Lightsabers. Ninja stars. A sword named “the Destroyer.” —And brothers with so much energy that even front teeth end up on the floor! This is where McCaulley’s picture book starts, and it never loses a childlike exuberance for life, even when the Johnson family is challenged to participate in a march for justice, hosted by…
Our family loves Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. We love the original, as it appears on the page, and the audiobook read by B. J. Harrison. We love The Muppet Christmas Carol, too. With this in mind, you may understand my excitement when I opened Little Christmas Carol, envisioned and illustrated by my friend Joe…
For a fun audio experience that will enliven car rides, coloring time, or just about any other family listening time, I suggest checking out the “part book club, part game show” podcast-ish interactive show known as Withywindle. For example, here’s a show featuring a special guest: our own Kathryn Butler, author of the Dreamkeeper Saga! 7.1:…
For a fun audio experience that will enliven car rides, coloring time, or just about any other family listening time, I suggest checking out the “part book club, part game show” podcast-ish interactive show known as Withywindle. And to get you started, here’s a show featuring a special guest: our own Carolyn Leiloglou, author of…
Let’s get this out of the way first: Big Red is a boy-meets-dog story in which the dog doesn’t die in the end. That won’t come as much of a surprise once you begin reading, because Big Red, like his seventeen-year-old trainer Danny, is a survivor. This book was originally published in 1945, and the…
JAMES: Welcome back to Story Warren, Michael J. Tinker! For those who are just now discovering your work, can you summarize how you’ve engaged with kids and their families over the last ten years? MICHAEL: Where do I start?! I’ve released six children’s albums and filmed a six episode ‘TV’ series. I have a family…
One blustery autumn weekend I drove a few hours west to Fort Wayne Indiana, and had a blast talking with a room full of creative people about writing stories for children. In the process, we discussed an idea that influences both my writing and my reading of stories. (And I’m reading fiction almost constantly.) As…
Whether we’re working creatively, or teaching the kids we love about creating, it’s easy to be haunted by a desire for originality. Nobody wants to hear, “You just copied!” But as people of the Book, we’re uniquely free from the demands of novelty. We know we don’t work in a vacuum. Only God creates from…
I am extremely pleased to tell you that I’m celebrating an addition to my personal list of books that I think of as “quintessentially boy.” My list of books for boys, featuring characters that are “quintessentially boy,” runs something like this: The Hardy Boys (classic), The Sugar Creek Gang, Soup, The Three Investigators, Farmer Boy,…
Hey folks, we just wanted to make sure that all fans of S. D. Smith’s Green Ember books have something new to enjoy! S. D. Smith and his son, J. C. Smith, have released a new book called Jack Zulu and the Waylander’s Key. S. D. Smith wrote the The Green Ember Series for his…
Sterling North’s Rascal is a gem I re-discovered by reading to my kids. It is a story supposedly about a raccoon, but really about North’s boyhood growing up in Wisconsin during World War I — the war that affected everything yet, compared to the decades that followed, changed so little of essential American life. He…
From an early age, we understand people by the roles they play. This can be a good way to learn. It can expand our imaginations, and help us aspire to virtues we might not otherwise think about. Filling the role of father, for example, has motivated me to pursue gentleness. No other circumstance had made…
