Book Recommendations

Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present

September 13th, 2025
Mollie T. Cox

She likes red,” said the little girl.

Red,” said Mr. Rabbit. “You can’t give her red.”

Something red, maybe,” said the little girl.
Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present by Charlotte Zolotow

I’ve loved this book since the first time my school librarian read it in 1964. I was in the 1st grade. I don’t think I encountered Mr. Rabbit again until a children’s literature course in college.

I knew Mr. Rabbit was fiction. I knew I shouldn’t follow a rabbit into the woods to look for something red or yellow or green or blue—even if he was polite and spoke perfect English. (You know all this, too.)

Still, it was tempting to think I could.

My husband and I vacationed in the mountains last month and who did we find in the woods? Mr. Rabbit. We knew he would be there because we saw him last time.

My husband said, “Something red, maybe.” (He had read the book to our sons.)

I followed Mr. Rabbit. Just for a photo.

Left: Mr. Rabbit drawn by Maurice Sendek. Right: Mr. Rabbit in the Shenandoah National Park

First grade Book Magic hasn’t disappeared.

Have you experienced lasting Book Magic?

Redeemed from Trouble

April 19th, 2025
Mollie T. Cox

Oh give thanks to the Lord for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble.
Psalm 107:1-2 (ESV)

Forget being redeemed from trouble because I don’t want trouble to begin with. Especially as a child, I longed for happiness and perfection.

I was drawn to TV shows like The Waltons, Andy Griffith, and My Three Sons. I craved the comfort, hope and security they offered. Books such as the All-of-a-Kind Family series, and the Judy Bolton Mystery Series met the same need. They were a Sunday roast, mashed potatoes with gravy, and three fingerfuls of buttercream frosting all between well-worn pages.

Fiction proved I could grow up and have a different life.

Now, I’m wiser. I’m drawn to the fiction that shows redemption. No one gets happiness and perfection—except in rare, short bursts. Hope and security come from the knowledge that we can be redeemed from trouble.

My current favorite authors—Gary Schmidt, Mary Amato, Katherine Paterson and Gordon Korman—show what a life redeemed from trouble looks like, and it is good.

Oh give thanks to the Lord for he is good.

Book Recommendations

Holding Up the Sky Alone

March 22nd, 2025
Mollie T. Cox

One benefit of reading messy fiction is that an author can help me understand myself.

I’ve spent months reflecting on a task I undertook. It was rewarding. I was successful. I was exhausted. I wept at random times when I remembered the experience. I tried to dissect why I had been, and was still being, impacted so dramatically. And then, I reread a favorite passage from a favorite book by a favorite author.

But I wonder if what Hercules was most afraid of when he was holding up the sky wasn’t that he was going to have to hold it up forever. It was that he was going to have to hold it up forever while he was by himself.
The Labors of Hercules Beal by Gary D. Schmidt

My trauma came from the never-ending, day-to-day aloneness. My husband, son, and close friends encouraged me, but they could not do the work.

I’d assumed I’d have help holding up the sky. As the days accumulated, I realized that the person I expected to take a turn, was holding up her own sky. Alone. And we both might be stuck forever.

Has a novel given you insight into your experiences?

Book Recommendations, Christmas

An Advent Calendar of Books

November 23rd, 2024
Mollie T. Cox

What do I wish I had known and experienced when my sons lived at home? An Advent Calendar of Books.

This Advent Calendar contains a wrapped stash of books to be unwrapped one by one during Advent. New books don’t have to be purchased yearly. Opening Christmas favorites can be satisfying.

Ideas abounded on the internet, but my favorites were beginning with a book per week of Advent and using library Christmas books until you have decided on the books you want—and can afford—in your permanent collection.

After years of collecting, I might have enough for each day of Advent.

My recent additions to my overflowing shelf of Christmas books are

Silent Night by Lara Hawthorne

Voices of Christmas by Nikki Grimes

The Christmas Mitzvah by Jeff Gottesfeld

and Santa Who? by Gail Gibbons.

I’m not sure I could have managed the wrapping and unwrapping of twenty-four books when my sons were young, but my book-per-week selection would have been well-loved favorites

Tomie dePaola’s Christmas Carols by Tomie dePoala

The Lion in the Box by Marguerite de Angeli.

B Is for Bethlehem: A Christmas Alphabet by Isabel Wilner

and Christmas Eve by Edith Thacher Hurd

Happy Reading.

Book Recommendations, Lies I Believed, Parenting

Lies I Believed: Parents Can Fix Their Children

April 13th, 2024
Mollie T. Cox

Pray then like this: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Matthew 6:9

One son held a grudge against a teacher. “Had I prayed with my son?” asked another teacher.

“Yes.”

“Had I prayed for him?”

“Yes.”

“Why wasn’t his attitude ‘fixed?'” she wondered. Maybe I hadn’t prayed enough.

“Had I encouraged another son who was shy?” asked a friend.

“Yes.”

“Perhaps he needs an incentive.”

“One morning, I offered a dime for every time he said ‘Hello.’ He declined.”

My friend wondered if there was another way to “fix” him.

I learned quickly I could not “fix” my sons. However, I felt guilty when I couldn’t, which probably meant deep down I thought I should.

It was decades later that I read The Lord’s Prayer by Thomas Watson. He begins by examining what it means for God to be our father.

God is the best Father in terms of Wisdom. He knows the fittest means to bring about his own design. … God is the best Father because he can Reform his children. God knows how to make his elect children better—he can change their hearts.
Thomas Watson, The Lord’s Prayer

Have you been expected to fix someone?