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
Hope Breaks Through Heartache
Leslie Schmucker writes at the Desiring God blog about the heartache of a prodigal child.
- My husband and I have a prodigal.
She came to us when she was nine, and left us just before her eighteenth birthday. We were certain (and still are) that God brought her to us. She was alone in the world. A literal orphan. Her mother died when she was six. Her father was incarcerated. Her extended family couldn’t care for her. I noticed her because of her beauty — impossibly huge brown eyes, a wavy chestnut pixie cut that framed her innocent face, and a confident countenance that defied her inner turmoil, a turbulence birthed through years of trauma and abandonment. It didn’t take long for God to show us that she belonged in our family.
Dad Turns His 6-Year-Old Son’s Drawings Into Reality
This dad’s digital creations of his son’s drawings are great.
- Dom is six and he likes to draw. He even has his own Instagram account where he puts all his favorite pictures. But that’s not the end of the story, because once he’s finished with his mini masterpieces, his dad then recreates their real world counterparts with a dose of digital magic and a little bit of humor.
29 books to read your kids if you want them to be kind and brave
Jenny Anderson has a great list of books over at Quartz.
- Kids’ books are beautifully simple. Big life lessons are distilled through vivid pictures and precise, accessible language. They explain how to be a friend, overcome setbacks, or understand the rich diversity of the world around us. They transport us to new and foreign places, show us funny families or broken ones, and drop us into fantastical upside-down situations where a giant jam sandwich saves the day, or a box of crayons stages a well-reasoned protest. Each one is a reminder of how much kids love to learn, and how much they have to learn.
The Chatechist
Adam Whipple’s poem at the Foundling House is a delightful little dip into the conversations we have with children.
- What is the sky?
The sky is above us—
There; it’s blue.
Can I touch it?
Around the Warren
The Risk List
Helena Sorensen challenges us to allow our children to risk.
- It starts with their very first breaths. We wrap them in layers of blankets, stuff them into backward-facing car seats, and cushion the bars of their cribs with tie-on bumpers. We line the shopping carts with tiny, rounded quilts complete with leg holes. There are germs on those carts, we say. I won’t have my precious baby gumming a handle touched by some contaminated member of the populace! We use hand sanitizer. Lots of it. We wipe down baby changing stations before we roll out baby changing pads, then lay our children down and strap them securely. We buckle them into Bumbo seats and bouncy seats and swings and high chairs. We cover every outlet, affix rounded pieces of plastic to every sharp corner. We warm, yes warm, the wipes that will touch our babies’ filthy bottoms so they don’t experience the shock of cold cotton against their skin.
The Thanksgiving Story by Alice Dalgliesh
James Witmer recommends Alice Dalgliesh’s story of Thanksgiving.
- Thanksgiving is a great holiday. Not only is it specifically devoted to the virtue of gratitude over consumption, but it even offers us a way past the too-abstract notion of “being thankful,” by means of a story.
Yes, I mean the story of the Pilgrims who settled at Plymouth. It’s a complex story, with plenty of food for thought about the effects of colonialism, the experiment in communal living, and so on, and we probably take it too much for granted. The funny thing is, however, no child knows this too-familiar story until it is told to them. Stranger still (to me), every child has a first time to hear the story, and a first time to remember hearing it – and the remembering rarely happens upon the second hearing! I think it’s important that the first many tellings convey the bright kernel at the center.
Something to Do with Your Kids
Did you know that next week, on November 2, is the 504th Anniversary of Michelangelo finishing the Sistine Chapel? Try your hand at your painting your own chapel ceiling with this art activity!
And Something to Watch
In Paris, they’ve put up doors that lead to other European cities.
Thank you for reading. We’re on your side.
Carolyn Clare Givens is displaced Northerner exploring the foreign ways of the South. She lives in Charlotte, North Carolina with her two literary cats, Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane. 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 11, Issue 17 - May 27, 2023
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- The Warren & The World Vol 11, Issue 15 - May 13, 2023
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