Hendrickson Publishers', Living Bravely: 52-Week Devotional for Super-Hero Kids, by Michele Howe, is a children’s devotional book geared for ages six to nine. It includes stories, critical thinking questions, activities with the answer key included, and scripture.  This colorful devotional is a paperback, 320-page book.

The book is the only thing needed to successfully complete the devotion. There are a few optional things that could be added like a Bible for referencing the verses, a notebook for answering the questions, and a bookmark or page flag to mark the last page read each day.  The devotions are scheduled six days a week for fifty-two weeks. When opening the book there is the title page followed by the table of contents and then the first devotion. Each week has a theme to focus on. The theme for week one is, I Need God. The days are not scheduled so I was able to decide which day of the week to take off.  We chose Sunday because that is the day we go to church. Here is what can be expected in a typical week.

Day One there is a short story that can either be read by the child or mom or dad can read it to the child.  There is also a Bible verse to be read. I read the story to my son, he read the scripture, and then we looked it up in the Bible.

Day Two is what I like to call “the call to action” day.   There are three things the child will be called to do on that day.  They will need to think about it, do something about it, and pray about it.

Think About It will give them three questions that pertain to the verse from day one and ways that it can be applied to everyday life.  These questions can be answered verbally or written down. I read the questions one at a time to my son and then allowed him to answer them verbally.  He does not like writing, so this worked well for us.

Do Something About It refers back to the story but gives the child advice and a task as if the story applies to them.  For example, there was a story about a family that was moving into a new home. Their child was sad because she would have to leave her best friend.  So the lesson for that day asked my son to write a letter to someone that he missed.

Pray About It gives the child a short prayer that they can pray.  The prayer ties in the story and the verse. I personalized the prayer to fit our needs or the needs or family and friends that we needed to pray for.

Day Three is Try This!  I referred to them as the activity days.   These days are full of an assortment of hands-on activities and mind-bending puzzles that the children can do.  Some activities included are mazes, decoding puzzles, compare and contrast activities, and more. There is one activity where the kids must discuss the various parts of a school bus and how they compare to diverse types of people.  The lesson behind that is that even though we do not see or know of all the parts of the bus they are still important and were created for a reason, the same applies to us.

Days Four, Five, and Six repeat days One, Two, and Three.  Day Four starts a new story and so on.

Depending on the child this devotional can be done with or without a parent.  We decided to do it with our son so that we could discuss the stories and scripture that was used.  This also allowed for further discussion other than the questions that were provided.

As I previously said this devotional is intended for ages six to nine and I think that is about spot on.  I originally tried using it with both my sons who are 13 and 10 however, my 13-year-old was not as interested in it as my 10-year-old was, so I just continued it with my younger son.

Both my son and I like this devotion. He is normally the first child up, so we work on it first thing in the morning. This is a wonderful way to encourage him to allow the first few minutes of each day to be dedicated to the Lord. It has been working well in our homeschool however, you do not need to be a homeschooling family to benefit from this devotional, any child in the age range from six to ten, in my opinion, would really enjoy it! 

I wish there was a check off list included with this so that each day we completed, my son could check it off. It would give kids a sense of accomplishment. I also think it would be a nice addition if they added a certificate of completion for the parents to present to the child once they have completed the 52 weeks. I would really love it if this was a spiral bound book. The binding makes it hard for the book to lay flat, so it is hard doing the written activities.   

I like the fact that it was scheduled for six days a week. This gave us Sundays to just focus on Church and family time. This devotional can be purchased for $15.99.

-Product review by Markie Cooks, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, February 2019