“Imaginary friends are like books. We’re created, we’re enjoyed, we’re dog-eared and creased, and then we’re tucked away until we’re needed again.” from Crenshaw, by Katherine Applegate Here’s something that I love: finding similar characters in very dissimilar books, and mentally comparing them. I’ve been thinking about this recently in regard to a very specific […]

One of the things I love about discovering a new favorite contemporary author is the gift of waiting with eager anticipation for their next book to come out. I’ve been enjoying that anticipation over the past few months since I heard about the October publication date for Gary D. Schmidt’s new book, Orbiting Jupiter. I […]

I always like to be on the lookout for imaginative new picture books. One day, I read a review of a book that sounded perfect for Story Warren readers. So, I went and got it. The end. A simple enough story, right? All of the sentences in the book I found, Rebecca Kai Dotlich’s One […]

Note: I recently read this book to my daughter. It was a long time after this review by Laura Peterson originally appeared on SW and an even longer time since Laura and her sister Kristen (who does social media for SW–yay!) gave our family a copy of this book. My wife had raved about it. I nodded, […]

“What if…” said Mandy to herself, “what if I pretended this cottage were mine? I could sort of adopt it. Who would know? Who would care? Nobody lives here. I’m sure of that, now. And somebody needs to take care of it. And oh, I could take care of it.” She sprang to her feet. […]