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
Relax, Frustrated Parent. You Are in Christ.
Joe Gibbes explores the refuge that comes in parenting from union with Christ.
- Parenting my three kids provides some of the greatest joys of my life, and also some of the deepest frustrations. I love jumping on the trampoline with them, wrestling, tickling, cuddling, seeing them score a goal, or bringing home a great grade. I feel honored to console them when they are sad, encourage them when they are down, and tell them I love them as they drift off to sleep.
Yet it sometimes feels like for every one of these idyllic times, there are 10 moments of “You’d better watch your tone, mister,” “Don’t you dare talk to your mother that way, young lady,” or “No more screens for the rest of your life!” How many times have I been so proud of myself for taking them on some adventure, only to end up furious after a brawl breaks out in the backseat?
17 Fantastic Chapter Book Series for 2nd Graders
Over at Imagination Soup, Melissa Taylor has a selection of recommendations for your lower-elementary kiddos.
- 17 Fantastic Chapter Book Series for 2nd Graders
Your 2nd graders will love these 17 fantastic chapter book series to keep them hooked on reading. As 2nd graders gain confidence and skills with reading; every book read helps improve fluency and comprehension. (Except in cases of learning differences.) So we want these second grade kiddos to be reading as much as possible. Which brings me to these chapter book series your kids will love . . .
The Great British Baking Show: A Lesson in Image Bearing
Abigail Murrish has a piece at Christ and Pop Culture on the TV show that all of my friends families seem to be watching–The Great British Baking Show–and on how it can help us press into our identity as image bearers.
- In the ongoing conversation about gender, roles, and identity, The Great British Baking Show reminds us of an important truth. When we press into our unique identity as image bearers instead of fighting the limitations on our lives (whether that’s our careers, race, family roles, the places we live, our personalities, spiritual giftings, gender, or hobbies), we have an opportunity to flourish.
Our goal in life is not to measure up to a particular image of what the good life is, just as the goal of bakers is not simply to follow recipes.
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Hetty White explores the tension between rootedness and wandering and the meaning of home in this piece at the Rabbit Room. She also introduces her new album–check out her music video below!
- My Wendell Berry journey began with reading his essays. I was enthralled with his ideas of husbandry, his distaste for computers, and his reluctance to rely on coal for energy.
But when I read Hannah Coulter last year as part of a church book group, I was less mesmerized. Although I found the book beautiful and sweet, it was also painful for me to read. It touched on some deep wounds from childhood regarding family and community.
I grew up in a log cabin on twelve acres of woods in Georgia. I was homeschooled. I was very secluded from the world. It was both hard and joyous to leave that place. It was hard because it was everything I knew and loved. It was joyous because it was freedom from what at times felt like a prison.
Around the Warren
Mapping Makebelieve
Josh Bishop is back with us at Story Warren, writing of the magic of maps and makebelieve.
- When I was young, I’d spend hours in the attic, poring over the maps I found behind the yellow-framed covers of my dad’s old National Geographic magazine collection: The Amazon River basin and rainforest, the South Pacific Islands, the classical lands of the Mediterranean, the West Indies, the Far East. These faraway places (and, in some cases, long-ago times) became more real than they were before I spread the poster-sized pullouts on the dusty floorboards.
Edward Tulane and the Soft, Sharp Heart of Love
Loren Eaton introduces us to Kate DiCamillo’s The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.
- At first blush, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane seems an odd choice of book to encourage holy imagination in a child. Newberry-winning author Kate DiCamillo’s tale of a china rabbit who becomes separated from his owner (one Abilene Tulane of Egypt Street) and undergoes numerous misadventures has a distinctly downbeat tone. The trouble, if we want to call it that, begins with the titular protagonist.
Edward Tulane is not a nice china rabbit. Vain, prejudiced, self-absorbed — such adjectives only begin to describe him. He’s not your normal “hero,” that’s for sure.
Something to Do with Your Kids
The folks at And Next Comes L have a whole slew of activities for the month of July, like this summer scented soap foam great for sensory play.
And Something to Watch
Hetty’s video of “Hey Annaliese” is a delightful look at the story of a girl stuck between running and staying. Her album In Search of the Sea is on sale now!
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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