There’s just something magical about children’s books, whether you’re a kid yourself, a parent who’s had to read books at bedtime (again and again and again until you want to pull your hair out!), or you loved being read to before bed.

I decided to have some fun with the February prayer prompt calendar by connecting each prompt to a different children’s book. Some are obvious and some are more obscure. Some are old classics and some are newer. There were so many books I could have included… but it’s harder than you might think to come up with prompts that weren’t 20 words long—or ideas that would be somewhat universal. For instance, you probably wouldn’t know who to pray for if I said “pray for someone whose mama is a llama.” In some cases, multiple books had similar themes so their prompts would all be about the same, and I didn’t want to be too repetitive. So I played around and then enlisted the help of my dear friend Lisa Wheeler. She is my children’s book go-to person, and she’s so much more well-read than I am, so I didn’t even know all of the ones she suggested! Between us, though, we think we’ve provided a good variety of books you may know.

But here’s what’s awesome about prayer prompts: You don’t have to be a kid to use these. You don’t have to love books, and you don’t have to know where the prayer starter came from in order to pray.

If you want to make a game of it, keep track of the ones you know and wait ’til the end of the month to check yourself. Then treat yourself by ordering (or checking out from the library) a new book :-).

First, if you don’t already have the printable calendar printed out, you can download it here.

Bookmark this page so you know where to find this key to the prayer prompts, in case you find yourself stumped—and let’s start praying!

1 The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi or the Disney film, Pinocchio
2 Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
3 The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper
4 The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
5 Curious George by Hans Augusto Rey & Margret Rey
6 Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
7 Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne
8 There’s a Nightmare in my Closet by Mercer Mayer
9 The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein (although my favorite of his is Where The Sidewalk Ends)
10 Is Your Mama a Llama? by Deborah Guarino
11 Wonkey Donkey by Craig Smith (if you haven’t seen the video of the grandmother reading this, go find it right now)
12 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
13 Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
14 Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney
15 The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
16 Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne
18 The Three Little Pigs (fable)
19 The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Frank Baum
20 But Not the Hippopotamus by Sandra Boynton (a favorite of my two girls)
21 A Series of Unfortunate Events by Daniel Handler under the pen name Lemony Snicket
22 Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst
23 Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (my husband’s fave)
24 One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss
25 Love You Forever by Robert Munsch
26 This sentence is known as an example of bad writing (from the opening sentence of a novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton), but it was also used by Snoopy to begin his novels in Peanuts comics, and the opening line in A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
27 The Sneetches and Other Stories by Dr. Seuss
28 German fairy tale recorded by the Brothers Grimm and first published in Children’s and Household Tales

NOW THINK—AND LIVE IT OUT:

• Which of your favorites are missing from this list? What prayer prompt would you write to go with it?
• What can you do to spread the love of these books? Is there someone in your life to whom you can send your favorite? Maybe buy a stack to keep on hand as simple baby gifts.