We’ve started reading Starr Meade’s Keeping Holiday as a family. We’re only a couple of chapters in, but I’m enjoying it enough to recommend it as one of those neat books you can read to your kids, especially at Christmastime. It has a sort of Narnia-esque flavor to it, as others have observed:
R. C. Sproul:
I love it. In reading Keeping Holiday, I was reminded of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia. It is delightful reading that pulls you into the adventures of Dylan and Clare and tells the story of God’s work in the lives of those who are called according to his purpose. Children from 8 to 78 will be captivated by this spellbinding story.
It’s a delightful story that parents can read to kids, or that older children can read by themselves. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and marveled at the way Starr Meade was able to combine an imaginative story with God-centered theology. While reading it I kept thinking that, genre-wise, it was a cross between Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia…
I should also mention that I read this book just for myself (my kids are too young for it)–so it’s well worth reading even for adults. Susan Hunt is exactly right: the story lingers. If you’re like me, the repeated refrain of the book will continue ringing in your head: “You can’t find the Founder; he finds you./He’s not just the Founder, he’s the Finder too.”
We just finished reading it to the kids (well, Donna reading to the kids and me, actually). I heartily recommend it.
First, it is a good story. Once we started it, the kids were very eager to get back to it and find out what happened with Dylan and Clare and their quest.
Second, the theological truths Meade communicates are profound. There is a lot here that you won’t find in other Christian children’s book.
The comparison to Bunyan and Lewis is appropriate and becomes obvious as the story unfolds. However, don’t expect writing and storytelling on the level of those classic authors. If you’ve ever read the “Magic Treehouse” series of books with your kids, the writing is about on that level. It is good, but I don’t think people will be reading it 50 or 350 years from now.