Seasons of Magic

Rating:
Summary: A story of Magic for our daughters
Review: I look forward to having my daughter read this book when she reaches 10. It gives her a way to understand and celebrate the changing seasons.It also offers great ways to share in the seasonal rituals with a workbook of ideas. And the glossary is very helpful. An easy and fun read. As a mother it helps me appreciate how to bring the rituals into my family's life.

Rating:
Summary: A very sweet book!
Review: I thought that this book may have been just for children, but I had such a fun time reading it. The softly drawn pictures really make this book come alive and the writing is smooth, easy to read, and very informative. I am very excited to read this book to my child and share with him the hows and whys of Mother Earth's sacred days. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I think you will, too, especially if you have a child to share it with.

Rating:
Summary: A very sweet book!
Review: I thought that this book may have been just for children, but I had such a fun time reading it. The softly drawn pictures really make this book come alive and the writing is smooth, easy to read, and very informative. I am very excited to read this book to my child and share with him the hows and whys of Mother Earth's sacred days. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I think you will, too, especially if you have a child to share it with.

Rating:
Summary: pleasing story of a girl's learning the Wheel of the Year
Review: Seasons of Magic: A Girl's Journey by Laurel Ann Reinhart introduces pre-teen kids to the wheel of the year through the story of a 12-year-old girl. Always on the look-out for Pagan parenting resources, I decided to have a look at this book. I approached it with some initial skepticism, simply because in my own childhood I moved directly from children's books to adult books, never finding much in the "fiction for young readers" genre to capture my interest.

The premise of the book is that the main character, Erin, raised in a Pagan family, is curious to learn more about the seasonal celebrations, and begins receiving instruction from an elderly friend. Reading the first couple chapters, it looked like Erin's story was sort of a gimmick to make the informational content more digestible for young people, which didn't strike me as terribly necessary or even very effectively done.

As I continued, though, I was pleasantly surprised to watch Erin's relationships with her friends change and grow. This theme is handled with a welcome, low-key realism, showing an awareness of human nature and the rhythms of life. Erin has non-Pagan friends, and this delicate issue is also handled in a positive, non-melodramatic way. Pagan interest in helping the environment is also conveyed with the same gentle practicality. By the middle of the book, I was appreciating it as a reading experience for myself, parenting thoughts aside.

Erin's wise-woman teacher dies before the wheel is completed. Erin, with the help of family and friends, makes contact with her again through a Samhain ritual, which closes the wheel and ends the story. Up to this point, the magic in the book had been essentially of the "natural" sort, the wonders of the changing seasons. This chapter, necessarily, presents Pagan magic in a more direct fashion, and it is wonderfully done. The depth of the experience is conveyed, without indulging in exaggeration that would prompt a young reader to see the book as a fantasy novel. Erin's reaction to the experience also seems very natural and genuine.

At the end of the book, after the story concludes, there is a nice compilation of informational matter relating to the wheel of the year, which a young person could actually use to develop their own appreciation of our sacred days.

This book does a fine job of conveying Pagan beliefs and practices as a natural and integral part of life. It might be a little too low-key for some kids, though, and kids older than the character in the book would probably prefer something more teen-focused. I would recommend it for ages 8-12. This is not by any means a great milestone of Pagan literature, but it is a nice addition to a family bookshelf, addressing an age group that has received too little attention from Pagan authors and publishers.