Customer Reviews

An Ordinary Girl - A Magical Child

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm a Christian who believes we all benefit from trying to understand other religions. This book is a wonderful introduction to a world a lot of us know nothing about. I wish it could be in every church library. Knowledge tends to dispel fear--so important in the world today! I wish the author would do a series on other world religions, in the same gentle and lovely spirit.

Finally, a book made for children on being pagan. I found this book absolutely delightful! It was written perfectly for a child's perspective. I look forward to beginning reading this book with my own son and the conversations it will inspire. Wonderful!!!!

An Ordinary Girl, A Magical Child is the best neo-Pagan children's book I have seen to date. Period.
It delineates the rituals of the most widely celebrated neo-Pagan sabbats in easy to understand language and breaks down the practices of a typical modern day Pagan family with delightful simplicity. Martin's water colours capture Rabbit's world in breathtaking detail that is certain to engage the imagination of any child.
Does it cover every tradition and every ritual and every pantheon? Of course not. It doesn't need to nor does it pretend to. An Ordinary Girl, A Magical Child covers the Wheel of the Year from a child's perspective as celebrated by Rabbit and her extended family. While it is non-threatening it opens the door to dialogue both within the Pagan community as well as the greater community beyond...and that can only be a good thing.

A wonderful, wonderful read for the 4-8 year old pagan who is yet too young for serious magical work but ready to absorb some ritual style and simple Neo-Pagan theology with her/his family.

Super job with the illustrations, they are just breathtaking.
I can just imagine them framed and set about a nursery!

Definately a nine out of ten effort!
Well done Ms Lyon! and I sincerely hope there will be another project in the offing!

I have been in search of a basic book for pagan kids and had started to write my own when I came across Ms. Martin's "Ordinary Girl, Magical Child". The good reviews were encouraging, but I probably would have bought it anyway -- as far as I can tell, it's the only one out there!

The day it arrived, Jack made us read it to him a dozen times!

There were, as one would expect, small differences between Rabbit's pagan ways and our own, but I found them pretty easy to explain.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Ms. Martin!

Written and illustrated with a mother's love, this lovely little book is a must for the increasing number of Pagans raising children. Its simple, clear wording is great for reading aloud to little ones, and explains Pagan values and practices in a way that should be appropriate for almost anyone practicing an earth-based religion. I've already read it sucessfully to my 4-year-old daughter, whose attention span is usually meansured in mere seconds.

If you're a Pagan parent, you need this book.

As lovely as this book is, I was most disappointed in it's highly path-specific approach to deity. According to the book, a pagan IS someone who believes in God. And also in Goddess. Well, to me, that speaks of Wicca quite specifically and doesn't address our families spirituality at all. While that is fine, it is true that the author can not address all approaches to spiritual belief, my main problem is that the duotheist model is presented as THE definition of paganism, not this specific families approach. Throughout the book, duotheism is repeatedly approached. It even includes an anecdotal tale where the girl is teased at school for not believing in God, only to have the issue resolved by insisting that yes, she does indeed believe in God even though she's pagan. The approach to deity strikes me as exactly the same as christianity and the author works quite hard to explain how it really is just like christianity (just honouring a female as well as a male aspect). So this is something to consider with reading this book; particularly as this approach to deity is emphasized throughout the book and not merely mentioned in passing.

The book also touches on magical practice (albeit briefly), goes through the meanings of the sabbats and a discussion on lunar cycles. There are a few little stories, including one relating a house blessing ritual as well as a nightmare banishing spell.

Overall, I believe this book is valuable in any pagan child's library. The illustrations are beautiful, and well, there just isn't much like this out there. It's certainly a great start to the emerging children's pagan literature.

This is a beautifully illistrated book with a simplified explination of paganism. We need more books like this one!

I love this book, and it's about time something like this has been written. It's a great introduction to Paganism for elementary aged kids. It covers the holidays, spells, and rituals, and who The Gods are, in very simple language. It doesn't explaine everything, but it's a good start, basic enough that parents can fill in their own details of their practice with this as a foundation. I would like to mention that the dates for the holidays reflect thoes of us that live in the northern hemisphere, so if you live in Australia, and celebrate Winter Solstice in June, this book may confuse your children a tad. This book would definatly not be for Reconstructionists, but your average Wiccan or NeoPagan would find this a great resource.

This book is very descriptive as well as informative. Well written, easy for younger children to understand. The illustrations are superbly done and add to the overall well put together design of the book. A must for all people with young children in their lives who are interested in other religions or want to teach them about what they believe and follow.