Easter Stories - A FlyBy Promotions Book Review and Giveaway

With Easter soon upon us, it comes early this year, I have really been enjoying this unusual collection of stories.  Easter Stories is a compilation of short stories that guide our hearts and minds to the true intention of the celebration of Easter.  It is not a time of bunnies and eggs, frilly hats and fancy dresses.  Easter is a somber time of reflection and reverence.  This 27 story anthology is a varied assortment of classic literature as well as folk tales from authors like Ludwig von Gerdtell, Leo Tolstoy, C. S. Lewis, and The Brothers Grimm.  Through this exceptional publication we are transported to various times and places and instantly reminded of just why it is we celebrate Easter within the Christian community.  We are also reassured of the undying love of Christ.

I have been enjoying these stories all by myself during my quiet reading time each morning.  However, I can see this collection getting dogeared over the years from much use within my family.  Though the intent is to illuminate the true meaning of Easter, this collection of tales is easily applicable to other times in life, especially within our homeschool.  I find relevance to history in the story of How Donkeys Got the Spirit of Contradiction where a pastor gathers his congregation together on a Christmas Day during World War II to share with them a story about Jesus' life in order to give them strength and courage as they worked in an underground railroad in Nazi-occupied France saving refugees and lived a life of great fear day in and day out.  My children are young now, but I will for sure be sharing this story with them the next time World War II comes around in our history rotation.

The story of The White Lily is the first in the book and one I will be sharing with my three much sooner.  There is no introduction given with this tale, but its message is strong.  A simple act of kindness has tremendous potential for the impact of good.  Here we learn about the importance of being kind and generous and how our actions are directly representative of the love of Christ.  One thing does lead to another, and the love of Christ surely shines on well after the gift of life was given. 

Easter Stories is a sturdy paperback book with strong pages that hold a nice size font for comfortable reading.  Each story is preceded by a beautiful, black and white illustration that gives a small indication to what we might find in the next group of pages.  All stories are timeless tales that either teach of the love of Christ or speak specifically to the Easter season.  These are wonderful to read aloud as a family, as a couple, on your own, or even to incorporate into a school lesson or integrate into an object lesson for home or church.  Some stories, like The Atonement, are just a few pages long allowing for a quick reading and discussion.  Others, like Saint Veronica's Kerchief, are longer requiring more than one reading session to complete, especially if reading as a family or part of a school unit.

Whether it be a lesson of the infinite sacrifice of Christ on the cross told in Robin Readbreast, or the example of taking on the punishment of those we love in The Atonement, Easter Stories is a valuable collection of great literary work and is worthy of the space it will hold on my bookshelf.  I look forward to sharing these stories with my children and grandchildren for years to come.  Stories are a simple way to share the love and sacrifice of Christ as well as provide launching points for valuable discussions in our life as Christians as well as moral issues we will face throughout life.  Reading is by far my most favorite way to worship, share, learn, educate and grow.  I am thrilled to have such a worthy collection in my possession.  Maybe you'd like to own a copy as well.

I did mention a giveaway, right?

Please leave a comment below sharing your most honored Easter tradition or your most treasured Easter memory for a chance to win your own copy of Easter Stories.  

The deadline for entry is March 30th.

Find out more here.

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Disclosure:

"Disclosure (in accordance with the FTC’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising”): Many thanks to Propeller Consulting, LLC for providing this prize for the giveaway. Choice of winners and opinions are 100% my own and NOT influenced by monetary compensation. I did receive a sample of the product in exchange for this review and post.

Only one entrant per mailing address, per giveaway. If you have won a prize from our sponsor Propeller / FlyBy Promotions in the last 30 days, you are not eligible to win. If you have won the same prize on another blog, you are not eligible to win it again. Winner is subject to eligibility verification.”

Egglo Entertainment - A Review

I have to admit that we've never made a huge deal out of Easter, especially with this current batch of children we find residing in our home.  (insert silly smile here)  My oldest kids grew up having a special dinner and looking for Easter baskets.  I wasn't even that consistent with reminding them of exactly why it was we were having a special dinner and hunting for baskets.  The second batch got a better education on the subject, and the third batch is getting the most substantial education on the subject.  It's just the way it goes for us sometimes.  Good resources are helpful when we're growing and learning, and Egglo Entertainment has put together just that.  My husband, myself, and my children thoroughly enjoyed the products we received, and we are super happy to share them with you.  My only regret?  My battery on my camera died after the first few photos, so I have no great pictures to share of our experience, so you'll just have to take my word for it when I tell you that we all really did have a lot of fun with our Glow in the Dark Easter Eggs!

