Title: Ten P’s in a Pod
Author: Arnold Pent III
Major Themes: Bible Reading, Family Life, Homeschooling, Travel
Synopsis: A large family travels around the United States and Canada, encouraging people to read the Bible.
I first heard about Ten P’s In a Pod somewhere around 15 years ago, when I saw it in a homeschooling catalog. What an intriguing book! Then, a friend told me about it; she highly recommended it. I never managed to get my hands on a copy, though, until quite recently. We read this book aloud as a family in the evenings, and everyone thoroughly enjoyed it.
The subtitle is, “A Million-Mile Journal of the Arnold Pent Family.” One of the older children of Arnold Pent Jr. tells the story of how his family, with eight children, traveled all over the United States and Canada, talking to audiences of various sizes, sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ and encouraging people to read their Bibles daily. And this family practiced what they preached! Each member of the family spent 15 minutes to an hour a day, depending on their age and ability, reading the Bible privately. After every meal, they also spent half an hour reading the Bible together! The result? Many of the children were able to quote entire books of the Bible by memory by the time they were in their teens!
This story is not all seriousness, however. As with all large families, there were many funny things that happened along the way, and Arnold describes them very well. We loved the story he told about a trip from Florida to New York in a panel truck. Lunchtime turned into a comedy of errors, as one person after another took a milk bath before deciding that milk was not a good addition to a meal on wheels. The trip across Canada with three ancient cars was quite memorable, as well. Let me just say here, that old cars with bald tires do not work very well on icy and snowy roads. If your family is anything like ours, you will love these stories!
We found Ten P’s in a Pod not only entertaining, but very challenging. The Pent family was single-mindedly out to share the Gospel. The amount of time spent in the Word of God in their family puts ours to shame.
May I share one cute note about reading this story together? Our four-year-old came over one evening as I started reading, and wanted to tell me something. He said, “That was a big pod!” Obviously, he was thinking about real peas from the garden!
No warnings!
Age levels:
Listening Level—Ages 5 – 8, 8 – 12, 10 – 12, Family Friendly
Reading Independently—Ages 12 – 15, 15 and Above, Adults
Links to buy this book:
Amazon: Paperback | Hardcover | Audible Audiobook (unabridged) | Audio CD
AbeBooks: View Choices on AbeBooks.com
This book has also encouraged me to read more consistently and encouraged my children as well.
Thanks for a great website. I am excited to see what other books you recommend.
I started a website that you also might be interested in. https://anabaptisteducationtoday.wordpress.com/books-to-teach/
Good! We really enjoyed this story, too.
And you’re welcome–feel free to browse around. We have lots of books on here, some we’d recommend more than others and some we wouldn’t recommend at all, but think others would be interested in them and/or find our reviews helpful. Thanks for the link; I hope your work will be helpful to others, too!