Pax Revisited
Written by Nicki Johnston
Each time our family goes on a road trip, a critical part of our preparation is choosing an audiobook. Last year, we decided to listen to Pax for our annual Thanksgiving trip to Texas. Its sequel, Pax, Journey Home, was selected in the Family Supplement to complement A Severe Mercy.
The cover image included a drawing of a fox, so I assumed it was a cute, light-talking animal story like so many of the books we read with our boys. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The story’s main character was not the fox, but a boy, Peter. His mom is dead, his father is emotionally distant, and there is a war being fought on American soil. My husband and I exchanged glances as the book became heavier and heavier. Should we pause it? Check in with the boys to see how they are doing? Change books completely?
But we couldn’t get ourselves to stop listening. The story was so compelling and so beautiful. It wasn’t that my conscience told me that we shouldn’t be listening to the book, but that I worried/wondered if perhaps I needed to protect my children from something.
I hadn’t preread the book—I never do for family read-alouds—and I worried that Pax itself hadn’t been recommended in the supplement but rather its sequel. Maybe there was a reason that Charity Hill hadn’t chosen the first book? I decided to go to her website, Bright Wings, to find out. While there, I came across her podcast, which included a review of Pax and, more significantly, an episode with a Literary Examen for parents.
In this particular podcast episode, Charity encourages us to examine the choices we make in books for our children and the motivation behind these choices. Is our desire to protect our children or to equip them? Are we motivated by fear of harm—or an excitement for the good?
As I pondered my answers to these questions in the context of Pax, I realized that I was, in fact, trying to protect my children. This is a natural response, and it is largely our responsibility to do so. But it’s also our responsibility to equip our children, especially as they get older.
Earlier this year, my oldest son turned 12. Next year’s birthday may be a bigger milestone as he enters his teenage years, but something about 12 felt like a turning point of sorts. It must have something to do with the story we hear about Jesus at this age. His recent birthday and this literary examen made me realize that I want to be braver in choosing books for him.
Charity mentions in this episode the importance of choosing “psychologically age-appropriate” books for our children, which requires discretion as each child is different. It also requires some coordination in family life as most books are more than one-size-fits-all for the age range of our children. Just as it isn’t right for me to choose books that are too mature for my youngest child, I need not shy away from age-appropriate books, including those with hard content, at least for my oldest.
My children are voracious readers, so I can’t read everything they do (I need time for my own books!). Still, my husband and I make a point of reading with them as much as possible through read-alouds and parent-child book clubs. We also provide them with plenty of books to read on their own. I have several booklists I like to reference to get new ideas for books, but ultimately, it is my children—not the lists—that I trust.
In the end, we decided to continue with Pax and read its sequel, but we ditched the audiobook in favor of my reading it aloud. This gave me a chance to make slight edits as necessary for the younger boys, and, more importantly, it gave them a chance to hear the book in my voice and to experience my emotional response alongside their own. I often cry during read-alouds, and I think it is good for my children to see me be affected by books in this way. If you ask them why Mama cries while reading, they will confidently tell you, “Because it is beautiful.” Pax and Pax, Journey Home are beautiful, as are many other children’s books from this year’s Family Supplement list.
Another one that I particularly loved is Mountain Born, which got straight to the heart of my sons’ growing up and transitioning from boys to young men. Toward the very beginning of the book, the mother, holding a newborn lamb in her arms, reminisces about holding her newborn son, Peter. From that moment with her son, she was keenly aware that he would soon grow up and need independence. “Such a short way could she go with him on that path that was his life; only a few years she would have his hand in hers. For a few more years he would walk beside her; then he would be a man going his way alone.”
This bittersweet acknowledgment of her son’s inevitable growing up echoed how I have been feeling lately and how Peter, later in the book, laments about his sheep’s aging, wishing things could stay just as they are. When he does, Benj, the wise, old shepherd, likens this desire to want the day to remain “‘nigh noon.” “Maybe it would be nice to have the sun stay overhead always; maybe it would… and maybe we wouldn’t get anywhere if it did.” Peter realizes the truth right away, and I, too, must accept that “everything had to go forward, and everyone had to go along too.”
Our children must go forward and along, and our job as parents is to equip them to do so. Books are one powerful way we can do this. My favorite of Old Benj’s pearls of wisdom is, “A man must have a care to what he puts in his mind, for when he’s alone on a hillside and draws it out, he’ll want treasures to be his company, not regrets.”
The stories we offer our children can be treasures that will be drawn out later. Or, in a different metaphor—from another of the Family Supplement books:
“During those hours of reading, the world became bigger and wider for them, the horizons lifted. The reading was like seed being placed in the ground, some day, perhaps, to flower and bear fruit.”
The Ark by Margot Benary-Isgot
My hope is that in reading good and worthy children’s books now, they are cultivating a taste for good and worthy literature in the future and that the books that they read are treasures for their minds and hearts and will bear fruit in the good, kind, courageous men I pray that they will one day become.
Nicki Johnston
Nicki Johnston is a home educator, a CGS catechist, an avid reader and an amateur naturalist. She lives in Kansas with her husband, Graham, and their four sons.
About Well-Read Mom
In Well-Read Mom, women read more and read well. Our hope is to deepen the awareness of meaning hidden in each woman’s daily life. We long to elevate the cultural conversation and revitalize reading literature from books. If you would like us to help you select worthy reading material, we invite you to join and read along. We are better together! For information on how to start or join a Well-Read Mom group visit our website wellreadmom.com
