This project was born out of my own desire, as a mother, to have a resource I could use to teach hymns to my own children. Learning and memorizing hymns is an important (much-neglected) part of the Christian tradition, presenting a fantastic opportunity to share God’s Word through song within families.
Because I wanted this book to facilitate the memorization of hymns, both for me and my kids, all of the hymns I chose can be found in the LSB. This is what we hear each week; still, many or most of these hymns are pretty universally known. I selected the 24 hymns I wanted to use by the following criteria:
• All public domain (to prevent copyright issues)
• Highly singable tunes, but not dated-sounding
• Relatively short; most hymns are 4 stanzas or less (with a few exceptions)
• Covering a range of subject matter across the church calendar; many that deal specifically with Christ as our Redeemer
The illustration style was originally inspired by studies of the “golden age” of children’s book illustration from the first part of the 20th century. They are colored pencil drawings, but less cartoon-y and with realistic attention given to proportion and other details. I was shooting for beauty instead of a “cool” factor. My own personal experience as a child is that when it came to church stuff, beauty was cool, and highly attractive.
These illustrations depict personal applications of the hymn from a child’s perspective, where they actually interact with Jesus. This is shown to happen:
• As children participate in the Divine Service;
• As they learn about their faith and church through other learning/teaching experiences;
• In prayer;
• As they learn love for their neighbor in their vocation as a son, daughter, friend, etc;
• As they picture themselves as part of the Scripture stories and so are depicted witnessing the events as they take place
To help the parent or teacher using this book, there’s a section with the melody line for each hymn, an assortment of discussion questions and thought starters about the content of the hymn, and a memory verse. These extras can be adapted according to the learning level of the child, and are meant to help bring out the layers of meaning in each song.
I intend to go ahead with self-publishing, making the book available for any who are interested. It’ll probably be ready in a few months’ time. The notes are completely finished, and the illustrations are about 1/4 of the way there. Alex is doing the formatting for all of this, which includes a LOT of graphics, so he deserves the biggest props that can be given. The book will probably be around 90 pages max, 8 1/2″ x 11″and in full color. If we use Lulu again, the price should end up in the $25-30 range. It should be ready in a couple months.
Thoughts, comments, questions? Is this something you would want to see?
