Christian Liberty Press

• Mr. Pipes and the British Hymn Makers PDF e-book
• Author: Douglas Bond
• Publisher: Christian Liberty Press
• Copyright: 1999
• Number of pages: 242
• Price: $8.79
• Age Range: 7th –10th grade, we used this with elementary ages as a Read Aloud.
• Available from: Christian Liberty

“Praise God from whom all blessings flow, Praise him all creatures here below, Praise Him above ye heavenly host, Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen'”

I love hymns. I love to teach my children hymns. I feel hymns teach the great truths of our faith in a beautiful, memorable way. Hymns are a wonderful way to teach theology for both young, old and everyone in between.  When I was given a chance to review the e-book Mr. Pipes and the British Hymn Makers I jumped at it. I was excited at the prospect of learning the origins of great hymns.

Mr. Pipes is a kindly, older man in England who befriends two American children, Annie and Drew, visiting England for the summer. Their mother is doing research in England and the kids are pretty much on their own for the summer.  They stumble onto an old church and meet a man who will become a great friend, Mr. Pipes. Mr. Pipes is the widowed organist of the church. He enjoys introducing the kids to music, through various hymns and hymn writers, as well as, boating and fishing. Throughout the book they learn many different hymns and the stories of when and how they came to be written. Annie and Drew also learn the value of traditional worship and praise. This is important to me as we attend a Lutheran (LCMS) church that uses traditional worship.

(Ben and Rebekah playing army men and paper dolls while listening to Mr. Pipes and the British Hymn Makers.)

We have been using this book as a family read aloud. The chapters are lengthy and so we would read about half of each chapter at each sitting. The story line with Mr. Pipes and the children is cute and sweet. The information concerning the various hymn writers is interesting. The book holds the attention of Ben (10) and Rebekah (9) very well. Sarah (15) was interested in the information about the hymn writers, but found the story line with the kids a bit forced.

One thing we have found to be fun while reading this book is to look up the hymns in the hymnal that we use at church. Every chapter that we have read so far, has told about a hymn that we can find in our hymnal. One of the first hymns introduced in the first chapter, written by Thomas Ken is All Praise to Thee My God this Night, the last verse of which is the common doxology. In the book, Mr. Pipes teaches Annie and Drew how to sing this in a round. I thought that sounded fun and so I have taught my family how to sing it in a round.

As I stated before, I feel very strongly that teaching hymns to kids as a great faith building activity. This book has added to our family’s already established habit of learning one new hymn a week. There are four books all together in the Mr. Pipes series. I am planning on getting another one of the books when we have finished this one.

We received this book in an PDF e-book format. I was able to easily download this to my computer. Since I own a NookColor, I transferred the PDF file to my Nook. We have been reading the e-book from my Nook with no problems. Mr. Pipes and the British Hymn Makers is also available in a traditional book format.

There were many School House Review Crew mates that also reviewed this Mr. Pipes book. Visit the Crew Blog by clicking on the banner below to read what others thought about this book.

Disclaimer:  As an Independent contractor for The Old Schoolhouse and member of the Schoolhouse Review Crew I received the PDF e- book Mr. Pipes and the British Hymn Makers for free from Christian Liberty Press in exchange for my honest review of their product.  All opinions given are mine and/or my children’s.