From the first moments my kids strung together sentences that revealed their inner worlds, I’ve delighted in the whimsy and richness of their imaginations. First, characters from picture books would become their imaginary friends. Then, I’d walk by their rooms and smile when I glimpsed them holding court over a crowd of stuffed animals, a…
I recently finished Everything Sad is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri, and it is already one of my favorite books of the year. In the style of a true Persian story teller, he cycles back and repeats himself often, giving refrains and themes to the patchwork of stories he weaves together. That’s what he calls it,…
Dear Daughter, I’m writing to you because I know you’ve been listening. I know it by all the questions you ask. You’ve heard your dad and me talking about presidential candidates, and refugees, and a silverback gorilla. There are other conversations we have kept you from hearing because some things in the world need not trouble you yet. We speak…
Our Glory-girl is a few weeks shy of ten. Raised by Gospel-loving lifelong book devotees, her deep immersion into the world of narrative and literary apologetics was inevitable and, thankfully, easy. She began listening to Anne of Green Gables at night when she was seven, and has now heard the series more times than any…
“…And so we say ladies first.” As he finished reading, he lowered his paper, looked down and mumbled “It’s not very good, is it?” “Are you kidding!” I cried. “It’s amazing!” His dad and siblings echoed their agreement. We were blown away by the poem our ten-year-old had written. It was an epic folktale of…
I wasn’t expecting it. The visceral response, the feeling as though I had stepped back in time, into a place that once belonged to me but no longer did. It was just supposed to be a visit – a short one to pass the time as I adjusted to new normals. I was not doing…
Want to know my little classroom secret? I love to teach children about idolatry. Not what you’re used to hearing from a Christian educator? Let me explain. This year, I’ve had the opportunity to build a homeschool co-op class from scratch. We’ve made toilet paper mummies, played Medusa freeze tag, staged gladiator fights on the…
The pandemic was hard. In California, we were in a lockdown. We were essentially constrained to home and short trips to necessary stores. The pandemic was hard on schools; as a headmaster, I was in the role of leading a school, teaching classes, and coordinating my own children’s Zooms and related distance learning. The pandemic…
Pincushion, porcupine, paleolithic—a procession of alliteratives suggested themselves to my writer’s brain as I goggled at the two-week-old squabs. My first four starter pigeons had arrived by airmail nearly three years prior; these were my first hatchlings. Between me and the pigeons it was clear that one or more of us had been confused about…
This past January, my husband needed to observe a class somewhere in the middle of Parts Unknown, Washington, and so, desperate for a change of scenery, into our car we all piled merrily one Thursday morning. I packed five lunchboxes in preparation, picked out a couple of audiobooks, positioned the sun on the left side…
For as long as they have been old enough to speak, each night as we tuck our kids into bed they have asked my husband, Dan, and me, “Can you tell us a story?” And they really do mean tell them a story, not read them one. They want a new one, one that’s all…
Last fall I dropped by the church office to drop something off. After a few minutes of chatting with the staff, I picked up my keys to go home. One of our interns then asked me the question, “what would you say to someone who thinks it’s not valuable spiritually to read fiction?” I put…
