Think about your favorite movie. Now think about the point in that movie where the main character is at his or her lowest point. Maybe it’s Rocky, bruised and battered, swaying on his feet – staggering but still upright. Maybe it’s Elinor Dashwood, cruelly treated by envious women who only pretend friendship. Now notice something…
I love January. I know it’s cold and dark and most people are miserable, but I’m not. I like the excuse to stay in, huddle under a blanket, and make soup. This is probably the month when I like homeschooling the most, because while the rest of the world is outside waiting for buses and…
I hope you all had a wonderful Advent and Christmas season. It’s a time of year when it’s somehow easiest for me to believe that the stories are true. The Story is true. All true. Mary’s impossible conception. Joseph’s dreams. King David’s descendent, born humbly in Herod the Great’s shadow. The shepherds’ unbelievable tale. Angels….
‘Tis that time of year! Story Warren has, for the last several years, mostly shut down this time of year. I encourage you to read this post about why. We hope you’ll take time this advent season to be close to the people you love, to slow down, and to remember the Savior of the…
Author’s note: I shared these thoughts in part during the closing session of Hutchmoot, which is the weekend conference of the Rabbit Room community. If you don’t know what Hutchmoot is, you can check out the website here. For many of the Story Warren crew, it is a blessed time to be inspired and energized…
This summer, thanks to a timely inquiry with the utility company, we had a large, mostly-dead pine tree in our side yard chopped down. I arrived home from work one afternoon to see the chunks of stumps and logs jumbled in the yard like oversize Jenga pieces. Well, boys being boys, it didn’t take long…
My husband and I sat together watching a sweet movie where a relationship was unfolding between a young girl, an aspiring story-teller, and her new neighbor, an older disillusioned novelist. She asked him to teach her about imagination, and maybe her earnestness inspired him, because he had a small creative spark left. He told her…
“The sacred exists and is stronger than all our rebellions.” Czeslaw Milosz Skipping the qualifiers, we live in an era where rebellion has been mainstreamed. Rebellion is, ironically, very conventional. Pedestrian even. The pervasiveness of rebellion extends to literature and media for children, driving the stories most kids are exposed to every day. I’ll go…
America’s current crop of bright young things, like every crop before them, seems sure they’ve invented some new ideas. Like smoking pipes, home-grown vegetables, and over-sized mustaches. Of course they didn’t, but don’t get me wrong, I’m also a big fan of… well, some of those things. They also seem to believe they’ve invented a…
Today, we are pleased to have a guest post from South African children’s author Taryn Hayes. Her book, Seekers of the Lost Boy, has made the rounds in our family, receiving enthusiastic thumbs up from our ten and seven year-olds. Taryn’s book explores her native land’s apartheid past, forgiveness, and reconciliation. These are also the…
When I was a kid, the mission organization my parents served with had an annual conference at a college in southeast Michigan. I was a “home office kid”—one of three about my age—so every year I got to go to “Conference” and while my parents worked hard throughout the week and my older sisters helped…
