Cities, generally characterized by massive buildings and busy streets, are often conceived of as the antithesis of nature. But when I first began reading about architects and their work, I was struck by how frequently the theme of harmony with nature arose. Many if not all of the titles below describe how the featured architects…
Lepunia will catch you up, carry you away, and set you down—right back in Kansas. But conveyed from a rabbit’s-eye view, it might as well be Oz. It was with some surprise that I realized, on reflection, that no magic takes place in these pages. None but that conjured by Ford’s lyrical descriptions. One part…
Hispanic Heritage Month came to my attention only recently, but the annual commemoration originated in 1968. Initially a week in duration, it was extended to one month in 1988. The event begins mid-month because it was on September 15, 1821, that Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala declared their independence from Spain. I…
In some previous stage of my theological thinking, I conceived of the spiritual realm as an arena essentially separate from the materiality of daily life. More recently, influenced by the writings of N.T. Wright among others, I have come to realize the significance of the existing Creation as part of God’s eternal grand design. The…
Losing as well as finding ourselves in story is a joy for readers of all ages. Sometimes a thoroughly unfamiliar topic piques my interest, but more often it is a spark of recognition that attracts me to a book. I hope parents as well as children will find the titles below broadly relatable. Only after…
For those of us reading blogs such as this one, literacy is a sacred trust. Our children grow up reading or being read to, possibly even before birth. Books are treasures, furniture, pastimes, and art. They are purchased in piles, bestowed with abandon, and brought home from the library in stacks. A world without the…
For millennia the written word has held special significance among those whose faith is centered on scripture. Some ancient Jewish and Islamic traditions imposed safeguards to prevent the desecration of any piece of writing—sacred or secular—that might bear God’s name. Christian history is marked by missionaries and others who made literacy and education a priority,…
As a dabbler in literary translation, I was delighted by the recent discovery that September is World Kid Lit month. The designation provides—so I gather—librarians and other book enthusiasts with an excuse to promote children’s books translated into English. I was further intrigued to learn that the day selected for the UN’s international Translation Day…
Summer days can provide families with welcome relief from school routines and responsibilities. They can also stretch out like the trackless sea before the weary and overstimulated parent. Nature observation provides an economical, accessiblechange of pace. Highly flexible, it can expand to fill an empty afternoon or contract to fit into a spare fifteen minutes. Keeping an explorers’ bag packed facilitates a hasty escape to the outdoors when the notion strikes and forestalls loss of momentum in the search…
Pincushion, porcupine, paleolithic—a procession of alliteratives suggested themselves to my writer’s brain as I goggled at the two-week-old squabs. My first four starter pigeons had arrived by airmail nearly three years prior; these were my first hatchlings. Between me and the pigeons it was clear that one or more of us had been confused about…
The hidden-picture nature of this engaging middle-grade novel accounts for some portion of its appeal: Can you spot the echoes of Charles Dickens, C.S. Lewis, Madeleine L’Engle, Lewis Carroll, and J.K. Rowling? (Not to mention a host of others with whom I’m likely unacquainted. Literary influences cited by the author alerted me to The Wonderful…
Layered meanings in children’s literature are nothing new. We’ve all returned to a favorite childhood book and discovered a cache of truths we didn’t perceive the first time around. Ring-Around-the-Rosy, Humpty Dumpty, and other Mother Goose rhymes are purported to signify facts of medieval socio-economics. And even Jesus’ parables, though delivered to a mixed audience,…