Our family celebrates the Sabbath, and this activity was a fun addition to our day.  We spent the early part of the day exploring local beaches.  If you've never done this in the winter, and you live by any bodies of water, you simply must.  We're just twenty minutes from Lake Huron, and a frozen lake is a beautiful example of God's handiwork.  (I'll share more on this in a different post.)  After our winter exploring we came home and enjoyed lunch together.  Then, we all gathered in the family room.  I had already advance prepped the balloon activity from the curriculum.  We read the story from the paperback Adventure Book that we received as part of our review.  I was worried that the story would be too long to hold their attention, but the kids were interested in what the story had to say, and they loved looking at the colorful illustrations on each page.  The story did a good job preparing us for the Glow in the Dark Easter Egg hunt.  The more we got into it the more excited they got, and it provided us a nice platform for discussing the reason we celebrate Easter as Christians.



I like to educate my children on the history of our holidays, and the Adventure Book is a good launching board for such discussions.  My original plan was to do this with my brood of grandchildren that always come celebrate St. Patrick's Day with us.  On occasion we have an egg hunt since we do not get together for Easter.  When it's nice out it's a fun way to get the children outside running around and having fun.  However, we needed this review done early with Easter coming early this year, and despite previous years showing off the grass in mid-March, we are still knee deep in snow.  (I did walk outside in a t-shirt, capris and flip-flops today to get the sleds out for my children to play outside.  Only in the Midwest, people!)  With all these things in mind, we held the event as a Sabbath activity for our children, and we just had fun with it.  The Curriculum Download is packed full of activities and instructions for planning and hosting a large outreach event for a group of families should that be your desire.  It's an excellent resource.  As a previous VBS leader I can really appreciate the advance instructions and step-by-step guides for the volunteers.

Back to our egg hunt.  So, I read the story.  Once we were finished we used the discussion questions that I printed from the Curriculum Download and discussed the story.  As I mentioned, I had advanced prepped the balloons for an activity in the curriculum called, Scripture Scramble.  I wrote the bible memory verse on balloons that I blew up.  "The light of Jesus shines in the darkness." from John 1:5.  Each balloon had one word from the verse along with the reference.  The kids had to put them in order.  They loved it!  Afterward they got to just play with the balloons.  This kept them occupied until it got dark.  We did trick the oldest into thinking it was going to be held outside and even got her to hunt out there for a few minutes.  LOL  I know!  We are terrible, but we're silly like that.  It was a lot of fun!  HAHA!

I did manage to snap a few of her before my camera died.  LOL

Our review package also included Egglo Treasuers Scripture Scrolls and Egglo Bible Verse Scroll Stickers along with the Adventure Book and Glow in the Dark Easter Eggs.  In advance, I made a trip to our local dollar store.  I found some small gifts to add to the eggs.  (I spent about $5, so it was just a little investment.)  We're not big on candy in this house, so I included one piece of chocolate for each child along with three jelly beans in each egg that did not have a different gift in it.  I did a compass and headphones for each child.  They were easy to connect with the love of Jesus and fit well in the theme.  I also got a package of regular plastic eggs to add in with the glowing ones.  This particular pack had one golden egg to which I added four quarters along with the Scripture Scroll and Scroll Sticker for the lucky one who found it.  In our case it was the youngest one.  She was thrilled!



Once it was dark outside, and after we got Harmony back in the house, the kids went upstairs while I hid the eggs.  They came down and searched the family room.  I made sure I let them know that there were seven eggs for each of them plus one golden egg.  I gave them each a basket and asked them not to open any eggs until everyone had found seven and the golden egg had been found.  Of course the oldest was finished first.  If I had to do it over again I would have asked her to leave the easier ones for the little kids and search more diligently for the ones that were a little more challenging to find.  However, the little kids persisted and with a little "hot and cold" help at the end managed to find all the eggs.  They brought their spoils to the coffee table where a very little amount of trading had to take place in order for everyone to get one of each thing that there was just one for each child.  Amazingly, each child got one piece of chocolate and the correct set of headphones.  The only thing they had to trade was jellybeans for compasses as Avery got all three of those.  It went well, and did I already mention that they loved it?

After they were done searching for all their eggs we used the discussion questions from the curriculum that discussed the idea that Jesus is THE LIGHT of the world!  Unfortunately, our eggs really didn't glow that much.  I have a sneaking suspicion that, despite reading the directions, I did not properly charge them.  So, be sure your follow the directions exactly, and if you have to charge them for inside use do so under a light.  I placed them in a sunlit room all day, and it wasn't enough.  They really need direct light to charge properly.  Even though they weren't glowing strong my children loved them, and they did notice the cross on the eggs.  Everything about the Glow in the Dark Easter Eggs by Egglo Entertainment is designed to direct you to Jesus, and it does just that.  My children have already requested to do this again.  Looks like we may have a new tradition for our family.

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