This was really, really hard, and in the end I just had to play the “Gift God” as Harvey calls it. There were so many good entries and interesting book ideas, but in the end it was Sherlock Holmes who swayed me.

Elissa Kroeger from Conneaut, Ohio is the winner of our read-aloud book contest. Elissa wins a set of Johannah Stanford’s children’s picturebooks — six in all.

Wow! That is great. I have not won anything in awhile. I love Johannah’s illustrations so much. I spent my entire young life becoming a “great” artist so I could get into Cleveland Institute of Art, then the #3 art school in the country. My life was centered on the idea of studying art in Florence Italy in my fourth year. I was not a Christian yet but God was working on me. I got really depressed because my view of art was so different from what the school was teaching. I gave up on art and refused to think of myself as an artist because I had such a terrible experience in art school. Then 15 years later, when I was a homeschooling mom, I read How Should We Then Live? by Francis Schaeffer. That book helped me to understand what happened to me in art school and I got back into drawing. Now I do lots of nature drawing with my children and I am getting back into more “serious” artistic endeavors. At least two of my children seem to be following in that direction.

Johannah’s paintings really thrill me because she never had to go through the spiritual struggle I had. It is SO encouraging to see what a homeschooled young lady can accomplish! My children are Roger age 23, Rachel age 19, Zach age 15, Joseph age 12, George age 9 and Linnea age 6. We have homeschooled from the beginning. I should also add that your Teaching the Trivium book got me out of a slump during which I had little in the way of vision and got me excited about what I am doing again.

Elissa