes you're held up. You never know what's going to happen and you've got a bit of time on your hands. You've got a book, It's so wonderful! You can always read. You're not going to waste time. I hate wasting time.
In fact, I rarely get time to read in the day because when you have children, you're making time to pour into their lives. But now my children are grown, and so I need to be to be giving my whole day, every day, to the ministry of Above Rubies.
The only time for reading is when I'm going off to sleep at night. Then I'm getting tired and laying it down. But then I love to have those moments in the car, or just when I'm out, or being held up. Those moments I can fit in the book that I'm reading.
I was asking you before, “What are you reading?” And then Christina told me, 'Well, I'm reading about five books at the moment.” Well, sometimes I might have more than one, but I usually like to keep to one. But tell me, you don't have to tell us the five. Perhaps tell us about one you're reading at the moment.
Christina: Oh, well, I just started one last night. It's a new one that I found about Teddy Roosevelt. He's my favorite person, my favorite president to read about. I have a whole bookshelf just with Teddy Roosevelt books. My children, when they travel, or they go to a bookstore, they always look for the Teddy Roosevelt book that I don't have. It's getting harder and harder to find.
But I did find one online about Teddy Roosevelt called The Big Burn. I just started it last night. But I think it has something to do with him starting the national parks. It was how he got into advocating for our national parks, But the first chapter was very good.
Nancy: Well, I have just recently, I've been reading books on the Revolutionary War. I feel that at this current time in our nation, we are at a similar time, where our freedoms are being taken from us. At that time, in 1776, around about those years, they were fighting for their own freedom from the tyranny of England.
But now, we fought for freedom, we've got freedom, we lived in freedom, but now it's being slowly taken from us. I believe we have to rise up with that fury again to hold onto our freedom. So I've enjoyed reading. The ones I've read so far are 1776, by David McCullough.
And then I've read the two-part series by Jeff Shaara, Rise to Rebellion, and The Glorious Cause. Those three books were all very, very historical, factual books on the Revolutionary War. I learned so much from all of them.
And then I read a trilogy of historical novels on the Revolutionary War and loved it. Actually, I even advertised it in this latest magazine that's just gone out, Above Rubies #98. I'm sure you have your Above Rubies by now.
Anyway, you will read on pages 20-23, an article by Sarah Larue, called “Educating for Life.” And she writes as a homeschooler and how homeschooling was such a blessing in her life. It's a great article. Sarah had such a passion to write. She has written many, many books, and many are on Amazon.
She sent me this trilogy about Jim Winfield. There are three books, Under Siege, With The Enemy, and A Higher Allegiance. They are so good! Wow! It's a historical novel, but very, very well-researched historically.
It talks about this character of Jim Winfield who was an English soldier who came to fight against the Americans who were trying to rise up for their freedom. And he came with all his fighting of the English tyranny and how the Americans, they were under them. The whole books really are about how his whole brain gradually had to be turned around and changed into thinking freedom.
It was actually incredible. It was the most incredible struggle for this great English soldier. And the amazing story of what happened and how his mind was turned to understand freedom. It was amazing! Anyway, it's in the magazine. You can look it up and order it. I thought it was so good.
I should say too, although I love to read books, my greatest love is the Word. I mainly live in His Word. I am a Word of God person and live in the Word. I can't live without the Word. I love to fill my mind, my heart, and my soul, and my being with the Word of God. So that's my main reading passion. But I will add some other books here and there.
But you talked about you're addicted to books. You're addicted to curriculums! What about curriculums?
Christina: I am. I just want to say really quick about the Word. When my daughter was a Wee Bee Girl, she sent us Your Daily Blessing, is that it?
Nancy: The Daily Light on the Daily Path?
Christina: Yes.
Nancy: That's what we use as a family each day, yes.
Christina: What we've done since then is I went online, and I ordered a bunch of different translations of the Bible. After our meal, I hand out a Bible, a different one, a different translation to everybody. We read the devotion, the Scripture, and at the bottom of each devotion, the Scriptures are listed. So everybody will look up first Psalm 5 or whatever it is.
We all look it up in our different translation of the Bible. And then we go around the table and read the different translations, just to get the Scripture, and then we talk about each verse. We've done devotions, evening devotions, but this is a new way to do it, and we're really enjoying the different translations.
