Dear MikChiks,
My eight-year-old, like many young boys, is fascinated by dinosaurs. He's a bright kid who checks out stacks of library books on all his favorite subjects: composers, animals, presidents, planets, prehistoric creatures, etc. I haven't limited his non-fiction choices from our library's extensive children's collection (though I do monitor what he reads).
Library books about dinosaurs naturally exclude any possibility of a Creator. So far, my son hasn't perceived a conflict between the time lines in these books and the stories he reads in the Bible or hears in church. I've pointed out tentatively that some paleontologists might not believe exactly the same way we do. But I haven't made a major issue of it.
Frankly, I feel out of my depth. I've never been particularly interested in dinosaurs, and I'm less qualified in science than any other academic field. I believe the biblical account of Creation. But kid-level Christian literature about dinosaurs (at least the little I've seen) seems very shallow. I don't know if it would influence a child who can reel off facts about the Deinonychus.
The bottom line: Do you know of a serious, factual, Christian book about dinosaurs that an advanced elementary child could understand and enjoy? If so, please let me know so I can have it under the tree on
Christmas morning. Caveats: I don't want a book that undermines/subtly denigrates the Bible--including the story of Creation and the traditional doctrines of Christianity. But neither do I want a book that trivializes the subject and ignores scientific fact.
If such a book doesn't exist... well, get busy you scientifically-minded Christian writers! There's a potential bestseller just waiting to be written. And any advice will be greatly appreciated. I've ignored the T-Rex in the room too long. Christian kids like dinosaurs, too. Let's talk about it.
Sincerely,
Dino-Mom
Library books about dinosaurs naturally exclude any possibility of a Creator. So far, my son hasn't perceived a conflict between the time lines in these books and the stories he reads in the Bible or hears in church. I've pointed out tentatively that some paleontologists might not believe exactly the same way we do. But I haven't made a major issue of it.
Frankly, I feel out of my depth. I've never been particularly interested in dinosaurs, and I'm less qualified in science than any other academic field. I believe the biblical account of Creation. But kid-level Christian literature about dinosaurs (at least the little I've seen) seems very shallow. I don't know if it would influence a child who can reel off facts about the Deinonychus.
The bottom line: Do you know of a serious, factual, Christian book about dinosaurs that an advanced elementary child could understand and enjoy? If so, please let me know so I can have it under the tree on
Christmas morning. Caveats: I don't want a book that undermines/subtly denigrates the Bible--including the story of Creation and the traditional doctrines of Christianity. But neither do I want a book that trivializes the subject and ignores scientific fact.
If such a book doesn't exist... well, get busy you scientifically-minded Christian writers! There's a potential bestseller just waiting to be written. And any advice will be greatly appreciated. I've ignored the T-Rex in the room too long. Christian kids like dinosaurs, too. Let's talk about it.
Sincerely,
Dino-Mom
Dear Dyno-Mom,
Are you sure this conundrum isn't: Help! I have the smartest kid in the world, and I'm having trouble fitting all the Honor Roll bumper stickers onto my car! I'm also worried that he might be counting cards on the weekends with his Dad's poker buddies, but how else will we pay that Yale tuition?!
Because if that is the question you really wanted to ask, we can work with that. Start sending the extra stickers out with your Christmas cards so your friends can put them on their cars for you. You'll cover more ground that way. As for the card counting, let him go until he's 18. He won't get in any real trouble until then. Also, Yale is overrated. Be cool and go to Northwestern.
Juuuuuuuuuuuuuuust kidding.
Seriously, props to you for thinking ahead on this matter. I (Maddie) sometimes daydream and wonder about where exactly the holes in my scientific education are. My fondest memories of science include Lisa flipping thoughtfully through my text book, scrunching her nose and saying "Eh. You don't need to know that."
Look, Ma! Look what happened to me because I didn't need to know how to make a barometer out of a mason jar and balloons! I could have been a doctor! Oh wait! No I couldn't have! Cause I can't do math either! I'm a shell of a woman!
I feel I should mention that overall, I had an extremely positive educational experience and that Lisa is a great, great woman. So great. (Yeah, right, like anyone would ever believe that!.)
But again, seriously, all too often kids are fed the party lines on Creationism without any hard facts of Intelligent Design to back it up. Then they go to college and are told that there are no hard facts on on Creationism by someone who REALLY looks authoritative and knowledgeable, and totally unlike your mother or maybe even your father. What's a kid to do?
We are believers in Apologetics—being able to explain why we believe what we believe—faith—includes the head and the heart—though we still mess it up sometimes.
On that note, we found THIS BOOK that explains the mystery of the dinosaurs from a biblical/scientific worldview. It's a textbook that comes with study guides if you want to help him—and though it's written for "twelve and above," we feel your son will most likely soak it up. It looks so interesting that we almost want a copy!
