Step into the Circle: Winter, by Rowena Wishom, Illustrated by Laura Curry

This book covers the winter Sabbats, Samhain and Yule.

Each section has a story about a modern child and her experiences with the holidays – often, her mother tells her about mythology related to the holiday in the story. There are also songs, recipes, and crafts for each Sabbat. Samhain has a short spell, and Yule has a short ritual.

This would be a great book for starting to talk about Sabbats with elementary school aged kids. It gives lots of practical ideas for how to celebrate, as well as talking about the meanings of each.

The opinions expressed here are my own, and I purchased the book reviewed. Links to Amazon are affiliate links.

The Sunchildren: Celebrating the Autumn Equinox, by Ancient Amber, Illustrated by Maryna Salagub

This is the second book in the Sunchildren series, focusing on the Autumn equinox.

Like the Summer Solstice book, this one lists a number of seasonal activities that the Sunchildren are doing, which your children might like to do along with them. Although the book is somewhat repetitive in that respect, I think younger children will appreciate. It also encourages creativity and respect for others, which are always good things.

This book feels like there’s more explanation in the beginning. I’m not sure that it’s needed, especially not in long paragraphs.

You can follow the author’s upcoming plans at http://ancientamber.weebly.com/

The opinions expressed here are my own, and I purchased the book reviewed. Links to Amazon are affiliate links.

A Witch’s Primer, Grade 2, and A Witch’s Primer, Grade 3, by Lorin Manderly

I reviewed A Witch’s Primer, Grade 1, a while back. I mentioned then, and still believe with these two books, that while Ms. Manderly set out to create a text appropriate to teach religion in a Pagan parochial school, and I think these fail at that.

Each of these books has the same chapters as the first book. Each goes into a little more detail (and by little, I do mean a little – each chapter takes up about one screen on my tablet, which I use as an ebook reader). The chapters are very scattered, and again have a wide range of experience expected within a single book – Grade 3, for instance, suggests reading books on soul retrieval – which I’m not sure is a topic appropriate for even middle school aged readers. Information on herbs is provided, but not enough to be really safe (and often on herbs that are not appropriate for children.

I think one of my other big concerns with these two books is the sort of loose grasp on facts that seems pervasive. The Grade 3 chapter on the “History of Magick” is entirely comprised of a Cliff Notes version of the Salem Witch Trials. The introduction to Grade 2 says, “Witches were around in the very beginning (and by this I mean actual prehistoric times, as early as 2000 BC).”

For the first book, I thought that there was salvageable information, if carefully read and edited before sharing with children. I think that all three books together still don’t give a complete picture on some topics, and recommend things that are really not appropriate for children in most cases. So, again, proceed with caution here, and fact check with other sources before just handing these over to your kids.

I purchased both books reviewed here. The opinions above are my own. The links to Amazon are affiliate links.