Help me welcome author Lisa Pelissier as she shares about a subject near and dear to her heart -- literacy and comprehension. After all, what is the benefit in knowing how to read if we don't understand what the author is trying to convey?

The neighbor boy was over at our house, playing with my daughters. They were working puzzles on the living room floor—wooden puzzles that my grandmother used when she was a kindergarten teacher from 1950 to 1970. Suddenly this ten-year-old boy cried, “Miss Lisa! I think something terrible’s happening in this puzzle! I think it’s slavery!”

I didn’t remember having a slavery puzzle, so I looked over to see what he was talking about.

It was Hansel and Gretel. You know, the scene where the witch has Hansel locked in a cage while she tries to fatten him up as a precursor to eating him.

The neighbor boy had never heard the story of Hansel and Gretel.

After remedying the situation, I sat back to ponder. I was raised on Grimm’s fairy tales. I had a big book of fairy tales—still have it, in fact. Classic fairy tales were everywhere—in children’s books, in chapter books, and on TV. Everyone knew the stories of Hansel and Gretel, Rumpelstiltskin, Rapunzel, and more.

Those tales are being lost.

My solution was to create a reading comprehension book for children containing 22 Grimm’s fairy tales told in 26 short lessons. The stories were taken right out of the fairy tales, and the comprehension questions from the stories. I was working as a long-term substitute teacher for a second-grade class at the time, and I created the stories with them in mind. The kids loved them. Reclaim: Reading Comprehension for Cultural Literacy based on Grimm’s Fairy Tales is appropriate for students with a reading level between second and third grade. It’s an easy way for homeschool parents or classroom teachers to introduce Grimm’s fairy tales to their students in a way that takes ten to fifteen minutes per lesson.

I know this blog is usually about newly released fiction. It’s intended to let you all—the readers—know what is up and coming. But it’s good also to take a moment to look back on the varied stories that made us who we are as individuals, as a nation, and as a culture. From that foundation, we can press forward in our own creative journeys and in making beautiful choices about what we choose to read.



Link to Reclaim:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CC7C36SR/

About Lisa:

Lisa Pelissier lives in Oregon where she is a homeschool mother of four and self-published author of six middle-grade fiction novels, as well as two early-readers' chapter books and two YA fantasy novels. Lisa owns SneakerBlossom Books, offering Christian, classical homeschool study guides and curriculum. She also works as a freelance copy editor, copy writer, and virtual assistant. She blogs at Eleventh Willow, a site she and two friends started for Christians parenting the mentally ill. In her spare time Lisa enjoys making art, playing the piano, and singing.

Connecting Online:

Website: https://www.sneakerblossom.com/ 
Email: sneakerblossom (at) yahoo.com
Blog: https://www.eleventhwillow.com/ 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lisa.pelissier.author 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lisaedkela/ 
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/edkela/ 
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Lisa-Pelissier/author/B08794GCR1 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SneakerBlossom 
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lisapelissier1