The Warren & the World Vol 4, Issue 17

The Warren & the World is Story Warren’s weekly newsletter, providing a round-up of our favorite things from around the web as well as a review of what was on our site over the past week. We’re glad you’re here!

The Green Ember Book II: Ember Falls

If you’re a fan of our S. D. Smith’s New Stories with an Old Soul and want to help with the launch of Ember Falls (The Green Ember Book II), then check out this invitation to the official launch group.

Around the Web

This Stage of Life? It’s Hard.

Hayley Hengst has some words of encouragement for young moms out there–the ones who are doing everything from dealing with teething to getting kids to soccer practice. It’s a busy time of life, and it isn’t easy.

This stage of life. It’s hard, you guys.I’m talking right now to you moms who are in your early to mid 30’s. You have kids. Likely two, three, maybe four of them. They probably range in age from newborns to 7 or 8 year-olds. (Give or take a few, on all of the above mentioned stats).In this stage of life, you are dealing with exhaustion. Mental, physical, and emotional.

To my girls, on your baptism

I got to hear Heidi Johnston speak at a conference last fall and loved everything she had to say. As soon as I clicked on this letter to her daughters on their baptism, I knew I’d be in for another great piece.

To my beautiful daughters,
Last night in our church, surrounded by so many of the people we love, I watched you stand up together and publicly share your faith in Christ. I’m not embarrassed to admit that I cried. Not just last night but countless times over the past week. I cried again this morning as the reality of it hit me.You know that I cry easily and often. It’s been that way for a long time. Happy things. Sad things. Beautiful things. They all make me cry. You’ve been around me for long enough to know that. However, as I reflect on what took place last night, I want to take a moment to explain why the emotion that has overwhelmed me this week has a deeper root than I suspect you fully understand.

Charlotte’s Web – A Passage to Reading

Jennifer Harris writes at her blog about her journey into chapter books with the beloved Charlotte’s Web and her joy in watching her daughter embark on the same journey.

Every journey has a beginning. Sometimes you can begin a journey without even knowing something very special is about to start. That’s how it was when I discovered the joy of reading chapter books as a child.When I was young, we had a two level bookshelf that my dad built with a pull out drawer underneath. It was coated with a deep mahogany wood stain. We kept all our kids books on that shelf for years. Little Golden books like The Little Tugboat, The Little Red Hen, The Three Little Pigs, The Poky Little Puppy or Eloise Wilkin stories. These delighted me as a child and I enjoyed the sweet illustrations…I loved books as a young child and there were ones I treasured and now read to my little ones. But there came a day in my childhood, when I found a passageway into reading and imagination that went so much deeper and took on a whole new world of imagination. That passageway came in the form of a beloved story, Charlotte’s Web.

The Long Goodbye

If you joined us at Inkwell 2015, you may have met our friend Lynn Holloway as he helped with merch there. Lynn recently wrote a meditation on the grief of a long goodbye to his mother as his family lost her to dementia before her death. It is never easy to lose our loved ones, but Lynn’s words are words of faith and beauty.

I’ve never been a good one for saying goodbye. When I do, I prefer a quick summation of parting thoughts and a warm but simple “Goodbye”.I’ve been wondering for the last few days why Mom’s departure from our lives and from this place hasn’t felt more seismic. Past losses have taught me that unexpected emotions might sneak up and tap you on the back when you least expect it, so perhaps grief is lurking in the shadows, ready to catch in my throat or inflame the ache.Ten years ago Mom was forgetting things occasionally. We all forget so it didn’t seem like a big deal at the time. Looking back, I realize those were the first awkward exchanges in what became a very long goodbye.

Around the Warren

The Gift of an Unscheduled Summer

Guest poster Carolyn Leiloglou, joined us from her site, A Houseful of Bookworms, to share a piece on the gift of unscheduled summer days.

I remember loving summer as a child, despite the intense Texas heat. It wasn’t that I didn’t love school. I did. But there was something magical about that long period of freedom that nourished my soul.But summers back then were a little different. Oh, we went to VBS and maybe camp for a week, but the rest of our days were fairly free. We swam and rode bikes. We read and played Nintendo. We climbed trees and caught lizards.And we rested.

Free Like Eagles

Liz Cottrill recommends Rosemary Sutcliff’s Free Like Eagles trilogy.

“Oh, I love that series,” exclaims my 17-year-old son, when I mention my writing about it. “I could read those books over and over and over again.” If you knew his struggles with reading, this spontaneous endorsement would carry even more weight. Full of danger, risky flights and bloody battles, Rosemary Sutcliff’s trilogy captured his imagination and encouraged him further down the reading road.Most parents are relieved when they can get a boy reading for pleasure. Recent articles and books deplore the reading void of American youth and hypothesize about the reasons, though agreeing on this: most books do not appeal to boys because they are too nice, too safe, too fluffy, too ordinary. This is not true of Rosemary Sutcliff’s historical fiction.

Something to Do with Your Kids

I don’t know of a single soul who has a blue-lidded honey bear like the ones in the pictures on this blog, but that doesn’t diminish the awesomeness of what they’re recommending in this post: a rice bin (or, as they put it to sound educational-ish, a “rice sensory bin.” I’m fairly sure I’ve never again had the fun that I had in our rice bin in my Kindergarten classroom–except perhaps when I take a moment to play with the scooper in my little rice holder when I make dinner in my kitchen. I think that might indicate that the rice bin concept appeals to a range of ages.