HORSING AROUND
52 Spurgeon Stories for Children; Book 5
By Tony Hutter
DayOne. 112 pages. £6.00
ISBN 978 1 846 255 816
Impressively this is Tony Hutter’s fifth (and final) collection of stories from the life of 19th-century minister Charles Spurgeon, most appropriate for primary-aged kids.
Hutter’s prayer is that his readers ‘may be led to find salvation in Christ, and learn truths from the Bible that will help them to live for his glory.’ Each of the 52 Spurgeon anecdotes covers a double-page spread and begins with a thematic Bible verse, before concisely but earnestly reflecting on a lesson or biblical truth from the recalled incident, often closing with a question or suggestion for prayer.
Hutter’s readable style has the sense of a grandfather-figure musing on his favourite stories from a previous era. Overall it was wonderfully encouraging to consider how God hasn’t changed, and there were some particularly moving reflections on not needing to worry, the power of the gospel at work, and the hope of heaven. It also prompted us to reflect on the value of introducing our children to Christian biography from an early age, though sometimes I felt more could have been done to prepare children for the fact that life and ministry in a post-Christian world is likely to be very different to the 19th-century.
I’m also assuming that if you’ve chosen to give a child what is effectively a five-volume Spurgeon biography, then you’re probably already a fairly big CHS fan! That being the case, whilst the great man’s humility and dependence on God is underlined, I wondered if the author could have also occasionally considered Spurgeon’s mistakes or sins, in order that we might learn from those too. I found this to be a helpful element of Clare Heath-Whyte’s recent Old Wives’ Tales biographies.
