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….

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.

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.