My First Little Workbook of Wicca by Rev. Velvet Rieth

My biggest complaint: this book is perfect bound, and as a workbook, I really wish it was either spiral bound, or had tear-out pages, or something. I could see kids doing these pages over and over again, and I’ve recently come upon several ways to re-use pages (like putting them in plastic page protectors and using dry erase markers and crayons), and I can’t do that with this book.

Rev. Rieth put this together for her grandchildren. It has pages to color, a Pagan alphabet, pages to practice writing alphabet letters, words, and numbers, information on color correspondences, information on quarters and directions, songs, activity ideas, and activity pages.

There is a ton of info here, and enough activities to keep a child busy for hours and hours – in fact, I could see using this book as the basis for a preschool or kindergarten curriculum. I know that my son brings home similar pages from preschool every day right now.

The Wiccan content isn’t super deep here, but then it’s not really meant for that sort of thing. And as always, any themed alphabet is going to pick and choose what words to use, and there’s always at least one that leaves me wondering what they were thinking.

All in all, a cute book, and one we’ll definitely be making use of, as soon as I figure out how to make the pages re-useable for my little guy with fine motor delays who could use plenty of practice….

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A Witch’s Primer Grade One by Lorin Manderly

Let’s start with the basics:  I bought this book to review because I really liked the premise. Ms. Manderly says in the intro that she is interested in the idea of a Pagan school (parochial school) and felt there wasn’t anything out there that would serve as an appropriate text book.

Unlike most of the reviewers on amazon.com, I think this book failed to really reach that potential.

Each chapter has a few pages of text, a summary (sometimes as much as half the length of the chapter, and questions for review. In that sense, it’s set up like many text books, though the summaries in most texts are considerably shorter than the chapter, which makes me think more details were needed in the chapters themselves. There are no pictures, which seems odd for a book meant for teaching children.

The book feels very scattered – eighteen chapters in 156 pages. It’s also sometimes confusing – in one chapter, the author starts out talking about how we will discuss Greek gods, and then switches pantheons without any segue. She has 2 chapters about the gods, in fact, which at times seem to contradict each other. Some chapters seem very light on information, and some feel like there’s far too much for the age group this is intended for.  Her chapter on “Myths and Legends” focuses entirely on Arthurian Legend, which seems a bit deceptive – there are plenty of other myths and legends out there, related to the deities she’s discussed elsewhere, but they’re never mentioned.

I’d also quibble a bit with her title. Not all witches are Wiccan, but what she’s written is really a Wiccan primer.

Finally…she spends a fair number of chapters talking about spells, herbs, potions, and the like, all the while telling children not to do any of these things without supervision. It seems like an awful lot of information to give a child if you don’t want them to actually use it.

All that said…I still might use this with my kids, with careful editing and thinking about whether the chapters are sending the message I want to send to them. It’s written so that a mid-elementary school aged child could read it easily, so that might work too if you’re planning to have an in-depth discussion with your children about what they’re reading.

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Everyday Magick for Children of Earth-Based Spiritual Families – by Rayne Storm.

I bought this book – I’m still on the hunt for things that we can do with my very active non-verbal little guy.

My first impression of this book was, “OMG this is so lovely!” – I was so struck by the inside of it that I went to show my husband.

Every page starts, “There is magick in…” with a different topic, followed by a rhyming explanation of the topic. There’s a short lesson or moral, and a question or challenge – some activity to do or think about related to the topic. Topics range from seasonal to parts of the natural world to activities.

I really like the way this book approaches magick – it’s a part of the everyday world, and something you can find everywhere.

I think this could be used as a framework for larger lessons, with the addition of related activities for a group.  But I think we’re going to try using it as a page-a-day sort of thought starter – it’s simple enough for a fairly young child, but profound enough that older kids should find it interesting too.

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Disclaimer: I bought the coloring book, and all opinions are my own.