Nancy: I love that! Thank you for sharing that, Christina. I was just talking about this with my lovely Above Rubies helpers this morning. We use The Daily Light On The Daily Path. This is what we use for our gathering together devotions, apart from reading the Word on our own.
But we love it, because this book has Scriptures listed, not too much, just the right amount, for every morning and every evening, for every day of the year. It's so wonderful, because especially for husbands who want to bring the Word to their families, but they feel insecure. They think, “Help. Where will I read? I don't know.”
Often husbands are reticent to take the leading of Bible reading with their families because they don't know where to read. They've never done it growing up in their families, and they feel insecure. So then they don't do it.
But this book, it takes out all the stress. You don't have to worry, because all you do is, you go to the date, and presto—there are the Scriptures waiting for you to read! Isn't that cool?
We do it morning and evening. We do it from the King James version. I have The Daily Light. I have it in the New King James version and I also have it in the King James version, a version that I have put together. The Scriptures are the same as every Daily Light in the world, but at the beginning of each month, I give an idea of how you can make it exciting for your children.
We were talking about how we read from King James and some of the words are a little archaic. But I believe, although I'm not a “King James only,” I love other translations, and I love this idea of yours. I think that's so cool.
But we don't have to be scared, ladies, of reading the King James version to our children, thinking, “Oh, they won't understand!” Because if we do come across a word that's a little old-fashioned and not quite used today, well, you stop and you talk about it. “What do you think this word means, children?”
And so you get the idea, and you talk about, “It's the same word as this word that we use today. And let's look at another translation and see what it says.” So you're not stuck. You can have other translations.
And I love this idea of yours! So you're finding a Scripture and you're getting them all to read it in a different translation. It just brings out so much enlightenment and understanding, doesn't it? I think that's a cool idea.
Christina: And they're all in the Bible. They all have a Bible in their hands. And I like that.
Nancy: I love that!
Christina: Yes.
Nancy: I just love that, a Bible in the hand! Whoo! I tell you what ladies, we have to watch this today, because we are living in a high-tech age, and everybody has the Bible on their iPhone. I have the Bible on my iPhone, although I don't really read it on my iPhone. I have it to refer to it.
I have my King James Hebrew lexicon app, oh, it's the best app in the world. When I'm reading, I can go, pick up the word, and it will give me the Hebrew, it will give me every word that that Hebrew word is translated in the Word. It's so wonderful. I love it. I refer to it continually. And then I have the YouVersion, which can take me to all the different versions.
But, oh, there's something about having the Bible in your hand. Oh, I love it! And I underline, and I can put a circle around this word, because it's so powerful! Oh, I just love it! And I love to hold the Word. I love to take my Bible to church because I can look up the Scriptures, and I can refer to it. And I am not distracted by my iPhone.
Because ladies, we all have to face it, they're the biggest distractions in the world. You go to have your Bible reading, and you think, “Oh, I'll just do it on my iPhone.” And you start your Bible reading, and, ding, you get a little message. “Oh, I'd better check that.” And so you check it. And you're just taken away from your Bible reading.
Oh, it is so distracting. And so we have to use diligence. We have to use discipline. And I think if we're really disciplined studying the Word, we're going to have the Word in our hands. And I love how you've got your children with a Bible in their hands. That's just so cool. Love it!
Christina: I do too. It's been a great time.
Nancy: What are some of the translations you have?
Christina: Well, we have CSB, NIV, oh, the Amplified, the King James. I went online, and think I've got one of everything.
Nancy: I'm a connoisseur of translations. So when I go to an old-time bookshop, and there's old books, I'm always looking, not just for modern translations. I have all those. But I love to look for old translations of the Bible. Some of them are so rich and so wonderful.
But we were talking about curriculums.
Christina: Curriculums. Yes. It's another area that I just love. When I started out with our first children, and I looked everything over . . . I was a teacher before I started, and I loved curriculums when I was teaching. But once I had children, I stayed home and went to all the homeschool conferences and got all the catalogs and picked out a curriculum.
I've tried things, trial and error. Our eleventh child, I do a different reading program, just because I had done the same one ten times! Why not? Why not do something different?
I love to meet with my neighbors and my homeschooling friends in town and share all the different . . . I've kept them all, so I let them look them over. We have a big schoolroom, and just pull out . . .
