The Warren & the World Vol 5, Issue 32

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

A New Set of Priorities for Our Kids

My friend Dawn Poulterer is a teacher and counselor who has worked with high school students for nearly 20 years. She’s got a piece up at The Gospel Coalition with wise advice on a perspective shift for our families.

I’ve worked as a counselor with high school seniors most of my adult life, and every year I watch them advance to college. Some students are well prepared for the challenges of college. They know what their passions are, and they’re committed to serving others.
Others flounder in college in various ways. They end up hijacked by stress, escaping through video games or worse. Desperate for approval, they settle for shallow friendships. They are riddled by perfectionism and anxiety as they push harder and harder to make the grades that define their self-worth.
Why do some students soar while others get stuck?

RAR #67: Reading for the Bigger Story, Jonathan Rogers

In case you haven’t heard, Jonathan Rogers’ Wilderking Trilogy is now available in audiobook form with the author’s Georgian cadences gracing the words. (It’s okay, we can pause and wait while you go to Audible and buy your copy). I just finished the first book myself and it’s delightful to hear Jonathan’s words in his own voice. In celebration, check out Sarah Mackenzie’s Read Aloud Revival episode with Jonathan as a guest.

Hold on to your hats everyone – I am sharing one of my very favorite middle grade series in this episode. I’m chatting with both my daughter Allison and someone who just might be my favorite living author, Jonathan Rogers.
Jonathan is author of the fantastic Winderking series, which has been described as a cross between Tolkien and Twain.
In this episode, we tackle:
whether characters in books should serve as role models… or not
the way stories inspire us to live a better story ourselves
how Narnia tells more truth than a non-fiction book

Advice for Starting the School Year from Scout and Atticus Finch

Eric Wearne has a piece at the Circe Institute with words from the wise Scout and Atticus on starting off the school year.

As the school year begins, many high school students will soon encounter To Kill a Mockingbird in their English classes. Those who have read the book will remember that a good bit of the action takes place in and around the Finch children’s school–their walks past Boo Radley’s house, the fight Scout gets into over the work Atticus does for Tom Robinson, the school play with Scout dressed as a ham.

Redeeming Princess Culture

S.A. Dance writes at Christ and Pop Culture on the stories shot through with light that are behind the marketing trappings of Disney’s Princess Culture.

As a father to two young daughters, I used to worry about what lies just beyond my present moment of diaper changes and temper tantrums. I’ve heard tales of destruction wrought by the pink, pernicious Princess Culture and its fiery stream of Disney princess toys, books, and accessories…
The materialism and self-obsession of Disney princess ethos seemed a formidable enemy. Holding my daughters in my arms, I imagined myself their defender from such a foul beast.

Around the Warren

On Waiting and The Lord of the Rings

Helena Sorensen writes from a place of waiting. Smack dab in the middle of it.

My father once told me that life was a repeating cycle of
wait…
wait……
wait……….
wait…………..
HURRY!
Last year we moved. It was a frantic, sweating hurry of a year. Now we’ve settled into a season when nothing much is going on. Friends ask me about what’s happening in my life, and I scramble for gardening anecdotes. I’m smack dab in the middle of a “wait.”

Tales of Winter: The Pirate Cruncher by Jonny Duddle

Loren Eaton introduces us to The Pirate Cruncher.

What child doesn’t love pirates? During my youth in south Florida, I used to wander the beach with parents, picking over driftwood, chasing sandpipers and looking for Skull Rock. No mere mental homage to J.M. Barrie, Skull Rock was a real slab of stone that the tides would sometimes uncover, one I became convinced was where Peter Pan locked blades with dastardly Captain Hook. A youthful fancy fueled by the romance of salt water’s sting and the promise of loot secreted beneath the sands. In his picture book The Pirate Cruncher, Jonny Duddle captures perfectly these piratical accoutrements — and adds a twist ending containing a sobering moral.

Something to Do with Your Kids

Next Monday is a total solar eclipse for a whole swath of the United States. If you’re anywhere nearby, I hope you can take time to watch. Whether you can or not, here are some great eclipse-related activities for kids.