I can think of plenty of reasons not to review S. D. Smith’s The Green Ember. One is that I always think it’s a bit awkward to post about titles with which I have a personal connection. (I served as a beta reader for a early draft of the manuscript.) And I truly try to avoid…
Tell me, dear Story Warren readers, does browsing through the children’s section of your local bookstore leave you slightly depressed? It certainly causes me to feel a little down. So many titles seem overly educational, age-inappropriate, or focused on imparting some Big Socially Conscious Message. By the end of a spin through Barnes & Noble…
Note: I received a copy of this title from the author. Okay, fellow imaginative parents, I have a question for you: Show of hands, how many of you really love to talk about math with your kids? If we were gathered together, I bet I’d be facing a stoic sea of shoulders broken by one…
There’s a certain age where stories reach their peak potency for readers. I’d wager it’s around the early teen or preteen period. Sooner than that, young readers lack the developmental sophistication to really get under a book’s metaphorical skin. Later on, they’ve enough experience with an array of titles that the magic of literary discovery…
Remember those Dick and Jane books we parents were weaned on in grade school? It’s a wonder that any of us learned to love the written word from those tedious little volumes. While there’s nothing necessarily wrong with titles that urge children to “come and see Spot” or “run fast, Sally,” they don’t make for…
Noah is back in the popular consciousness, largely due to award-winning-director Darren Aronofsky’s reimagining of the patriarch as a violent vegan who consorts with angel-indwelt golems. I haven’t seen it yet, so I’ll leave it to others to discuss the relative merits of the allegedly “least biblical biblical film ever made.” I’m glad it got…
The Wild West possesses an appeal all its own. Rugged mountain ranges and arid plains, mysterious Indians and vicious outlaws—such things offer intrigues and adventures you just can’t find east of the Mississippi. In recent years, though, pop culture has cast up increasingly grim iterations of the western when it bothers with it at all….
No matter your opinion of the literary academy, I think it makes sense to pay attention to titles that win big book awards. Sure, the elites make me sigh as much as they make me smile, but they’re important nonetheless. Their opinions shape tastes, drive media coverage, set new fads in motion, and make Joe…
[Editor’s note: Since this is the day after a holiday (in the U.S., anyway), I decided to do a rerun of this memorable post from last year. Tomorrow is another Saturday. Carpe Diem. –Sam] —– —– —– How I loved pre-child Saturdays! After five days working in the office, I found it almost ambrosial to…
Note: I received a review copy of this title from the authors. As an undergraduate, I studied literature, immersing myself in the tortuous metaphors of John Donne, the heartrending tragedies of Shakespeare, and the philosophical piety of Dostoevsky. I love how a talented author can make my heart sing with only twenty-six letters and a…
Though this will doubtlessly make me sound like a curmudgeon, I didn’t have “wordless books” as a child. No, I had plain, old picture books, and you know what? I feel like I missed out. Titles such as Brinton Turkle’s Deep in the Forest and Lynd Ward’s The Silver Pony tell sophisticated tales in a…
Here at Story Warren we like to talk a lot about encouraging holy imagination in children and for good reason: Both the culture without and our inherent weakness within militate against seeing the world through the prism of God’s perspective. Today, though, I want to talk about something different. I want to talk about holy…
