Parables from Nature

by Mrs. Alfred Gatty

Parables for children inspired by nature. This collection includes all 29 stories from the first, second, third, and fourth series, originally published in separate volumes.

Genres: Nature, Fiction, Christian, Childrens, School, Literature, Animals

456 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1903

About the author

Sometimes published as Margaret Gatty, Margaret Scott Gatty.

Born in 1809 in Burnham on Crouch, Essex, Margaret Scott was the daughter of the Rev. Alexander John Scott, D.D., a naval chaplain who served with Lord Nelson during the Battle of Trafalgar. She married the Rev. Alfred Gatty, a Church of England vicar, and an author, in 1839. Some of their children also published as authors: noted children's author Juliana Horatia Ewing; Juliana's biographer Horatia K.F. Gatty; composer and officer of arms Sir Alfred Scott-Gatty; historian Charles Tindal Gatty.

Reviews

[Eliza Fitzgerald · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a lovely collection of stories. We had to grow into reading this one. It was a struggle when we first started but we read it very (very, very) slowly over the course of Ambleside online years 1-3.
It's kind of strange to finish it now. I'm interested to see how it will be as a reread in a few years when my son is old enough.


Finished the second time through and it was so much better this time. This is a book that we have to learn how to read. I cried through the entire final story.

[Darlene Nichols · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read aloud to the kids for school over the course of 3 years. The author uses the order God created in nature to reveal lessons about our own hearts. We regularly refer to these beautiful stories when adventuring outside and we’ve been able to make many connections to our own lives. It was not an easy book to read aloud, but it was encouraging to see my progress grow throughout the book, as well as the comprehension of my little listeners!

[Summer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read aloud with oldest child for three years. The book shows numerous ways that God through his creation is able to speak to our hearts about our behavior and hearts affections. Most of the stories are wonderful illustrations that are immediately applicable. I wonder if this book was assigned more for the mother then the child?! I was moved and helped much in the reading of this book and the ordering of ones affections.

The only story I did not care for, and only because of its extreme length, was Inferior Animals.

[Clearwords · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot say enough about Parables from Nature by Margaret Scott Gatty. What a treasure! Mrs. Gatty wrote with a wonderful prose style, and included many encouraging morals which are a joy to share with children. The stories , which seek to uncover God’s craftsmanship in the natural world, are challenging, rich and complex. The writing and vocabulary are quite sophisticated, making it best for children in third grade or higher. I find the book challenging and enjoyable as an adult. It's a great book to glean ideas from and stretch their intellect, imagination and understanding. It is a refreshing read and a book I’ll read more than one time, for sure. I would say be careful which edition you purchase. The book which I am reviewing was laid out very nicely (see the picture attached), but there are apparently some shoddy replicated versions out there.

[lindafay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Classical British educator Charlotte Mason recommended this book for her students. The language is rich and difficult for most children younger than 8 yrs of age. The depth of thought in this book is profound and worth reading aloud to your children and discussing together. It is a book that offers insight into the natural world, but the deeper spiritual issues embedded within are what give it special worth. I would give it a four if I could recommend every story in it, but some stories are just too out of date for readers today.

[Jean Bowen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not an easy read but worth it!

[Heather Gorsett · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a beautiful book of parables for children inspired by nature!

[Erin Romano · Rating 5 out of 5]

While often wordy and a little hard to follow, this book is beautiful and filled with refining ideas, sweet encouragement, and strong undergirding for faith. It has been one of my favorites during our homeschooling experience, and I am always a little surprised, sometimes challenged, by the wisdom and depth of thought in each story.

[Kari]

I have a 1906, harback edition of this book. I love these stories. Some are a bit difficult for Jaimey to grasp but they bless ME each time we read them.

[forthefamilyssake Hailey White · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was very challenging for me to read aloud when I first began two years ago with my oldest son, and now reading it again with my next son I’m enjoying it more and more.

[Vanessa Chesebro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow, this took so long to get through. We ended up finishing the modernized edition. I would be curious to back to the Victorian edition again and read a second time with the younger kids. I have a love/hate relationship with this book. It gives food for thought, makes me cry with appropriate analogies at the right times, and is also obvious and annoying sometimes.

[Alicia Perrin · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Lovely book! I read it over the course of 3 years with William, and now I am starting it over again with Elliot and Loré (it is included in the Ambleside Online curriculum). The language is advanced, and I think it is one of the books that helps prepare kids for some of the more difficult language in consecutive Ambleside online years. I considered going with the paraphrase for our second time around, because of one of my kid’s particular struggles, but we tried it and it was just not the same.

There were times when I disagreed with the author’s theology, or did not fully understand it. But most of the stories are wonderfully told, and spoke straight to my heart. I cried, I repented, I commonplaced!

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a book we read slowly over three years. Or rather, we listened to the audio, as I could not bear to stumble through the archaic language & cadence any longer. Major respect to the narrators who read it fluently - the best ones had me riveted to my seat.

The title explains what this is - a collection of stories with a moral. But don't shudder when you hear "moral" - most are not heavy-handed or campy. A few - including the very first one - I wanted to skip. But taken all together they were sweet reminders of important truths.

My favorite parables were The Unknown Land, Cobwebs, Kicking, and Birds in the Nest.

[Cori Thonen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is lovingly crafted to capture the beauty of the Father’s principles in His creation.

“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.” -Psalm 19:1-2

While dry in a few chapters, the consistent voice of the book and meaning behind it (especially in the chapters Kicking and The Unknown Land) are literally crying out the glory and wonder of the Lord!

