As we enter the season of Lent, we have the opportunity to slow down and consider our need for a savior. We are fasting in preparation for the feast of rejoicing we know is on the horizon: resurrection day. May you journey through these days with great hope.
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Gladys Hunt on Raising Readers
Gladys Hunt shares wisdom on bringing up kids to be readers.
- Preschoolers develop an awareness and an interest in reading at different times. A child’s brain, eye-coordination and curiosity is an individual matter of maturity. One child may want to learn the alphabet at age two, and another may not be interested until age four and a half. Don’t judge intelligence by early or late maturity. Be patient and encourage.
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50 Best Poetry Books for Children
Melissa recommends poetry for kids.
- Read the best poetry books with children to introduce them to good poems as well as a to encourage a love of language, wordplay, sensory images, and rhyme. What’s more, exposing children to poems helps them grow to love poetry –which can become a lifelong interest.
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Why Ash Wednesday, Lent, and a Season of Sacrifice—The Real Call to Follow Christ
Ann Voskamp looks at why we walk through this season.
- Come Ash Wednesday, and sure, everyone grasps, at some level that we are all but ashes to ashes, dust to dust, that we all die —- but, honestly, in the midst of our every day lives?
Who dares to take hold of the singular call of Christ to come die to self now?
These aren’t easy, flashy things to lean into, and I stand at the window, and our souls know it:
There are trendy, viral things to say that eventually make the soul of us all sick — and then there are holy, virtuous things to actually live that makes one’s only soul truly whole for all of eternity.
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Walking With God in Motherhood
Bethany Guest directs our steps.
- The moment I brought my little boy home from the hospital, so much in my life changed. Overnight, my whole world shifted, and I began to see life through the lens of another human being who was completely dependent upon me. My time went from things I needed to do to what the baby needed: when did he need to eat, when did he need to sleep, and why was he crying so hard?
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Around the Warren
The Enchanted Garden
Théa Rosenburg points our attention to another great book.
- So in the fall we caught Covid, and the day—the very day—that first test developed a second line, this package arrived. Now, any time a package arrives at our house and it’s nobody’s birthday and it’s not Christmas, the assumption is that the package is books. Ninety-nine percent of the time that assumption is correct, and this time was no exception.
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The Hope of a Hero
John Sommer hopes for a hero.
- The scene is a dreary rainy day in Nottingham. The mood is blue and sad, and the voice of the minstrel, Alan-a-Dale, who happens to be a rooster in this Disney version of Robin Hood, is heard as he sings about the hardships and woes of the people being taxed by Prince John.
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Twenty-One Books for African-American History Month
A.C.S. Bird recommends books that will reopen our eyes.
- Researching the collection that follows has renewed my awareness of the inescapable, tragic history of slavery in America. Conceiving of our country as it might have been apart from the scourge of slavery is enticing; possibly even redemptive, if the exercise edges us toward that vision. But deepening our knowledge of the actual past holds even more potential for understanding the present and thus moving toward a better future.
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Something to Do with Your Kids
It can be a challenge sometimes to tackle the ideas of Lent with the kids in our lives. Here are some simple ways to begin introducing the season in your family rhythms.
Something to Watch
Our favorite British teenage boys are back, this time trying American snack foods!
Thanks for reading. We’re on your side.
–The Story Warren Team
Carolyn Clare Givens is displaced Northerner exploring the foreign ways of the South. She lives in Charlotte, North Carolina with her two literary cats, Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane. She's the author of The King's Messenger and Rosefire and in her free time helps run Bandersnatch Books.
You can find her at carolyncgivens.com or on Facebook or Instagram at @carolyncgivens.
You can find her at carolyncgivens.com or on Facebook or Instagram at @carolyncgivens.
Latest posts by Carolyn Clare Givens (see all)
- The Warren & The World Vol 11, Issue 39 - November 25, 2023
- The Warren & The World Vol 11, Issue 38 - November 18, 2023
- The Warren & The World Vol 11, Issue 37 - November 11, 2023
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