As I laze on my front porch in the sweltering humidity of a summer’s day in Virginia, I find myself wishing for the frigid waters of Lake Michigan where I spent most of my life. Then, in that meandering way thoughts have of wandering through, I find myself smiling over memories of my children’s lake…
If you can imagine this, when I was a child, a little Golden book cost $0.25. My grandmother used to slip a quarter into her letters to our family for me, and it was a treat to go to the local “dime store” (also a phenomenon of past days) to buy a new book. Along…
The mention of “Old Ironsides,” brings a smile to my heart. While on vacation in 2000, our family had quite an afternoon aboard her in Boston Harbor. Later that same year, we adopted a little boy who didn’t speak our language till he was five, but who took every opportunity to crawl into anyone’s lap…
Frequently, I am asked by parents in my library for a book on “character.” They want help in teaching their children about right and wrong, about virtue, about knowing how to make wise choices. Sometimes, they want a book specific to encouraging a certain character trait or overcoming a bad one, such as lying, or…
I have often written about the atmosphere of reading, how the presence of books in the home, parents who read, and reading aloud to children makes reading a way of life for them, so I don’t know why I am chagrined by my grown children commenting, when some offhand remark about audio books occurs, “The…
I wonder if anyone knows how many fairy-tales have been told since the world began. It is certain that the familiar ones barely scratch the surface of that number. I unearthed one the other day that I had never read before. It has all the elements of the best tales: poverty to riches, sequences in…
One of the undeniable joys of parenting is introducing our children to all the things we loved as a child. Likewise, a second joy is being introduced to things as an adult that we missed in our own childhood. For example, it was a wonder to me how readily my children took to stories, and…
Editor’s Note: This is the kind of thing we’re really excited about here at Story Warren. This gets to the heart of who we are and what we want to be. We want to create (The Green Ember) and connect, because the bottom line is we want to be your allies. Liz has not only created…
If you hand this book to your young reader, you’re going to have a hard time getting him to come to the supper table; if you read it aloud to your nonreader, you’re going to discover that your teenager is hanging about in nonchalant, but intent fashion, and your husband or wife is going to…
There are some disadvantages to having a blind mother. My children found them all. They found, for instance, that when they pointed to something out the window and asked, “What’s that?” I usually had no answer. I was also no good at teaching them their colors, or showing them how to draw, or driving them…
I think this serves as an excellent addition to Scott James’ post from Monday on The Virtue of Unread Books. –Sam —– —– —– If you enjoy reading, or would like to, you might find yourself pulling books off your shelf, checking them out from the library, or borrowing them from friends and…
It must be true that the older you get, the more vivid the childhood memories. At this time of year, I can easily recapture all my younger feelings and experiences of summer. Can anything equal that delirious thrill of exploding out of the school building doors on that last day of school? Behind were the confines…
