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)….
It was tough to choose just one Frances story to review. I almost went with A Baby Sister for Frances, one of the few books I remember owning and reading as a child. It’s a delightful story in which Frances deals with the intrusion of a new baby sister by “running away” to a cozy…
After dumping more than a foot of snow in a 12-hour period, the blizzard we Minnesotans endured last year went into the books as the biggest snowstorm in seven years. Travel was almost completely halted and schools closed early, but lots of folks rejoiced heartily as they shoveled. Snow! Northerners seem to find plenty of ways…
As we turn the corner of a new year, I’m trying to list some of the good things that have come out of 2020. For many of us, I think one benefit has been spending more time outside, either visiting with family and friends or just enjoying nature after being cooped up in the house….
This winter welcomed the release of James D. Witmer’s new mystery chapter book, The Strange New Dog. Story Warren readers might be familiar with his delightful book of short stories, A Year in the Big Old Garden, featuring tales of squirrels, chipmunks, and rabbits. This one flips the script and takes us indoors, into the…
There’s joy in discovering the latest, greatest work in children’s literature–like walking a beach and pulling a rare, perfect shell from the surf. But there’s a special excitement that comes from finding an old treasure, made obscure by the passage of time, buried under the layers of new works pouring in year by year. It’s…
I made this bookmark for myself for a favorite ‘Moby Dick’ quote, and I wondered if it’s the sort of thing you all at Story Warren might be interested in, as it can be printed on card stock and cut out. I’m attaching a pdf for the front, and one for the back, and a…
The Christmas story is amazing, isn’t it? God wrapped himself in flesh and emerged into the world as a helpless baby. He was totally dependent, yet with a mission to save the world He created. But it can be hard to make the story feel fresh for a kid who’s heard it five bazillion times….
One of my favorite discoveries, on entering the liturgical tradition, was the celebration of Advent. I was delighted to learn that dark December days and the light of a simple candle were heavy with meaning. In Advent, I found not a nebulous season of festivity ending in the anti-climax of Christmas morning, but a sacred…
The idylls of fantasy fiction have long inspired artists of every genre, perhaps none as much as J. R. R. Tolkien. Tolkien’s prose invites us to imagine, inhabit, and revel in his created worlds. Even more fascinating is that Tolkien’s own sketches and watercolors would sate an archive. He kept childhood drawings, illustrations for his…
I adore Christmas. I love everything about the Christmas season – the anticipation of Advent, the smells of holiday baking, the twinkle lights cutting through the darkness, and the music; oh the music! In a year devoid of many traditional markers, I’m already mourning the loss of many of my favorite Christmas activities. But there will still be music. I’ve queued up Spotify playlists, dug old cds out of the corners of my car, and dusted off some of my grandfather’s old Christmas classics to play on our record player.
