The books below manifest their creators’ love for the patron saint of storytelling, but their virtue lies in more than their subject matter. Their own charm, wit, ingenuity, and, above all, heart, does just homage to the timeless Victorian author.
The books below celebrate visionaries who persevered in developing and sharing their God-given abilities in the realm of music, the divine gift that touches heart, mind, and spirit.
List-making is practically a hobby with me, and books are a passion, with children’s literature a high-ranking subcategory. Creating lists of the latter is thus a delight accompanied by the danger of disappearing into long, winding passageways papered over by picture books. This is especially true of a topic as fascinating and fruitful as women’s…
You can read Part One of this series here: https://storywarren.com/twenty-one-books-for-african-american-history-month/ Stories of those who have suffered injustice and resolved to reverse it inspire awe and admiration. Likewise worthy of respect are those who create profound art from sorrow and loss. In his treatise Art and Faith, painter Makoto Fujimura references artists who draw upon their…
Researching the collection that follows has renewed my awareness of the inescapable, tragic history of slavery in America. Conceiving of our country as it might have been apart from the scourge of slavery is enticing; possibly even redemptive, if the exercise edges us toward that vision. But deepening our knowledge of the actual past holds…
Several years ago I landed on fairy tales as my preferred winter reading genre. Though I can relish a string of rainy Pacific Northwest days, they don’t combine well with heavy doses of hard reality. Not that fairy tales don’t harbor their share of darkness; traditional ones can be downright grim (no pun intended). But…
As a Protestant young person, my knowledge of saints amounted to a vague awareness that, depending on context, the term could apply variously to the writers of the gospels, Christians generally, certain historical individuals revered by Catholics, and some distant antecedent to Santa Claus. In recent years, through the influence of personal study and Catholic…
Of the books highlighted here in honor of Native American Heritage Month, a number feature values common among indigenous peoples of North America. Traci Sorell’s We Are Grateful is one of these. I, in turn, am grateful for these books and their authors, who have expanded my exposure to Native American traditions and history. In…
As an adolescent I skipped over the fascination-with-death phase. Horror movies repelled me, gore disgusted me. I forged on well into my twenties, thousands of miles from elderly relations and still in possession of most of my grandparents, in blithe denial of mortality. It caught up with me, of course, at times slow and furtive…
When I started collecting titles for World Refugee Day, I thought I might be hard pressed to assemble a respectable representation. But the abundance of books that came readily to hand testifies to the importance and relevance of this topic. Circumstances that prompt people to leave behind home, property, and extended family are never felicitous,…
The books below came to me initially because of their relation to East, South, and Southeast Asia or the Middle East. As I read, images recurred: accomplished individuals, resourceful kids, legends and traditions. But by far the most common—and somewhat unexpected—was grandparents. On reflection I realized the theme is a natural one. While parents are…
Early in my marriage, my mother-in-law suggested I might someday like to have her wax bust of Shakespeare. I don’t recall my response; I hope it was gracious, though I’m not optimistic on that point. What I thought was, What on earth would I do with it? A couple of decades later, the bust is…
