They had to have been crazy. That was the only logical reason why those nice nurses told me I was ready to go home with my newborn baby. Sure, I had been preparing for him during the nine months he had grown inside my womb. I had taken classes and read all the books. But…
How do you choose a favorite, a best? Which would you pick before all the rest? In college, some friends of mine had a poster of Wassily Kandinsky’s “Color Study: Squares with Concentric Circles” hanging up in their room. Anyone coming for a study break or evening chat was invited to look at the poster…
All Creatures is the fourth and latest album from Rain for Roots. Rain for Roots is a collective of talented musicians and songwriters who, in 2012, began creating music that takes the heart of the Gospel and makes it accessible for children and adults alike. This album is 11 beautiful songs that come from the…
Sometimes, when I re-read books I loved as a child, I find they have lost much of their luster. But occasionally, I find glimmers there of gems I hadn’t noticed before. Lately, I’ve been savoring afresh the tales of Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne. A charming collection of anecdotes featuring Pooh and his adventures (many of…
The first thing to catch my eye about Corey Ann Haydu’s Eventown was the phrase “twin sister” on the inside flap. Being a twin myself, I love reading twin stories. It’s so interesting to me to see what authors imagine twin life to be like, whether it’s close to my own experience or not. I’m…
This month my friend S. D. Smith published the capstone book of his best-selling Green Ember series, Ember’s End. It’s a series about anthropomorphic rabbits, villainous wolves, and birds of prey. It’s also a series about what happens when everything you know is broken by an invading evil; the powers of faithfulness and hope and…
I’m constantly on the lookout for just the right book to share in my library storytimes. Sometimes these programs can be a bit chaotic: twenty or thirty people in the room, and lots of jumping and counting, clapping and stomping. With quieter groups (or to try to recover a sense of calm during a crazy…
It’s extremely noisy out there, I know. I feel it. It seems like, on top of the news and toilet paper memes, everyone is launching online solutions and online classes and online everything. It’s often generous and sacrificial. Some of it is because artists and others are scared and don’t know what to do. On…
Glancing over featured books in a children’s library, a gleaming cover caught my eye. From beneath the dust jacket, a young girl gazes at a silver, iridescent title — Stardust. The back of the book declares, “We are all made of stardust, so shine in your own way.” Stardust, by Jeanne Willis and Briony May…
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…
For two years my home was on ten secluded acres in the mountains of Arkansas. My family’s time there was brim full of adventures, and like any true adventure, they were much more miserable than stories would have you believe. Thankfully, there was also a pocketful of fantastic days and quite a few lovely, humdrum…
SW: This is a big Spring for you, and—without exaggerating—for thousands of kids and families around the world. That’s because you’re releasing the fourth and final book in your Green Ember series: Ember’s End. Are the cliff-hangers over? Will we finally get all our questions answered? SD: I am thrilled to be sharing this story with…