“He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”” -Luke 19:40

[Rebecca Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely stories with morals using nature

As an adult, I found it beautiful and moving. It's a true treasure trove of wisdom to be found in the creation. However, I was reading this with my children as a part of our schooling, and some of my children could hardly stand it. I think it is a book you appreciate more as you have more experience with life.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

We made it about halfway through. Some of the parables are very poignant and unexpectedly beautiful and I found myself bringing them up in various conversations. Others took a really long time to get to the point and in the end I found myself not even quite sure it was point worth making. On the whole, a mixed bag, but worth it for the good ones!

[Bobbiann Markle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book to my child over the last three years. It is used in the AmblesideOnline curriculum as one literature selection in years 1-3. My child, who is now 9 and of average intelligence, didn’t understand a lot of it. I enjoyed and appreciated most of the stories, but found some of them to be excessively long and wordy.

[Megan Triplett · Rating 5 out of 5]

This took some time for us to enjoy (we read it halfway through a few years ago). But it has turned out to be one of the most delightful books we have ever read! We will return again and again to this!

[Kaycee Owens · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a sweet collection of nature’s parables. Creation certainly declares the glory of God! But do we take the time and have the patience to notice? These stories point us to truth seen through nature and I enjoyed them immensely!

[Naomi]

The more I read, the more I'm loving this book! Beautiful, lovely stories to prepare a child's character. No twaddle here!

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

The rating is from me; I appreciated many of the stories' themes and the words chosen to convey certain truths. I underlined this book for my own benefit, though I did think it was unnecessarily long-winded in getting to its points.

For my kids, it would've been more of a two-star. They cheered when we finished this morning. "Boring," was one child's review. "They use the word 'expostulate' too much. Everyone is expostulating all over the place," was another child's. For my part, I think many of the morals were too advanced for them at the ages Ambleside recommends this book, and the natural history was also honestly a bit beyond them for several stories. I did appreciate the ability to practice narration, but even for the older kids, we had to stop after every couple paragraphs to make sure we were all still following. It was a slow process. We've been reading this book in segments for years, only finishing (finally) because of my determination/compulsion to complete 99% of books I start.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

My 9 year old and I listened to this audiobook together. We liked how she integrated nature with life lessons and Scriptural references. The story about the bee who overheard humans talking about how there was only queen bee who was arbitrarily chosen while all the poor workers had to work, work, work. So, they all decided they’d all be queen bees, but things went badly until one of the older,wiser bees pointed out that this plan wasn’t a good one and explained how teamwork, leadership, and contentment.
Understand things better when I’ve had an example or parable about it and this book was full of that, plus had lots of nature lessons. Was a nature lesson plus Bible lesson.

[Laura Fan]

It's a sweet old book, and we love nature stories and personification of animals. We bailed because the morals or applications were such a far stretch from the stories. It wasn't abundantly clear what one was offered to glean; maybe there was a lot of overthinking involved, but our discussion of each parable turned out to be very self contradictory and the kiddos frustrated themselves. Also, one of the kids couldn't keep engaged with bird parents dying after having finally recovered from the butterfly mom dying. We're do embrace nuance and multiple conclusions in our reading; this book wasn't really either and we just really missed out on general enjoyment and decided to move on.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

We slowly worked our way through this one all through the school year. It's a collection of parables focused on the natural world, from bumblebees to raindrops. I've seen some complaints that the parables are incomprehensible, but overall, we didn't find them so. There were a couple that were challenging, but for the most part, the kids were able to understand and articulate what the parable was intending to teach.

It wasn't the girls' favorite Morning Time book, but it's one I certainly appreciated, and one I suspect will stick with them for longer than they imagine.

[Will O'kelley · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the title suggests, this is a collection of parables drawn from nature that illustrate Biblical wisdom. The parables are well-conceived, and do a good job of illustrating Biblical truth in a way that isn't campy. This a great resource for kids, although some of the language is antiquated, and I think at this point, my eight year old was the one who really understood the parables. Highly recommend!

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book. This book is a rare treasure. The spiritual meaning contained in it is very profound. But I found that the book required a lot of prep time. I'm going to develop a study guide for this. I would like to know some feedbacks first. Please help take one to two minutes to fill in this questionnaire. Thank you~

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1I20C...

[Tiffany · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this out loud to my children very slowly over many lunch times. The short stories are about life and so deep. Everyone should read this at least once in their lives. I loved this book so much. Some of the stories my children enjoyed more than others, but there is so much in it to ponder and reflect on as well as feel. It is a new favorite. We finished today with the final story and I cried so hard my son had to read the final paragraph to everyone because I couldn't.

[Sara Hollar · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a beautiful collection of short allegorical stories! This is scheduled in Ambleside Online for Year 1, and it was too challenging (to the point of being frustrating and unenjoyable) for us that young. We put it away and I decided to read it myself. It's just lovely. I want to read it aloud to my boys in a few years. Maybe around ages 8, 10 & 12?

[Shinae Wyckoff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just my personal notes to myself:
I really enjoyed this as a 30-something. I think I will read it to my kids in a year or two. They would enjoy the stories, but I’m afraid without many illustrations they might get lost in the language a bit right now.

[KARLENE · Rating 5 out of 5]

We read this as part of our homeschooling curriculum following the AmblesideOnline booklist (a Charlotte Mason style). It is very well written, and the stories are a wonderful series of character building Parables that really stick with you. Highly recommend.