CHESS Christian Library

Welcome to the 2018-2019 School Year!

August 10, 2018

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Building Book Towers - Fairy Tales!

June 09, 2018

“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.”

G.K. Chesterton

There is the great lesson of 'Beauty and the Beast,' that a thing must be loved before it is lovable.”

G.K.Chesterton

Our summer reading program, the Tower of Books Challenge, has begun, and every challenge for every grade includes reading fairy tales. Now, that may seem like a throwaway category of sorts, or redundant at the very least, because we're all familiar with the basics of the major fairy tales - Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, and the like. But it's very likely that our familiarity is with the Disney-fied or diluted versions of those tales, so this isn't a category to take lightly!

As it happens, fairy tales are some of the oldest stories in our history, and as such, are primary structures in the foundation for all of storytelling. Fairytales give us the story archetypes (the Hero, the Villain, the Quest, etc), and offer deep moral truths and lessons that appear to be woven into almost every culture. The story of Cinderella, for instance, is one of the oldest fairy tales, and has numerous versions the world over, many of which are quite a bit darker and more intense than the Disney versions we have grown to love.

And I do love those movies! But they bear only a passing resemblance to the tale that is vital to a good literary education. Disney's Cinderella, incidentally, is far from the worst offender. Tangled is another of my favorite Disney movies...but it isn't really the story of Rapunzel. And Frozen might be fun, but the only thing it has in common with The Snow Queen is...well, snow. While they are often as enjoyable as movies, they have an unfortunate effect on literature, seriously diluting our fairy tale knowledge.

So. Our kids need to read fairy tales - the real, rich, layered, gruesome, and beautiful fairy tales. Watch Disney movies if you like, but skip the books that tell their versions of the story. For some excellent versions, check out our fairy tale wish list. We now carry many of these in the library, thanks to our Spring Read-a-Thon fundraiser, but you may also find them in your local library.

And for further reading on the importance of the original fairy tales, here are some excellent links:

https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/three-objections-to-fairy-tales-and-c-s-lewiss-response

https://www.centerforlit.com/blog/2018/4/23/restoration-and-remembrance-in-cinderella

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A Tower of Books!

May 11, 2018

Packages upon packages have been arriving at the library almost daily in this busy month of May, delivering all kinds of delightful books! A few more are still on their way, but I wanted to show everyone just what the Read-a-Thon money did for the CHESS library. So I recruited a helper to give us some perspective, and behold, a tower of books!

I am so enormously grateful for support of our CHESS library during the Read-a-Thon, and so excited for this lovely stack of books that we've been able to add to our collection because of it. Now of course, this school year is almost over, but we're not going to have to wait until next year to enjoy our new additions, because our summer reading challenge is just a few weeks away! And as it happens, our tower of books is the perfect way to introduce our reading program. So...here's what you need to know:

1. We'll be kicking off the "Tower of Books Reading Challenge" on Thursday, June 7 (times TBA). Rising Kindergartners through high school students (new and returning students) will be invited to participate.

2. Students will select their challenges, based on grade level, as well as the number of books they think they'll be able to read over the summer (for most grades, there are 20, 30, and 40 book options). We don't want our challenge to compete with the summer reading programs at local libraries, so we'll encourage students to use their challenges alongside those reading programs. Ours will simply direct students to books from particular genres and categories.

3. Students can read books in whatever order they wish, and as they finish books, they will begin to build their towers! And if they find themselves going faster or slower than they had anticipated, they can always switch challenges. We want this to be an enjoyable and successful experience for everyone.

4. Throughout the summer, we'll be offering a number of events that will allow CHESS students to visit our library, but also to fellowship with friends! We'll be announcing these dates in the next couple of weeks.

5. At Back-to-School Night, students will turn in their completed book towers and will receive a prize!

Questions? Email Mrs. Meester at library@chesschristian.com, or better yet, stop by the library and see what the challenges and the book towers actually look like. I'll be more than happy to talk to anyone and everyone about it! I'm excited about this fun opportunity for CHESS students to read, learn, and stay connected over the summer, and can hardly wait for June!

