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When I was learning to fly airplanes as a teenager, I was told that pilots start with two bags: one full of luck and one empty of experience. The goal was to fill the bag of experience before the bag of luck ran out. Adults have bags filled with experience while children are just beginning to fill their bags. Books are a way to help bridge the gap and fill their experience bag faster.

Through stories, children gain vicarious experiences – encounters with hardship, courage, failure, and redemption. When a child reads about a character they have come to love (element 1: capturing the heart), who goes through these experiences, that child becomes invested. Given this emotional investment, children are able to transfer lessons from literature to their own personal experiences.

Crucially, these experiences should not mirror their own lives too closely: distance allows clarity. Consider King David. Why did Nathan present a parable to David? David was able to recognize his own sin because it was presented to him in a way that (1) captured his heart and (2) was transferable to a personal experience. In the same way, children often understand moral truths more clearly when they are embedded in a story that parallels – but does not replicate – their circumstances.

A caution is warranted here regarding many modern children’s books. There is a growing trend toward hyper-specific “issue books” designed to mirror a child’s exact experience and instruct them on how to respond. While occasionally useful, here are some reasons these books often fall short:

• They lack narrative distance, limiting broader application outside the specific circumstance presented.
• They prioritize message over story, weakening emotional engagement and making it one more lesson as opposed to a meaningful experience. You have no Samwise carrying Frodo moment, because the message is primary with the story secondary, instead of allowing a great story to provide needed messages.
• They frequently center upon the self, subtly misaligning a child’s love and misorienting them around themselves and not the broader world around them. It is not that these books will lead our students down paths of outward wrong, but that it can help form hearts around them as the center, and not the teachings of Scripture.

There are likely times that specific books on particular topics may be beneficial, or even well written; in general, you will be well served by focusing on books that focus on drawing a child in in such a way that they are able to translate it, with some distance, to their own personal experience. Books that endure tend to focus on rich characters navigating varied experiences; children can then draw their own connections, guided by thoughtful conversation and the ground truths of Scripture. Additionally, these deeper stories also present worlds of conduct and order, the third element in this mini-series.

Thanks for reading this part of a mini-series! You can catch up or read more by continuing below:

• Introduction
• Element 1: Capturing the Heart
• Element 2: Personal Experience (you are here!)
• Element 3: Conduct and Order (coming soon)
• Questions to Ask When Selecting Books (coming soon)
• Also, for a review of books for children (focusing on books often not reviewed), visit our book reviews!��(coming soon)

A note from the author: Much of the content of this mini-series was generated based upon thoughts provided by Books that Build Character by William Kilpatrick, Gregory Wolfe, and Suzanne Wolfe (1994). Much has been re-oriented around the format and opinions of the author of this post, but it is important that credit for initiating the concepts be provided to the original source.