When it comes to young-adult fiction (or YA, as it’s known in the industry), the subgenre often seems synonymous with “edgy.” Over at Pub(lishing) Crawl, Mandy Hubbard lists a bunch of boundary-pushing topics broached by big YA books in recent years. They include kidnapping, war, suicide, and a whole bevy sexual taboos. Now, I don’t…
It’s easy to find children’s books that are didactic; plenty of authors want to instruct about the alphabet, teach how to count, or tell little ones that bedtime is a Very Good Thing (especially for frazzled parents). It’s also not hard to find children’s books that are dynamic; writers love to offer stories arranged in…
The Newbery Medal is a less-than-constant cultural barometer. The highest honor for children’s literature has gone to works entirely wholesome (such as Kate DiCamillo’s pint-sized saga The Tale of Despereaux in 2004) and surprisingly gruesome (see Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book, which won in 2009 by melding Rudyard Kipling with graveside grue and serial killers)….
Normally, I cast around a bit when introducing these book reviews, looking for a snappy opener or a catchy illustration. This time I’m just going to say it plain: It’s hard to imagine a better book for preteen boys than N.D. Wilson’s Leepike Ridge. All the rowdy, romping joys of boyhood find their place in…
Summer seems sundered a little sooner each and every year. I remember wandering through an Ohio Valley August that burnt brown, the fields around my Lexington, Kentucky, home so blasted and brittle it was as if they’d been baked in an oven, the sky a shining sheet every bit as flat and hot as an…
At first blush, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane seems an odd choice of book to encourage holy imagination in a child. Newberry-winning author Kate DiCamillo’s tale of a china rabbit who becomes separated from his owner (one Abilene Tulane of Egypt Street) and undergoes numerous misadventures has a distinctly downbeat tone. The trouble, if…
To many parents who prize creativity, children’s animation occupies a lower rung on the artistic ladder. The stuff of Saturday mornings can often seem needlessly broad, hopelessly derivative, and crassly commercial (with a few notable exceptions). In other words, it too often starves young imaginations rather than sustaining them. But what happens when a one-time…
Evangelicals like to say they love the Inklings, that group of Oxford-associated authors who produced lots of narrative-friendly prose during the 1940s. But do something for me, would you? Name as many of them as you can. I suspect that most can readily recall C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, and probably a few will cite…
A couple years ago, I read an op-ed in the paper where the author bemoaned how toy manufacturers always marketed their products as “educational.” Nowadays, it seems as if every dolly and digger needs some sort of salubrious rationale before a kid can play with it. What’s the problem with simply having fun? the author…
Note: This review contains numerous spoilers. To read more about tales of winter, check out my original Story Warren post here, as well as my review of Jonny Duddle’s The Pirate Cruncher. Any honest plot summary of John Christopher’s young adult The Sword of the Spirits trilogy will have most conscientious Christian parents squirming in…
Note: To read more about tales of winter, check out my original Story Warren post here. What child doesn’t love pirates? During my youth in south Florida, I used to wander the beach with parents, picking over driftwood, chasing sandpipers and looking for Skull Rock. No mere mental homage to J.M. Barrie, Skull Rock was…
At first blush, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane seems an odd choice of book to encourage holy imagination in a child. Newberry-winning author Kate DiCamillo’s tale of a china rabbit who becomes separated from his owner (one Abilene Tulane of Egypt Street) and undergoes numerous misadventures has a distinctly downbeat tone. The trouble, if…