“OK, here's all the different things we've done for history. Here's what we've done for science. And this is what's worked. This is what I like, and this is what I don't. Or this is good, but my children just responded to this curriculum better.”
It's always a good day when I get a catalog in the mail.
Nancy: And do you find that different curriculums have been better for different children?
Christina: Yes, for sure. So there's my youngest son, he's such a busy guy. He's eleven, he just turned 12 actually, on Friday. But he loves engines and motors and building things. For him, he responds very well with me to reading, doing all the reading and all those things.
But if you sit him down in front of a math book, it just doesn't make any sense when he could be out there. “Mom, I could be out there. .I could be out there fixing one of my riding lawnmowers, or my four-wheeler, or my push lawnmower. Why would I sit here and stare at this math book?'
So it's been fun. I've probably spent more time and money researching and finding math curriculums. Well, mostly math, I guess. It's kept his attention and kept him going. We've moved to a lot of games and things he can do. He can do all the math but it's like torture. So I decided, “Well, why don't I try to make this more fun?” No one ever really complained quite as much as he did about it. So I tried to . . .
Nancy: Children are not going to learn if it's not fun and enjoyable. You only learn what's enjoyable, don't you?
Christina: Yes.
Nancy: Well, our time is going on, but I'd love to leave you with these lines from a poem that I love so much by Strickland Gillilan. It's called “The Reading Mother.” You can look it up. The whole poem is wonderful. But it ends with this stanza:
You may have tangible wealth untold,
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I, you can never be,
I had a mother who read to me.
Don't you love that?
Christina: I love that. I love that. That's wonderful.
Nancy: That's you, Christina. No one has read more to their children than you have. That is so wonderful. As we close, I want you to play that little snip on your phone. We mentioned at the beginning how Christina's children call her “Pumpkin Pie.” And her little boy is calling her that. I want you to hear it.
Christina: This is my little grandson, Henry. He's six years old, and this is what I said to him, and this is what he said back to me. “I love” “Pumpkin Pie!” “Good job!”
Nancy: Isn't that lovely? “I love Pumpkin Pie.” Oh yes. Anyway, let's pray, as we end this session, which always goes so quickly.
“Dear Father, we come to You in the Name of Jesus, and once again, we thank You for the opportunity to share together, to share about our love for reading.
“We thank You, Lord, that You have given to us the greatest Book in the whole of the world, Your precious Word. We thank You that Your Word is alive, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword. We thank You that it is powerful in our lives, and we pray, Father, that You will give us a love for Your precious Word like we have never ever had before. That Lord, it will truly be life to us.
“We thank You that every Word is eternal. Every word is life-breathed and given by inspiration of God. We thank You that it can change our lives. Oh, Father, Lord, we just thank You for Your precious Word.
“We thank You that we have other books too, that instruct and encourage us, and inspire us, Lord God. We ask that You will give us wisdom as mothers, and how to inspire our children, and to encourage them in Your ways. And, Lord God, to be inspired by great men and women of God.
“Lord, just show us. We know that every one of our children are different. We pray that you give us wisdom for each one.
“I pray your blessing on every precious family listening today, that You will bless them all. Bless their families and pour out your Spirit on each one of their children. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.”
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
Transcribed by Darlene Norris * This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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Available for you to order:
THE DAILY LIGHT ON THE DAILY PATH (King James Version PLUS Creative ideas for each month on how to keep your children attentive).
We use this devotional each morning and evening in our family. We love it because it is straight from God’s Word.
It’s your answer for Family Devotions with your children. No more hassle! No more wondering where to read in the Bible! All you do is go to the date and the Scriptures are waiting for you to read. It has Scriptures on a theme for every morning and evening of every day of the year.
If you don’t have this book already, I’d encourage you to get it.
Bonus: At the beginning of each month you can read creative ideas on how to make your Family Devotions time exciting for your children. Children can get into a dream and turn off quickly. Instead, you will find ways to keep their attention and keep them enjoying the most important part of the day—Hearing God speak to them from His living Word!
If you already have this book yourself, you may like to purchase one to bless another family and encouraged them to get started reading God’s Word to their family.
Retail: $18.95. Currently on sale for $15.95
To order, go to:
THE DAILY LIGHT ON THE DAILY PATH (The same Scriptures but in the New King James Version). Creative ideas not included.
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