A while ago (gosh, probably 10 years now that I think of it), I met Apollo and GeGe, the authors of this coloring book, through SpiralScouts. Apollo and I split a vending table at ConVocation, my first time going there. They showed us this coloring book, and I was really excited – we didn’t have kids at the time, but we wanted kids, and I really wanted there to be resources for them.

There are a few more resources now, but not as many as I’d like, which is why I started this site.

At any rate,they moved away,and a couple of years ago, we ran into Apollo again, and learned that GeGe had passed away. Apollo still has the coloring book for sale, though. So when I started doing reviews, I contacted him to see if he’d be ok with me reviewing his book.

The pictures are really nice, with lots of important little details:

The overall story running through the book is more the history of magic and witches rather than strictly Wiccan- everything from tribal practices in hunter-gatherer societies to the rise of Christianity to modern witchcraft and Wiccan beliefs. There are Gods and Goddesses to color at the end of the book too.

Age wise, I’d say this is for older kids who still color. My guess is that most parents will need to do some explaining to their kids about some parts, so I’d advise pre-reading just to be sure you know what’s going to be mentioned and so you can plan to explain if need b – as with most Pagan things these days, not everyone is going to agree on everything.

These are coil bound, 72 pages (printed single sided), and can be purchased by messaging Apollo on the Rhiannon’s Wiccan Journey’s facebook page.

 

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Growing Up Pagan, A Workbook for Wiccan Families

I purchased this book a while back, looking for some books appropriate for my son. I’d say that even now, turning 4, it’s definitely still too old for him. It is, however, a nice book for what it is, though I still think it could be improved on. The artwork is wonderful, and it’s written at a level that kids will understand. I think many Wiccan and eclectic families will find this to be a great book to work through with their kids as a starting point for more formal or in-depth learning.

This book covers the God and Goddess as sun and moon, the elements, some symbols common to Wicca, altar building, the Rede, a few myths, prayers, and the Sabbats and Wheel of the Year.

For each section in the book, there are activities – practice drawing symbols, word searches, and crossword puzzles. I think I would have liked to see more variety in the activities, especially since they’re so focused on words. If your child isn’t interested in word puzzles, or has difficulties with written work or fine motor skills in general, they may struggle with these activities.

One major problem I noticed is that while all 8 Sabbats are named, only 5 of them are explained.The five explanations that are in the book are well done, but those 3 missing ones are important.

There are three myths in the book: a creation myth staring Dana and Morrigan, the story of Pandora’s box, and the myth of Cerridwen’s Cauldron. The Pandora myth has a one sentence “moral of the story” at the end, Cerridwen’s Cauldron has several paragraphs of explanation, and the creation myth has no moral or explanation. A little more consistency here might have been good. Also, I wonder about the choice of myths – two Celtic myths and one Greek seems an odd combination. I wish there were more open ended questions for children to think about with each myth – critical thinking, figuring out the lessons on their own, discussion about the motivation of different characters, etc.

The altar building instructions are really well done, and give kids a lot of room to be creative in making their altars. My one quibble here is that the author makes the statement, “Now that you have an altar of your own, you can learn some prayers…” – I’m not sure I’d suggest that you must have an altar to pray.

At the end of the book, there’s a quiz, with instructions that if you do not pass the quiz, you should go back and work on learning the materials again. There’s also a certificate to fill out once the test is passed. Again, the test is pretty strongly oriented towards written work and rote memorization, so kids with written language difficulties may struggle.

Also, I’m not sure I really like the idea of a test at the end. For a religion like Wicca that’s focused on direct experience, a test seems a little out of place. However, it is a workbook, so it’s not that out of place.

All in all, I’d say it’s a good book if you’re Wiccan and looking for something for your older elementary school children. I think when my own children are older, we’ll definitely use this book as a part of our educational process, which will give a good jumping off point for talking about various Pagan beliefs beyond what’s presented. I would love to see someone use this as a textbook of sorts for a group study with several children together – I think the possibilities for discussion would make for a much deeper experience for the children.

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