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!
Around the Web
Small Kids, Fat Books, and Chewy Ideas
Steve and Wendy Marten have a fantastic Kickstarter campaign in the works for a book series that will introduce small children to big books–the classics. The campaign has just a day or so more to run, so be sure to check it out right away and help reach the goal if you can!
- The kid who intrigues me right now is Axel. Not because he’s a feisty, twisty-tressed little redhead who inherited his look from an elfin enchantress two generations back, but because the kid likes words. He likes how words mean. And when I tell him the meaning of a word he’s discovered, I adore how he looks off and silently tests the word on his lips—this time with the meaning entwined with the shape of the word itself. In that moment, that thing which was once an arbitrary arrangement of breath and anatomy suddenly sparks to life. And he jars it like a butterfly and places it on a shelf in his mind, until just the right moment when he lets it fly.
Releasing words into the wild is what delights this boy, and, I suspect, creation itself. I joyfully theorize that every child of God who is writing, speaking, and finding new and wonderful ways to say, is adding to the potential for life. Creation has within it a deep intention to be grown, to be cultivated, to be perfected, and to flower with expression.
Dulce Domum: The Longing for Home in Literature (and Our Hearts)
Renee Mathis has a piece at Circe Institute exploring the mysterious longing for home we all feel and the characters we love who felt it too.
- Sweet Home. It’s more than just a lovely sentiment on a cross-stitched pillow. You might say it’s engraved, embedded, etched on our very souls. From the time we are little and draw a crayon square with a triangle on top to the day we leave home for college or set up our first apartment or purchase a house for the first time or bring that first baby home, we are ever consumed with a desire for a place of our own, indeed a place to make our own.
This desire for a place to call home provides one of the strongest themes for authors, poets, and artists of all kind to weave throughout their works. We may laugh at the sugary sentimentality of a glowing thatched cottage, covered in flowery vines and surrounded by a picket fence, but the desire for a place to call one’s own is no laughing matter.
Remember, He Loves You
Joseph Tenney writes at the Desiring God blog about the love God has for us.
- Beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. (Jude 20–21)
How remarkable that we are charged to keep ourselves in the love of God.
Of all God’s perfections, why highlight his love? When encouraging fellow Christians to persevere in the faith, why not pinpoint his justice or his patience, or even his mercy?
US Geography – A Bundle of Learning Fun
The Kids Activities Blog highlights a great learning resource and a special deal on it.
- Are you studying US History or Geography this year with your kids? Next year? Anytime in the future? If you are, you should pick up this bundle of US Geography resources produced by Little Learning Lovies.
Around the Warren
Meddlesome Grace
Guest Scott James reminds us that the struggle between flesh and spirit is real, and it is not ours.
- I’m conflicted. There’s an inner warfare blossoming into all kinds of contradictions and incongruities within me. On my best days I’m aware of it and make an effort to limit civilian casualties. Too many other days I employ a non-interventionist policy and watch the bodies pile up. Regardless of whether or not I can regulate it, I can’t shake the feeling I’m at odds with myself.
Consider a sample proof: I have been known to fake sleep so that I wouldn’t have to get up in the middle of the night to feed my own infant. And yet, call me at 3AM seeking some kind of medical advice about your infant and I’ll happily talk you through it. “Thank you for being so available,” you’ll say. Awful, I know.
Being Friends with the Odd Duck
Laura Peterson introduces us to Cecil Castellucci and Sara Varon’s Odd Duck.
- Graphic novels are one of my (relatively) new favorite discoveries in the world of books. There are so many great ones out there, and so many good new things being created all the time! I love seeing new art forms expand to different types of readers, so I loved discovering Odd Duck by Cecil Castellucci and Sara Varon. It’s a short graphic novel that reads a bit more like a picture book; not all of the pages are broken into frames, and sometimes the text just runs along the bottom or top of the page, like a traditional picture book. But there is nothing traditional about the characters here.
Something to Do with Your Kids
We’re getting to the time of year when burning candles is fun again. So why not make it a bit more fun with this DIY candle art?
And Something to Watch
Our own Rebecca Reynolds tells bedtime stories.
Thank you for reading. We’re on your side.
Carolyn Clare Givens is a displaced Northerner exploring the foreign ways of the South. She lives in Charlotte, North Carolina with her literary cat, Lord Peter Wimsey. 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 12, Issue 34 - September 28, 2024
- The Warren & The World Vol 12, Issue 33 - September 21, 2024
- The Warren & The World Vol 12, Issue 32 - September 14, 2024
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