Every year in October, I post a picture of myself and my little family from over a decade ago now. It was the year that we had been compared to the Weasley family from Harry Potter the most. The arrival of our baby girl made the picture complete; once she got to the age when…
Our family loves Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. We love the original, as it appears on the page, and the audiobook read by B. J. Harrison. We love The Muppet Christmas Carol, too. With this in mind, you may understand my excitement when I opened Little Christmas Carol, envisioned and illustrated by my friend Joe…
Glenn is a brilliant writer, weaving tales of adventure and hilarious hijinks set in the West, in the Colorado Territory right around the time of statehood. These are stories your kids will love.
As an adolescent I skipped over the fascination-with-death phase. Horror movies repelled me, gore disgusted me. I forged on well into my twenties, thousands of miles from elderly relations and still in possession of most of my grandparents, in blithe denial of mortality. It caught up with me, of course, at times slow and furtive…
In Beatrix Potter’s imagination, Josephine Bunny was the hard-working single mother of Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-Tail, and Peter and was licensed to sell tea and tobacco. With a business to run and four little ones to raise, Josephine had her hands full. She was exasperated when little Peter did not go obediently down the lane, like…
Once there was a gentleman who married, for his second wife, the proudest and most haughty woman that was ever seen. She had, by a former husband, two daughters of her own humor, who were, indeed, exactly like her in all things. He had likewise, by another wife, a young daughter, but of unparalleled goodness…
Keepers of their Imaginations Whether we’re at the pool or the trampoline park, my children always ask me to hold their stuff. For the older ones, I hold watches, hats, and jewelry. For the younger ones, it’s dolls, matchbox cars, or lollipops. No matter the circumstance, scenario, or treasure, mom is the trusty keeper of all…
As a parent, I have always desired to instill good and healthy habits in my children. I want them to have better habits than me. I want them to make better choices than me. I have invested so much time and energy in so many different areas to get them on board with these good…
When I started collecting titles for World Refugee Day, I thought I might be hard pressed to assemble a respectable representation. But the abundance of books that came readily to hand testifies to the importance and relevance of this topic. Circumstances that prompt people to leave behind home, property, and extended family are never felicitous,…
Let’s get this out of the way first: Big Red is a boy-meets-dog story in which the dog doesn’t die in the end. That won’t come as much of a surprise once you begin reading, because Big Red, like his seventeen-year-old trainer Danny, is a survivor. This book was originally published in 1945, and the…
This book, in addition to being written by the incomparable Gary Schmidt, contains three of the things I love most in a story: a very old house, some cloudy family history, and a cemetery. No—two cemeteries, one of which is hidden away and overgrown. Which is my favorite kind of cemetery. So regardless of what…
Early in my marriage, my mother-in-law suggested I might someday like to have her wax bust of Shakespeare. I don’t recall my response; I hope it was gracious, though I’m not optimistic on that point. What I thought was, What on earth would I do with it? A couple of decades later, the bust is…
