Reading is a liberating act. It produces agency, a sense of independence and freedom of thought. This access to ideas and understanding is a most precious gift—one that is worth laboring over in pursuit of liberty. In Reading for the Long Run: Leading Struggling Students into the Reading Life, Sara Osborne explores the riches and…
It was like watching part of some half-lost hero tale, something that belonged to an older and darker and more shining world than mine. —Rosemary Sutcliff, The Shining Company In my personal quest to find worthy reads for my middle school students, I am returning to novels published decades ago. I want my students to…
I’m no stranger to George MacDonald. In fact, I would say I often feel like his welcome companion when I’m immersed in his fiction. A Quiet Neighborhood, Castle Warlock, or Sir Gibbie are places I’ve been to, and people I’ve visited in my imagination. But MacDonald also wrote a number of essays commenting on the…
The world is not always a kind place, said Brother Edik. We may lose those we love along the way, but unexpected friends, like a goat, can bring delight and comfort. Yes, a goat. In Kate DiCamillo’s The Beatryce Prophecy, the monks of the Order of the Chronicles of Sorrowings are harassed by an ornery…
London, 1945. World War II is coming to an end. The Blitz, air raid sirens, and bomb shelters are things of the past, but the reality of living with loss in a war-torn city remains. Rationing and deprivation continue. Recovering from the trauma of war and wartime is difficult for everyone, but especially if you’re…
What if our imagination was stunted, having never really grown? I admit I haven’t considered this idea before. Call me naïve, but I supposed everyone had an active imagination whether sluggish or bustling. When I recently read David Beckmann’s account of C.S. Lewis and the London evacuees in Life with the Professor: The True Story…
The idylls of fantasy fiction have long inspired artists of every genre, perhaps none as much as J. R. R. Tolkien. Tolkien’s prose invites us to imagine, inhabit, and revel in his created worlds. Even more fascinating is that Tolkien’s own sketches and watercolors would sate an archive. He kept childhood drawings, illustrations for his…
Picture books are a creative phenomena to me. More than imagery and words, they speak in so many languages. Every child and parent knows the truth of this because our imaginations, our senses, and our minds are stirred in bountiful ways each time a book is read. And that’s a richness we all share. That…
As I continue to write middle grade fiction, I also make time to read fiction for the same age group. Over the past two years, I’ve read Katerine Patterson, Gary Paulsen, Andrew Peterson, George MacDonald, Kate DiCamillo, S. D. Smith, William Armstrong, Scott O’Dell, Susan Creech, Robert Beatty, Lois Lowry, and others. I’m now delving…
Christmas poetry collections are a rare breed, though a few do exist. But many classic poems no longer have copyrights and are easy to share without purchase. I could recommend many to a readership that is already word-wealthy, because we recognize that our mutual delight grows when we read together. The grouping I include here…
As a boy, Washington Irving describes how he rambled about the countryside and “made myself familiar with all its places famous in history or fable. I knew every spot where a murder or robbery has been committed or a ghost seen. I visited the neighboring villages, and added greatly to my stock of knowledge.”[1] His…
Sometimes I reread children’s literature because I enjoy being captured again by the quality of writing and the stir of imagination. To truly know me as a reader of all things young, you must know that I read Laura Ingalls Wilder alongside every Louis L’Amour western in my junior high library. Not one librarian said…
