The highly anticipated new release is finally here ~ The Sun with Loving Light March 16 2015
This new Waldorf reader, The Sun With Loving Light, was assembled as a transliteration of the original reader, Der Sonne Licht, in the first Waldorf school in Stuttgart, Germany. Caroline von Heydebrand was the original collector who put the Waldorf reader together for those children in that inaugural school. In the United States in the 1950s, the New York City Rudolf Steiner School did a transliteration and named it The Key to the Kingdom, now out of print. Hansjoerg Hofrichter in Germany has since resurrected and republished the original reader and wished mightily, being a Waldorf graduate with clear memories of the book as his own first reader, that similar readers could be made for children in Waldorf schools around the world, in the language of every country that has a Waldorf school.
The idea of little ones learning to read from books that are similar all over our good earth is a moving thought. It connects them and all of us to each other and to our roots in that first gentle revolutionary impulse! We hope you agree and will consider this book for your Waldorf classrooms as well as for your home library, if you are a parent. Early readers might recognize a number of verses and stories which, if they are memorized, will give children a confidence about what they are reading, since the words will have a familiar ring and the memorization will help them get the feel of real reading! Teachers will also find the reader useful as a resource for new verses, songs, and perhaps even stories. Playful “test marketing” with some six and eight year olds, affirmed this recognition making, reciting and reading the words to the morning verse. That group wanted only to “read” the songs then, singing their way through many familiar songs and learning some new ones.
This hardbound, linen covered book, edited by Stephen Bloomquist, is beautifully illustrated with pictures from paper cuttings or Scherenschnitte and contains stories (some by Rudolf Steiner) and songs in the Mood of the Fifth and from some Native traditions. Designed for the early grades (grades 1, 2 & 3) we believe children will gain from these an appreciation of beautiful language in poetry and enhanced cultural literacy.
