OK, teens and parents and anyone who knows some good books for teenagers...I'm looking to work up a bibliography of some good Christian literature for my daughter. My daughter is 14, she really enjoys fantasy novels such as Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Narnia. She likes things with a dark twist to them so Frank Peretti would be a good choice.
She also likes teen-girl romances, but nothing as sappy as say....Bella wanting to end her life due to love Edward (she really doesn't like Twilight, I'm so proud of her discriminating taste ;))...so fun romance not sappy.
Even some "true life drama" that shows some solid values in how to handle things are good. She read one book about a teen girl who became pregnant and the impact it had on her family, on her relationship with the father and how she had to change her vision for her life...it was really good book that reinforced godly values, even though it was a particularly overt Christian book. I honestly can't remember the name of it.
Anyway, why am I asking for this is because I'm trying to convince her that using an elective class next semester to finish off her Catechism would be a great idea.
We have a neat system here in Idaho due to the many Mormons. Mormon high school kids are given Religious release time and can use an elective class in order to go to "seminary" which is located right next to the high school campus, as a matter of fact, they share the same parking lot. It would be unconstitutional to not allow Religious release time for all kids, so we also have CERT which stands for Christian Education Release Time and it is right next to the Mormon seminary.
Viola struggles with Catechism because of the intensive memory work involved and she really struggles with having to do it after a very long day at school. I'm thinking if she takes CERT as an elective, doing self-study for her Catechism this will enable her to do the study during the day. Not only that, the Director of CERT has made the whole thing a teen haven, they have a full-fledged kitchen chock full of pop, junk food, plus a CD player with plenty of CD's by Skillet and other Christian rock groups. (Skillet is one of the Christian rock bands Viola truly likes.) It would be open for our Pastor to come down at anytime if he wanted to quiz Viola on her catechism or just help her in anyway.
Class time is 45 minutes and that is too long to do just the Catechism, so I thought we could also allow for some time to read through some Christian literature, I would work up some kind of companion study material if necessary, (some Christian books already have companion material.) If she spends half the class time on catechism and half on reading and doing the companion study material, she will actually get class credit. As long as the work is rated as a Freshman level, and it has educational value, it will qualify.
This is a win-win for her, but she's really resisting the idea...mainly because right now she is just sort of burned out on Catechism because she is in "crunch time" on it...she needs to have everything wrapped up by Pentecost and it takes up some of her valuable "down time" here at home. I'm thinking some great "real people tried and tested" books will definitely sweeten the deal for her but it's been so long since I've looked at the Christian teen book scene, I'm not sure what might be out there that is truly good literature.
We are Lutheran, so any books that come from a Lutheran background would be great...
:help
She also likes teen-girl romances, but nothing as sappy as say....Bella wanting to end her life due to love Edward (she really doesn't like Twilight, I'm so proud of her discriminating taste ;))...so fun romance not sappy.
Even some "true life drama" that shows some solid values in how to handle things are good. She read one book about a teen girl who became pregnant and the impact it had on her family, on her relationship with the father and how she had to change her vision for her life...it was really good book that reinforced godly values, even though it was a particularly overt Christian book. I honestly can't remember the name of it.
Anyway, why am I asking for this is because I'm trying to convince her that using an elective class next semester to finish off her Catechism would be a great idea.
We have a neat system here in Idaho due to the many Mormons. Mormon high school kids are given Religious release time and can use an elective class in order to go to "seminary" which is located right next to the high school campus, as a matter of fact, they share the same parking lot. It would be unconstitutional to not allow Religious release time for all kids, so we also have CERT which stands for Christian Education Release Time and it is right next to the Mormon seminary.
Viola struggles with Catechism because of the intensive memory work involved and she really struggles with having to do it after a very long day at school. I'm thinking if she takes CERT as an elective, doing self-study for her Catechism this will enable her to do the study during the day. Not only that, the Director of CERT has made the whole thing a teen haven, they have a full-fledged kitchen chock full of pop, junk food, plus a CD player with plenty of CD's by Skillet and other Christian rock groups. (Skillet is one of the Christian rock bands Viola truly likes.) It would be open for our Pastor to come down at anytime if he wanted to quiz Viola on her catechism or just help her in anyway.
Class time is 45 minutes and that is too long to do just the Catechism, so I thought we could also allow for some time to read through some Christian literature, I would work up some kind of companion study material if necessary, (some Christian books already have companion material.) If she spends half the class time on catechism and half on reading and doing the companion study material, she will actually get class credit. As long as the work is rated as a Freshman level, and it has educational value, it will qualify.
This is a win-win for her, but she's really resisting the idea...mainly because right now she is just sort of burned out on Catechism because she is in "crunch time" on it...she needs to have everything wrapped up by Pentecost and it takes up some of her valuable "down time" here at home. I'm thinking some great "real people tried and tested" books will definitely sweeten the deal for her but it's been so long since I've looked at the Christian teen book scene, I'm not sure what might be out there that is truly good literature.
We are Lutheran, so any books that come from a Lutheran background would be great...
:help
