The Warren & The World Vol 13, Issue 27

ByCarolyn Clare Givens

My sincere thanks to Kelly for pinch-hitting last week—I was representing Bandersnatch Books at Realm Makers, a conference for Christian writers of speculative fiction, which this year coordinated their expo hall with a conference for Christian game developers, and let me tell ya, that’s a combination of people to have in the same room! Next to the quiet, clean-cut guy in a black polo shirt discussing which book might make a good video game is the woman wearing a pirate-mermaid cosplay outfit inspired by her own manuscript. So fun to meet them both.

Around the Web

Monsters and the Long Defeat

Ian Olson has a fascinating long-form essay on the value of fighting the “long defeat.”

  • Before he began drafting The Lord of the Rings, “the long defeat” was already an important theme to J.R.R. Tolkien. Though it is operative in the writings that would in time become The Silmarillion, it was only implicitly present within them, an ingredient in their sad grandeur but not elaborated upon as a principle.
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To Translate the Ocean

SDG Morgan calls us to be translators of meaning.

  • As I stood on the North Carolinian coast, toes sinking into wet sand, I stared out at the horizon. Wave after wave crashed in as they have since time immemorial, always landing, crashing, receding and then doing it again.
    Standing there, it’s no wonder that the ancients used the ocean as a metaphor for the infinite. In a lot of ways, they were correct.
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Wagon Wheels by Barbara Brenner

Hayley at Redeemed Reader reviews an early reader. 

  • Wagon Wheels, a classic from the I Can Read series, introduces young readers to the Black pioneer experience.
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Grief and Lament in Texas: Weeping with Hope

Marissa Bondurant writes about tragedy close to home and far away.

  • A cloud of collective grief hovers over Texas. For days after the flood, there was an actual dark cloud over all central Texas as the whole of creation groaned together in the pains of grief and longing (Rom. 8:22). A suppressive force of humidity mixed with shock and stirred with sorrow made it hard to breathe, sleep, or even make basic decisions.
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Around the Warren

Review: The Painted Fairytale (a Fairy Tale)

Hannah Abrahamson reviews Lara d’Entremont’s new novel.

  • The title of this review is a small jab at myself. It took me until the end of The Painted Fairytale, a beautiful new book by Lara d’Entremont, to realize that the book was just that, a fairy tale. This realization prompted me to think more about fairy tales and how to define them. And although this book review is about The Painted Fairytale, I’m going to write about a series of books I read recently for the first time that I also consider to be fairy tales. Don’t worry; I promise that all of this writing will circle back to Lara d’Entremont’s fantastic story.
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Explain Up, Don’t Dumb Down: Why Little Kids Need Big Words

S.D. Smith encourages us to use big words—even with littles.

  • I’m a big advocate of using big words with little kids. Our tendency, of course, is to use very simple terminology with children. It seems to me like we do this out of two desires. One is compassionate. We just want them to understand, so we want to serve them by making things as clear as possible. Good motivation. The other might be laziness (or exhaustion!). We don’t want to have a longer conversation than we have to. 
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Something to Do with Your Kids

It’s Shark Week, so of course someone created a project with shark-themed sensory bins. Why not?

Something to Watch

Destin is trying to understand nuclear power and help us know more about it!

Thanks for reading. We’re on your side. 

–The Story Warren Team

Carolyn Clare Givens
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