EDITOR’S NOTE: Carolyn’s reflection on summertime from back in 2016 seems like a good place to return during this strange summer of 2020. I remember loving summer as a child, despite the intense Texas heat. It wasn’t that I didn’t love school. I did. But there was something magical about that long period of freedom…
Maybe race is something our family has always talked about, however imperfectly, because of who we are. We may be your average white American family, but our extended family is made up of immigrants and the children of immigrants; some of its members are different races and ethnicities. And it’s absolutely beautiful. But even in…
When my third child was a toddler, I let her have a short amount of “crib time” each day while I homeschooled my oldest daughter. I turned on a calming CD, tossed some soft toys and board books in, and slipped off while she was playing. It was a great way for me to get…
Our family has long enjoyed Randall Goodgame’s Slugs & Bugs albums, and even though my older kids have outgrown asking for them, you might still overhear my 14-year old singing “Tractor Tractor” on occasion. What makes those albums so appealing is Goodgame’s ability to draw kids in with his just-right balance of silliness and sincerity,…
“Sometimes a story’s the only way back from the darkness” — The Warden and the Wolf King Last summer, on our Epic Family Road Trip, we visited Carlsbad Caverns. We arrived in the evening in time to see the bats swirling out into the twilight. The next morning, we said goodbye to the sun and…
My son’s favorite books are the Lord of the Rings series, so buying John Ronald’s Dragons: The Story of J. R. R. Tolkien by Caroline McAlister for his birthday was an obvious choice. Even if he was turning ten. A well-written, beautifully illustrated picture book has a magical quality of appealing to all ages. John…
In any friendship, one person will challenge the other. Glenn McCarty’s new book, Horace and Oscar Visit the Lake, features just such a friendship. Horace, the stuffed rabbit, longs to discover where colors come from and to see the world outside the nursery and past the yard. Oscar the toy giraffe, on the other hand,…
As a writer as well as a reader, I often encounter debates as to whether old books or new books are better. One camp says old books are the best. After all, they’ve stood the test of time. The other side says writing styles have changed and improved, and new books are superior. This is…
If you are like me, you tend to think that screen time is the enemy of reading. After all, digital media can be pretty addicting, for adults as well as kids. It can be hard for books to compete with lights and sounds and moving pictures. However, I think there can be room in most…
All of my favorite childhood movies were based on books. And I never even realized it. I’m not exaggerating. Every beloved movie that I watched and begged to rent again from Blockbuster the following weekend was based on a book. “The Hobbit” (yes, the old animated one!), “Watership Down”, “The Mouse and His Child” (which…
If you’ve read the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder, you know that time and again things go terribly wrong for the Ingalls family. And of all the books, On the Banks of Plum Creek contains the greatest misfortunes for America’s favorite pioneer family. I had read the whole series aloud with my older…
