Pilgrim's Progress

I love the list of books on Ambleside. One of the books on the Year 2  booklist is Pilgrims progress. They actually recommend using the original John Bunyan version. I picked up a copy of the original on Paperback swap a year or so ago and tried to read it. I even downloaded an audio version to listen to and I admit I just couldn't get very far into the story.

Last Fall, while listening to the first part of Little Woman and hearing how the March girls all read and acted out the Pilgrims Progress, I decided it was time to give it another try. This time a children's version.
After looking at all the different ones that Amazon sells I decided to request the Helen Taylor Little Pilgrims Progress. Santa left a copy in Sophie's stocking.

This has been our read aloud the last 2 weeks. The kids actually could have gone much faster. They loved the story and wanted me to read and read and read each day. I read as much as I could between our other lessons and activities. I was happy they were enjoying the story.

I too really enjoyed the story and find myself thinking about it a lot especially as I read the scriptures and prepare lessons for Primary.  It really is a great story for children. My little guys caught on quickly to the symbolism of each of the characters names and the different places the pilgrim goes and is led or taken.  I always enjoyed hearing them tell their Father about what Christian or Christiana had done in that day's reading.

Today is the Sabbath and we only watch "church videos" on the Sabbath (if we watch anything at all). Henry got a DVD version of Pilgrim's Progress in his Christmas stocking (He has been asking for new Sunday movies since he is tired of watching The 10 Commandments or Animated Scripture stories) and has been waiting until we finished the book to watch it.

He was excited to watch it, and all the kids scrambled into place as I got it queued up.  Once it got going they weren't that impressed. They kept saying they left this or that out, or "that isn't how I pictured it. " I don't know if this DVD will get watched a whole lot. The animation is pretty primitive and the acting or voices are rather dead pan. I guess we will see if this remains in our collection or not. I would happy to pass it on to someone else.

When the movie was finished and we had time to discuss the film. The kids decided the book is much better. I told them that is how it usually turns out. I told them they are welcome to read the book over and over again if they wanted to. I would even read it aloud to them again some time. They all cheered and went to get ready for church. (Yes, we have afternoon church this year and we are still adjusting to the change in schedule.

I put the audio version of the orignal book on my ipod a little while ago, so I could to give it another try. While this children's version is still in my head I thought perhaps it will help me get through the more difficult language. So far so good. And I can tell that Helen Taylor wrote a very good children's translation. It sticks very close to the original and even uses many of the same phrases.

Well worth the read/listen.