One of my favorite books got reviewed at Story Warren this week. It’s a beautiful look at a relationship between siblings. If you’ve got sibling children in your life, they might be a little young for Jacob Have I Loved, but maybe you need to give it another read. Check out Aimee’s review below and remember how beautiful is a story it is.

Around the Web

Overcoming Our Fear of Missing the Treasure by Sharing the Map

Johanna Bittle gives some tips o building a home library on a budget.

• There are likely books in your own neighborhood waiting for a good home, it is just a matter of finding them! Posting an add on Craigslist, Nextdoor, and online yard sale groups can yield some surprising finds! Let your neighborhood know that your family is building a home library and would be very happy to find a new home for the books they are wondering what to do with. Many of the books forgotten in people’s attics and garages are just the sort of books that we spend our days (and nights!) searching for.
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The Monster at the End of this Book, Arrival, and How Nonlinear Stories Help Us Think

I love this piece from K.B. Hoyle about how non-linear stories can help us rebel against fear–there’s something for your kids and something for you in here!

• “There is a monster at the end of this book. So please, do not turn the page.”
  Sesame Street character Grover pleads with the reader to be reasonable and not continue reading his story in the modern children’s classic The Monster at the End of this Book (by Jon Stone). If you’ve never read this story, the title alone seems to tell you what will happen at the end: a monster will be revealed.
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Blowing Wobbly Bubbles

Jennifer Trafton considers how to know when you’re done telling a story.

• “How do you know when you are finished with a piece of writing?”—Evie, age 10
  Evie, you’ve asked a stumper. I wish I had a clear, concrete answer for you. Turn around three times, shout “Brahahahallooalloo!” and throw the paper against the wall. If it sticks there and darkens to a slightly bluish-purple shade, it’s finished. That would be handy, wouldn’t it? But alas, it’s not so simple.
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The Faerie Queene: An Invitation to Discover a Forgotten Epic

Rebecca Reynolds recently announced a new project she’s working on, and this post at the Rabbit Room goes into many of the exciting details. If you’ve got 12-16 year old readers in your house, there might even be a way for them to be involved!

• It’s mid-July and unusually hot for Oxford. Sweat rolls down your spine, and your feet are on fire. Half a block down, you see an indie bookshop. No air conditioning, but they have a basement.
  Eighteen slapdash shelves—children’s books and clearance—this is going to be a hunt. Still, there’s that library smell. Oh, glory. It makes your arms tingle. A rattly dehumidifier gurgles in the next room.
  You can hear the owner and his son upstairs, arguing about the book of Exodus. Puccini is playing on Radio 4. Time is slow here. It could be 1936, or 1952, or whatever it is now. You’ve forgotten. Doesn’t matter.
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Around the Warren

The Summer of my Extroverted Child

A throwback to one of our favorite posts–Rebecca Reynolds’ look at summer life with her extroverted child.

• I’m 45-years-old, sitting in a locked bedroom, with one towel wrapped around my body and another wrapped around my hair. I’m wearing this because I’m hiding from my extroverted child.
  Over the past twenty years, I have learned only one thing about raising children, and that’s this: kids don’t care if you are sitting on the toilet. They could walk through a room of 2,500 pooping mothers and not even flinch. But if they burst through your bedroom door (despite the fact that it’s locked) and catch you wearing a towel, they will say, “Oh, sorry.” Then they give you thirty bonus seconds before they start asking you more questions.
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Review: Jacob Have I Loved, by Katherine Paterson

Aimee Davis reminds us of the importance of Katherine Paterson’s quiet look at sibling love and rivalry.

• Anyone who has grown up as a sibling knows there is emotional processing that continually goes on as each sibling deals with the attentions, or lack of attentions, of others. Sibling rivalry and jealousy are natural things. I see it in my children as they fight for the front seat of the car. I see it in their longing to have what the other one has merely because they do not. Even as adults, we get the idea that somewhere else or with someone else, life would be better or easier. We are sinfully wired to listen to the whispers that we are being left behind or forgotten in the shadows.
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Something to Do with Your Kids

Do you need to make a fairy house? “No” is not an acceptable answer here. Of course you need to make a fairy house. And The Artful Parent just happens to have instructions for you to do so with air dry clay.

Something to Watch

Kids, animals–and fortunately there’s usually very strong glass between them!

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Carolyn Clare Givens

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.

Latest posts by Carolyn Clare Givens (see all)

• The Warren & The World Vol 11, Issue 32 - September 30, 2023
• The Warren & The World Vol 11, Issue 31 - September 23, 2023
• The Warren & The World Vol 11, Issue 30 - September 16, 2023