Another book we highly recommend as he gets older—and for any adult: I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. It's scientific and factual—and clearly illustrates how science and faith can and should be linked.
We would like to conclude this matter by saying: You, Dyno-Mom are a good mom, and we are sure your son is very, very smart.
And I (Lisa) would like to point out that yesterday in a sea of people (okay four), Madeline was the only one who correctly identified a shape as being a trapezoid.
*bam!*
Guess I didn't do such a bad job after all!
Readers!
What say you?
Love Always,
Lisa and Maddie
First off, I would like to say that "...yesterday in a sea (okay four) people..." makes no sense at all to me. I can *make* it make sense, but I'm fairly certain any way I would do so would seriously violate the framer's original intent-- whatever that was.
ReplyDeleteAs to the books desired, no clue. What I can recall seeing was pretty bad. (Glad Maddie found something good!) The whole topic now falls into the category of "things I'm not to worried about". I believe in specific creation. But if I'm wrong, it doesn't (to me) in any way undermine God or the Bible, merely my understanding of it. (One of my biggest frustrations for years was that the Bible is so vague and/or apparently ambiguous in places. I finally had to decide whether I believed it, and whether my belief could accept holes and things I couldn't understand[1]. Since all the alternatives had far more holes or for other reasons required far more faith-- and even more since I have had deep encounters with God-- that was an easy choice for me.)
In high school, as the son of a Christian organic chemistry professor, I started reading a lot of his journals. Combining that with what I was learning in school, I wrote my big research paper in biology on how life might have evolved, totally ignoring the question of God. My teacher, a wonderful lady and devout Christian who believed in creation, changed the grade several times. Each time she started to explain why, then, apparently frustrated, she crossed that out and upped the grade a little. They went through B-, B, B+, A- to an A. I was really proud of it. Years later I realized the problems with my ideas, but those came from physics, stats and probability (not that I'm that good at those). I wish I stil had that paper so I could repudiate it publicly. 8^/
Finally, I would just like to note that we know stinking little about dinosaurs, as awesome as they appear to be, A few things to keep in mind:
- we really knew next to nothing about them until a little less than 200 years ago. Before that their bones were typically ascribed to dragons or giants.
- I'm 55 (for two more weeks, anyway) and during about half of my life we "knew" that dinosaurs were effectively giant lizards, mostly slow and ponderous. This was still true in the early days of the space program, which was hardly a time of scientific ignorance. Now we "know" that they were generally agile and more closely related to birds. One has to wonder what we will "know" they are tomorrow. Do the crystal skulls of the last Indian Jones explain them better?
- For years we "knew" that brontosaurus was the largest, or maybe the second largest, dinosaur. Then (oops!) we realized that brontosaurus wasn't brontosaurus at all, but simply another name for a different dinosaur.
I'd wonder about any modern book (Christian or otherwise) that didn't address such issues.
[1] Like my finite self is ever going to completely comprehend an infinite God... If it's possible, it will only be because said infinite God makes it happen. I definitely won't pull that off on my own. Even Stephen Hawking gave up on that, just in the wrong way.
Hahahahahaha, y'all make me cackle. Homeschoolers rock! Even ones who can't do math and sneer at science.
ReplyDeleteDino-Mom, I feel your pain. My boys were like, obsessed with dinos for a few years (after the car and tractor stage and before Star Wars characters and tanks). Good thing my hubby is scientific, cause all I wanted to do was watch those cute Land Before Time movies over and over... how many are there, anyhow?
But there ARE books out there that cover this topic well. Ken Ham is great (Maddie's find above) and has a cool website, too. Apparently the Creation Museum in Kansas City or Cincinnati or something is excellent for all that stuff. My kids also watched Kent Hovind (Creation Science Evangelism) videos when they were about that age, but that dude is in prison for tax evasion or something. Maybe not the best recommendation... but Hovind's explanations about dinosaurs and Creationism were scientific and sparked a lot of discussion in our house.
Many excellent points here, Miles. I fixed the sea of four thing, btw. Thanks for the heads up on that poor combination of words. Also, there is a difference between Creationism and Intelligent Design--we mixed up our terms--have straightened that out, too.
ReplyDeleteHalf of what we write feels like a mystery to us.
And if we forget, Happy Birthday in two weeks!
So Havind was gifted scientifically but still had math issues--interesting...
ReplyDeleteThese look like incredible books...for someone else but me. But I dunno the atheist faith one does look pretty cool. I will have to check that out for my teens. As always, great advice!!!
ReplyDeleteI forgot to note how awesome Maddie is for knowing what a trapezoid is. Math Geek is impressed.
ReplyDeleteWe had a great book about this topic when I was a kid, too. I think it's called Dinosaurs and the Bible. There are a couple of awesome websites with great info, too:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.answersingenesis.org/
The Institute for Creation Research: http://www.icr.org/
Thanks, Amy--those are great resources!
ReplyDelete