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
Death by Socks
Rachel Donahue at The Donahue Daily considers dying to self as a mother.
- “You don’t make sacrifices.”
I hear his belligerent ten-year-old voice in my head as I pick up another sheet and fold it.
“I die daily,” I argue back as I dump the basket of towels and pick up the one on top.
The laundry today feels like a slow death. Death by socks.
Why I Bought My Teenage Son An Invisibility Cloak
Joshua Gibbs tells a little parable about an invisibility cloak.
- Last month was Carter’s 16th birthday, so I took him to Best Buy like I promised and bought him an invisibility cloak. We picked it out together. It was $700, which is quite a bit for our family, but we agreed that it would be a birthday and Christmas present combined. For the whole last year, he had been dying to get one. All of his friends have invisibility cloaks, although I guess pretty much every kid these days has one, so while I had been a little apprehensive, I think I finally decided to let Carter have one for the same reasons that most parents buy their kids invisibility cloaks: for safety and for community.
For the Mothers Without Children
Christine Keegan writes a few words for the women in her life who don’t have children this Mother’s Day.
- Mother’s Day is around the corner, and that turns my mind to thoughts of my own mother and my indebtedness to her. Complicated as most of our mothers are– I am fiercely thankful for the myriad of ways my mom has given her own life and body and love to shape mine.
I think of how mind-blowing it is that I myself am somehow a mother to five humans, how intensely I love them and how crazy proud I am of every bone in their bodies and how much they have shaped and sucked and changed my body and life and love.
And then, especially lately but really all through my life as a mom, I think of the friends in my life who love children, whose bodies were made to bear them, and yet because of circumstance or choice– mostly not according to their desire– do not have them. These women, are among some of the most beautiful mothers I have known.
The Best Historical Fiction Chapter Books About Westward Expansion
If you need a little supplemental American history reading, Melissa Taylor has some westward expansion options for you.
- When learning this part of U.S. History, it’s beneficial to have kids immerse themselves in stories about western expansion and life in the (wild) west. Historical fiction chapter books like these help cement learning about this time period. These books will give children an more three-dimensional understanding of life traveling west or as a settler in the west.
Around the Warren
Parent as Poet
Alan Howell finds lessons for parenting in Homer.
- My family and I serve as missionaries in Mozambique. Most Sundays, we’re out in one village or another, the five of us worshipping under a thatch roof with a local church. I usually end up preaching to a few dozen people, communicating in a language that is not my native tongue.
The people we’ve worked with in this corner of Africa over the past 14 years are predominantly first-generation Christians; most of them can’t read. So, it’s not too difficult to feel inadequate to the task.
The Little White Horse, by Elizabeth Goudge
Théa Rosenburg is here to discuss a lovely book by one of my favorite authors.
- “I absolutely adored The Little White Horse.” -J. K. Rowling
That sentence alone persuaded me to purchase The Little White Horse, a book I knew nothing else about by an author I’d never heard of. If this story fed the imagination of young J.K. Rowling, I wanted to save our family a seat at the feast.
The Little White Horse starts the way so many classics do: Maria Merryweather, newly orphaned, is delivered by carriage to Moonacre Manor.
Something to Do with Your Kids
Mother’s Day is just around the corner and the folks at the Artful Parent have a slew of Mother’s Day projects, crafts, and gifts on hand for us.
And Something to Watch
My friend Roch has just released an awesome, catchy kids album of fun songs. I can’t recommend it enough (find the album, Don’t Feed the Monkeys, by GiggleRoch on all the places where you find music.)
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 13, Issue 24 - July 5, 2025
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- The Warren & The World Vol 13, Issue 22 - June 21, 2025
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