last Christmas the most surprising and wonderful book came into our lives. Tomie dePaola’s Book of Christmas Carols got checked out from the library at the beginning of Advent and didn’t get returned again until well into Epiphany! Nicolas was especially drawn to the pictures and would bring the book and want me to sing each selection. Tomie’s art drew the children to the songs, and the singing made our Advent and Christmas rich.
i wanted the same sort of experience for hymns that our family sings…a book that even children who don’t know how to read can approach and learn from. but where is this book? i hadn’t ever come across anything like this. so i made one!
using clip art designed by Gertrud Mueller Nelson, i collected hymns for our family. i organized the selections following Rahima Baldwin’s encouragement that we need to cultivate in our children a sense of reverence and gratitude. this is a very small collection, only 13 hymns. may they came to share the sacred space you are creating for your family.
a note on printing: Family Hymns can be found on my Scribd page. i designed the book to be printed in “bookfold.” unfortunately i can’t quite figure out how to save the document that way. maybe *you* can help? alternately you can just print it as is at Scribd or maybe i can email the original file to you…
Great little hymnal! You are too much.
We would like a copy!
rachael with 2 a’s…our rachael! so glad to see you here in this space.
you can download and print from the link to my Scribd page. there’s a link in the last paragraph above!
let me know if you have any problems downloading or printing…
Where do you find the Gertrud Mueller Nelson clip art? Just as images on google? I saw the clip art book on amazon, but how would you copy it into a word document? I’m thinking of making a family hymn book for my husband for Christmas. What a great idea you have!
Julia–here is the link to the Clip Art for Feasts and Seasons CD-ROM that we have. it is has over 400 images, and is very easy to use. highly recommended and worth every penny! i’d love to see your work if you do make a hymnal!