-Mrs. Meester

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Library News!

May 04, 2018

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A Quick Note...and a Fun Book!

April 29, 2018

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Spring Read-a-Thon! (And a Long Conversation!)

April 15, 2018

Today we're kicking off our week of Spring Read-a-Thon! I know it's been a busy week for many, with testing and then the Homeschool Convention, but even if students weren't able to get their pledge and reading logs last week, there's still time. They can begin any time this week, or even request small one-time donations from friends and family who would like to help them support our library. The rules are here, and the proceeds will benefit all our students, as we're hoping to add new books to our library in anticipation of our exciting summer reading challenges!

Speaking of adding books to our collection, one day last week I had a great conversation with some students in the library about how we decide exactly which books belong in our school library. It was insightful to hear their thoughts about content and age appropriate material, and I think it was good for them to work through aloud the challenges that arise when determining which books to add to a library collection and how to direct them to the most appropriate audience.

Our causal (but eventually rather deep!) conversation reminded me of a workshop given by Andrew Pudewa (founder of the Institute for Excellence in Writing) at conventions and conferences, in which he discusses the value of stories (fairy tales are the foundation of his discussion, but he applies the same concepts to all stories). In Fairy Tales and the Moral Imagination (which I highly recommend, and you can follow the link to purchase), he talks about how we can typically sort all stories into four categories, and those categories can help us determine which stories we read, when we read them, how much of them we read, and what benefits they give us. I think of this metric often when evaluating books and stories, whether personally or for the library. Mr. Pudewa explains it all more eloquently than I could, but here is a rough summary:

"Whole" stories are those in which good is good, bad is bad, and good wins. There may be struggles along the way, but these are the "happily ever after" sort of stories.

"Healing" stories are those in which good is good, bad is bad, and good wins...but not in the way that was expected.

Obviously we want to fill most of our reading, and thus much of our library with "whole" and "healing" stories, especially for younger readers. Even then, though, we don't want to shy away from the tough topics of struggle, conflict, and even death that are present in many "healing stories." Children are grappling with these things within themselves, and stories have long helped them to work out their fears and develop their understanding of such concepts in safe ways. And in these sorts of stories, we see powerful themes of courage, honor, forgiveness and redemption.

"Broken" stories are those in which good is good, bad is bad...but bad wins. The characters often make the wrong choices, and there is no happy ending. These sorts of stories should be reserved for readers who are mature enough to ask the right questions - or better yet, readers who can be mentored through the process of reading and evaluating them. They can be difficult or depressing tales, but they can, with the right approach, be enormously valuable in helping the reader better understand the world, and of the truth in the midst of brokenness. Therefore we do carry books that would fall in this category (and our CHESS Language Arts teachers do a terrific job as mentors as our older students explore them in class situations).

"Twisted" stories are those in which good is bad, bad is good, and in general, the traditional understandings of right and wrong - and the archetypes that represent those understandings - are turned upside down. These types of stories are intended to make the reader see good and bad differently (in contrast, some books in the "broken" category may present a skewed viewpoint, but with the intent of shedding more light on truth). I can't think of any that we would recommend or that we carry in our library, as our express purpose is to help CHESS students develop and strengthen a biblical worldview.

Building that worldview, however, requires a variety of tools and approaches, and so in our library, we try to carry a wide variety of stories and voices. We carry stories that promote truth, beauty, and goodness, with the understanding that sometimes those stories must share what is ugly and evil to shine an even brighter light on the truth. We encourage our students to read them, not only to entertain - and not even just to put notches in the belt of their education - but to build wisdom and understanding, to cause them to grow in their "moral imagination." And we encourage parents to be a part of how they find the stories that best speak to their hearts, because that, of course, is part of the system of learning and shared teaching that makes CHESS great!

So back to the start - we're excited about the growth of our library, and we hope our friends and family will also be excited to join us in building our collection and, through that, investing in the minds and hearts of our students!

-Mrs. Meester

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