Two years after Catherine Parks delighted our family with her biography anthologies, we’ve hit a dry spell. It seems that for my upper elementary kids, it’s hard to find biography read-alouds that hit the “sweet spot.” Classics like Ann Franke’s Diary of a Young Girl, while deeply worthwhile, are too weighty to delve into piecemeal…
Writing for His Glory is a series of reflections and writing prompts drawn from a writers’ workshop I teach for high school students. God spoke all of creation into existence His Word; as He made us in His image, we can glorify Him with our own. My prayer is that these reflections prompt you to wonder,…
Note: this article first appeared at The Gospel Coalition, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/writer-words-offerings/ Last Thanksgiving, the high school writers’ workshop I teach concluded the semester with “cookies and Q&A.” Students put aside their writing assignments, and instead of unpacking excerpts from the Puritans, we munched snickerdoodles and talked about the more granular details of the writerly life. A talented group…
Writing for His Glory is a series of reflections and writing prompts drawn from a writers’ workshop I teach for high school students. God spoke all of creation into existence His Word; as He made us in His image, we can glorify Him with our own. My prayer is that these reflections prompt you to wonder,…
Writing for His Glory is a series of reflections and writing prompts drawn from a writers’ workshop I teach for high school students. God spoke all of creation into existence His Word; as He made us in His image, we can glorify Him with our own. My prayer is that these reflections prompt you to…
My husband was uncharacteristically silent after our church service on New Year’s Eve. After the kids had finally gone to bed — for real this time, without the tromp of footsteps down the stairs announcing one last drink of water or one last comment about Pokemon — we nestled into the rare quiet, and he…
In our household, song lyrics go awry. My kids will happily inform you that the correct rendition of the Brady Bunch theme song declares, “the youngest one ate squirrels” (“had curls” is so banal). The 90s hit, “Please Don’t Go” actually says, “Pizza Dough.” In Pat Benatar’s 80s smash single, she sings, “Love Is a…
Our family had a rough summer. It began typically enough. The hurried school wrap-up of mid-June ceded to languid, lazy days, replete with swim lessons, books, and sticky watermelon slices on the back patio. When July struck, however, grief stormed into our lives, barreling in as if riding astride the broiling summer thunderheads. One dear…
Have you ever lost yourself in a painting? Perhaps when looking at Monet’s haystacks you’ve heard the wind whispering through the grass, or when gazing at one of Renoir’s party scenes you could almost hear the clink of the glasses and the din of laughter. Maybe, dizzy and awestruck, you’ve steadied yourself against a wall…
This review first appeared on The Gospel Coalition on July 11, 2023. Colleen Chao has walked through the valley of the shadow of death and knows its hazards and heartache. When her little boy was only 6, her cancer diagnosis overwhelmed her family like a flood. Chao dutifully endured multiple surgeries and rounds of chemotherapy, with all…
Discipling tweens is tough. In the younger years, it’s easy to enthrall kids with the vast assortment of storybook Bibles that line Sunday school bookshelves. Featuring brightly-colored illustrations and maybe a rhyme or two, these books coax kids to lean forward mid-bite during lunch or to fall silent during Sunday school in their eagerness to…
As one who’s gifted it to expecting parents over the last year, I was delighted to see Kevin DeYoung’s The Biggest Story Bible Storybook win a Christian Book Award from the ECPA this month. And I was even more excited to learn that Crossway has published an entire Sunday school curriculum based on this fantastic…
