Around the Web:

Who’s Who

The Audubon magazine has a really cool piece up about photographer Brad Wilson’s quest to take a series of photos of owls. The photos are mesmerizing.

• It’s not easy to get owls to mug for the camera. Even in captivity the birds remain aloof, unruffled by the flash and unmoved by attempts to bribe them. Photographer Brad Wilson learned that lesson firsthand after trying to win over owls from the World Bird Sanctuary in St. Louis andThe Wildlife Center near Española, New Mexico. He spent hours with each bird, trying to capture its direct gaze. “It’s hard to get animals to look at you like humans do,” he says. “That shot became my holy grail.”

The owls themselves are remarkable creatures and there’s lots to learn about each breed. Read more.

Fully God, Fully Humor?

Mike Wittmer has a post up exploring the idea of Jesus’ sense of humor.

• Second, it seems that Jesus must have a personality. And this personality must be funny. Jesus is the Creator, so the proboscis monkey, aye-aye, and sucker-footed bat were his idea. He obviously has a sense of humor. But humor is often divisive. What one person finds funny another person finds annoying. Many jokes are bound to offend someone. Did Jesus ever have to say, “I’m sorry you took it that way. That’s not what I meant?”

Read more.

The Sherwood Ring

Redeemed Reader has a review up of Elizabeth Marie Pope’s The Sherwood Ring. I discovered The Sherwood Ring during college. I’d loved Pope’s other novel, The Perilous Gard, since middle school, so I was excited. I picked it up from the shelf in the children’s section of the library thinking I was going to get a Robin Hood-related tale. No such luck, I’m afraid, but I was not disappointed by what I got instead. Come to think of it, Peaceable Sherwood has a few Locksley-ish tendencies.

•  It’s not, strictly speaking, a “love story,” more a historical romance, with some additional fun stuff about codes and cyphers and an elaborate guessing game involving sleeping powder in a glass of wine (not iocane powder, which would have had completely different results). 

I’m glad to see others have discovered one of my favorite little bookshelf treasures. Read more.

Around the Warren:

5 Ways to Develop Healthy Imaginations in Your Kids

David Kern of the Circe Institute guest posts with some great suggestions for developing healthy imaginations in your kids.

• The truly healthy imagination is one which allows a child to see with wonder and gratitude, which cultivates in them an ability to see the world in the vibrant colors of awe and wonder instead of the sepia tones of modern cynicism, which provides for them a canvas upon which they can paint with the unadulterated joy of seeing for the first time.Of course we should help our kids develop creativity and the ability to think deeply and a desire to work hard enough to do well in school. But a student with a healthy imagination, who looks at the world around him with awe and wonder and joy will naturally become creative, thoughtful, and hard working. So it’s up to us, as parents and teachers, to provide an environment in which that awe, and wonder and joy can grow. Have you ever tried planting tomatoes in a bed of rock?

Read more.

“…see with wonder and gratitude.”

Words by David Kern. Art by Paul Boekell.

Diversifying My Library

Laura Peterson writes about the delight of finding a character in a book “like me”—and the value in finding those who aren’t.

• Recently, however, I’ve become convicted of the fact that, while handing out those lookalike books is easy for me to do with kids resemble me—white kids from the suburbs—I don’t have the same skill with the majority of children who show up at the urban library I frequent on a regular basis. These kids are African American or Hispanic or multi-racial. We come from different socioeconomic backgrounds and sometimes we don’t even speak the same languages. I certainly want to give these kids good books, but I’m coming to realize that most of the books that I love and know and seek out to read feature white faces. I’d like that to change.

Read more.

The Story of the Four Little Children Who Went Round the World

Something to Do with Your Kids:

TryScience.org has some really fun looking experiments and and activities. Explore the world around you with your kids!

And Something to Watch

Did you know cats turn the front and back of their body separately when they’re falling? It’s part of the whole “always land of their feet thing” and it’s really cool to watch.

Thank you for reading. We’re on your side.