The Warren & the World Vol 5, Issue 42

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

Saying No in Order to Make Room

Grace P. Cho at Grace Table explores the need to say no, even to good things, to make room for what is better.

I long for fall for all the things mentioned above, but this year I’m desiring the change of weather to kickstart a change in my life rhythms. Fall is when we stay in more, enjoying the warmth of home and one another. Fall is when we slow down, where coziness, comfort and a relaxed pace are high priorities. If summer has the beat of a marching band, fall would have the beat of slow jazz. But so far summer has marched its way into October, and busyness still reigns supreme in my heart and on my calendar.

Books My Boys Couldn’t Put Down

Sally, at Real Mom Nutrition, looks at the books her boys love and gets their take on some of the favorites.

Growing up, my nose was often buried in a book, and I want the same thing for my kids. But the reality is that many boys lag behind girls in literacy, with statistics telling us that boys tend to read less and say they enjoy it less. That’s why I’m at our local library almost every week, picking up stacks of books and making sure there’s a book to grab by their bedsides, on the end tables in the living room, and in a big bin right next to the television. I want my boys to love reading throughout their tween and teenager years–and hopefully through adulthood too.

10 Ways to Love Your Teen Well

Jessie Minassian looks at loving our children as they grow more independent.

Do you remember the day you brought your (now teenage) son or daughter home from the hospital? If it was your first child, maybe you (like me) assumed mastering feedings and getting that baby to sleep through the night would be the greatest challenges of your parenting career—maybe your whole life.
Obviously, the complex issues we face in the final years of parenting at home—the teenage years—make those early challenges look easy.

Should I Bother Reading Old Testament Stories to my Children?

Our own Scott James, author of the new book, The Littlest Watchman, is at TheGoodBook.com talking about the value of Old Testament stories for our children.

The Old Testament can feel foreign and daunting to anyone, let alone to children. And so, as parents, we often resort back to stories of Jesus from the New Testament; stories that we know well, that make us feel comfortable and that we think our children will be able to understand.

Around the Warren

The Soundtrack of Childhood

Alan Howell looks at the soundtrack of his daughters’ childhood in Mozambique and the ways it teaches their family to respond to God’s call to prayer.

Raising our family in Africa means that our daughters have a very different “soundtrack” to their childhood than the one I grew up with. There are the animal noises (roosters, goats and bush babies), the cotton gin humming in the background, the mangoes dropping on our roof, and the termites chewing on our bamboo fence(!). But the sound that most often surprises our American guests is the call to prayer. We live in a predominantly Islamic area and have mosques a few blocks from our house in different directions. At least one of these mosques can be counted on to sound the call to prayer over loudspeakers and into our home five times each day.

Cowardly Clyde

James Witmer recommends a favorite Bill Peet picture book.

I have often heard that stories affect us more like experience than fact, working their way down into our unconscious beliefs. This held true in my childhood reading, and Bill Peet’s picture book, Cowardly Clyde, is a great example of how. Allow me first a quick outline of the story, why I still love it, then a few comments about how it affected me.