Living Simply with Children

The Clifton Library in Cincinnati has an amazing children's librarian. Story time is Tuesday at 10:00. Mr. Eric brings his guitar and sings lots of tunes that we know and love, and has also created some of his own songs from the lyrics in books. One of my favorite things about the library is not just story time, but his excellent choice in books.

Usually when we go to the library to pick out books, the girls select them from the shelves below, and I usually take what he has on display since I'm seldom disappointed. One books he had on display a few weeks ago is, "Living Simply with Children" by Marie Sherlock. It's a book, about living simply with children, obviously, but it's so much more than that. I keep marking the pages with ideas that might be obvious to a simply living family, but it's not so obvious to me. One thought that is sticking in my mind is giving your children an earth friendly explanation for things we do. I have my kids now saying, "we don't need a bag for the fruit or Band aids, we can carry them". Yet I haven't given them the reason why. They know not to use a gob of toilet paper, but do they know why? I need to explain in more detail as they are getting older that all of these things are done to save the earth, not to be miserly.



Check out this book, not only is it a good read, but the list of resources is reason to have the book on hand.