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1. The Gerda Muller Seasons Gift Collection: Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter (board books)

2. Gifts of the Honeybees: Their Connection to Cosmos, Earth, and Humankind

3. An Elsa Beskow Gift Collection: Children of the Forest and other beautiful books

4. The Turning Point: Star Wisdom, vol. 5

5. Findus and the Christmas Tomte

6. The Maria Thun Biodynamic Almanac 2023: North American Edition

7. Pancakes for Findus

8. Heaven on Earth: A Handbook for Parents of Young Children

9. The Spiritual Hierarchies and the Physical World: Zodiac, Planets & Cosmos (CW 110)

10. Tolkien's Hidden Pictures: Anthroposophy and the Enchantment in Middle-earth

11. Elsa Beskow Calendar 2023

12. Simplicity Parenting: Using the Power of Less to Raise Happy, Secure Children

13. Mistletoe and the Emerging Future of Integrative Oncology

14. The Marian Way of Heart Knowledge: From Mary through St. John's Gospel to Rudolf Steiner's Philosophy of Freedom

15. Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path: A Philosophy of Freedom (CW 4)

16. How the Future Can Save Us: Fresh Perspectives on Waldorf Education

17. How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation (CW 10)

18. The Language of Plants: A Guide to the Doctrine of Signatures

19. Theosophy: An Introduction to the Spiritual Processes in Human Life and in the Cosmos (CW 9)

20. The Karma of Materialism: Aspects of Human Evolution (CW 176)

Educating Traumatized Children: Waldorf Education in Crisis Intervention

Reviewed by David Kennedy, Waldorf Today

Our book reviews are arranged many weeks in advance. I had no way of knowing that current events in Europe would make the review of Educating Traumatized Children all the more relevant. 

Teachers and parents will both sense the relevance of this book in the modern educational landscape. Trauma, much as we might hope to relegate it to the purview of special educators and therapists, has become a daily facet of life.

Gone are the days when only one or two children in a class were in need of "special help".

Bernd Ruf found his calling at the time of the 2006 Lebanon War. Since then he has facilitated the development of "Emergency Education". He and teams of teachers, doctors, psychologists, and therapists have taken part in crisis interventions around the world. They work with psychologically traumatized children and young people in war zones and disaster areas. 

Bernd Ruf presents an anthroposophical understanding of trauma itself. There is a an extensive examination of psychological trauma and healing the frozenness of trauma. The book contains many vignettes of their trauma work and concludes with emergency education as threshold education. 

Although the book is written primarily out of the experience of emergency educators in trauma situations, I would imagine that many classroom teachers and parents would find much they recognize in their "normal" world. 

Five stars. Great book.

READ AN EXCERPT: "EMERGENCY EDUCATION"