Story Warren

Kindling Imagination for Kingdom Anticipation

The Warren & The World Vol 13, Issue 6

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I’ve been swamped with poetry for the past week or two and will continue to be as Bandersnatch Books is running a Kickstarter to fund a children’s poetry anthology. We’re so grateful to Story Warren for highlighting the project (see below!) and so excited about the prospect of bringing something beautiful out into the world. 

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When You Need Grace Enough: for the Most Exhausted of Mothers

Anna E. Rendell speaks to moms in need of grace.

  • After a long wait, two losses, and much heartache, I had three kids in four years.
    Then we lived through “unprecedented times,” and right in the middle of it all, I had a fourth child. We call him our caboose baby, and he’s the joy we all needed during dark days.
    Our house is never quiet and rarely clean. The calendar is full, and so is the dining room table. From art supplies to last night’s water pitcher, the mess can feel palpable in both my hands and my heart.
    Meeting with God clears the clutter in my soul.
    Read more

Loosening Soil

In another word on grace, Kristen Pittman reminds us that lighter reading—not twaddle, but reading that might feel unproductive is actually practice for the deeper, richer reading to come.

  • The daffodils in my neighbor’s yard were dusted with snow last week. This week, a daytime high will reach the low 70s. In my home state, this meteorological rollercoaster means we’re on the cusp of my favorite season.
    I come from a long line of women who planted, tended, and loved beautiful gardens. Every year the edge of spring has me itching to get my fingers in the dirt. While it may seem too early to do anything productive in my garden, I know nothing could be farther from the truth.
    Read more

Beyond Mulberry Glen by Millie Florence

Betsy at Redeemed Reader gives a starred review of Millie Florence’s new book!

  • Beyond Mulberry Glen is a deeply satisfying, enjoyable fantasy that would make a great family read aloud.
    Read more

Books to Celebrate the Love of Family

Sure, we’re past Valentine’s Day, but it’s worth celebrating the love of the family any time of year.

  • Valentine’s Day is a day of love—and one of the greatest portrayals of love is family. Family is where we first learn to accept and give love, how to process thoughts and feelings, and how to communicate. It’s where we understand relationships, starting with parents, grandparents, and possibly siblings.
    Read more

Around the Warren

The Chronicles of Prydain

Théa Rosenburg reviews a classic series.

  • On in-flight reading and exploring Prydain
    There’s an art to choosing the right book for a plane ride. There’s a separate but related art to choosing the right book for a plane ride shared with a voracious teen reader who can’t pack as many books as she’ll read over the trip. The chosen book must be engaging, and preferably one of a set that I can read over the course of the trip, handing each completed book along to my companion so that neither of us runs out of reading material. So, I packed with care when travelling with my thirteen-year-old last summer, finally deciding that now, at last, was the time for both of us to read the Chronicles of Prydain.
    Read more

Books for Black History Month, pt. 2

A.C.S. Bird has more recommendations of books to read during Black History Month—or anytime!

  • Stories of those who have suffered injustice and resolved to reverse it inspire awe and admiration. Likewise worthy of respect are those who create profound art from sorrow and loss. In his treatise Art and Faith, painter Makoto Fujimura references artists who draw upon their own suffering to create works of deep significance.
    Some of the historical individuals below were literal artists—painters, potters, musicians. Others created by shaping society, moving us toward a more just world. Still others left behind words from which authors and artists have crafted their own works of beauty and significance.
    Read more

Review: The Story of Martin Luther

Kathryn Butler reviews an excellent biography for kids of Martin Luther.

  • Two years after Catherine Parks delighted our family with her biography anthologies, we’ve hit a dry spell. It seems that for my upper elementary kids, it’s hard to find biography read-alouds that hit the “sweet spot.” Classics like Ann Franke’s Diary of a Young Girl, while deeply worthwhile, are too weighty to delve into piecemeal between bites of Rice Krispies. On the flip side, more popular illustrated biographies for kids are too cartoonish, lacking substance. After years of reading a biography together every morning, we’d drifted on to other offerings.
    For this reason, I was delighted to discover Jared Kennedy’s new children’s biography of Martin Luther: The Story of Martin Luther: The Monk Who Changed the World. 
    Read more

I’ve Got a Bad Case of Poetry

Rachel S. Donahue recommends poetry anthologies—and tells the story of a new one coming from Bandersnatch Books.

  • If you’ve been around Story Warren for long, you know that poetry is valued and celebrated here. You may have read Liz Cotrill’s article “What’s in a Poem?” or Julie Silander’s “The Serious Play of Poetry – Selected Resources” or Laura Peterson’s “Poems to Learn by Heart.” (If you’ve not read them yet, I commend them to you!)
    I myself have long loved poetry, from my early memories of Robert Louis Stevenson’s poems (as illustrated by Eloise Wilkin), to Shel Silverstein’s absurd collections in elementary school, to memorizing Wordsworth and Shakespeare in high school, to studying the Victorian and Romantic poets in college.
    Read more

Something to Do with Your Kids

A craft in which you get to spill coffee on purpose? Yes, please!

Something to Watch

This is a sample of the kind of poetry in the new anthology from Bandersnatch Books!

Thanks for reading. We’re on your side. 

–The Story Warren Team

Carolyn Clare Givens
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