It has been a hard, sad week. Even if you’ve been protecting your sanity by avoiding Twitter or the news cycle, you can’t miss it. After weeks of isolation, we’re now faced with tragedy. And there are no easy answers. In moments like these, I often turn to the Psalms, for they give me words to lament the brokenness I see. I’m also grateful for voices like these we are sharing here, that give us words, rest, hope, and beauty.

Around the Web

A Liturgy for a Time of Widespread Suffering

Douglas McKelvey shares one of the liturgies from the upcoming Every Moment Holy: Death, Grief & Hope, to help us pray.

Christ Our King,
Our world is overtaken by unexpected
calamity, and by a host of attending fears,
worries, and insecurities.
We witness suffering, confusion, and
hardship multiplied around us, and we find
ourselves swept up in these same anxieties and
troubles, dismayed by so many uncertainties.
Now we turn to you, O God,
in this season of our common distress.
Read more

An Ode to Baking

Mal Arnold reminds us to breathe.

My two boys are playing LEGOs upstairs with their dad as I take a deep breath and inhale the cool air and quietness that permeates the downstairs. A question dances in my mind while my fingers delicately graze the spines of an ever-growing collection of cookbooks. What will I make tonight? I finally select the book I want to experiment with and thumb through the pages, losing myself in the sight of beautifully photographed desserts and my notes, written in pencil, about the failures and successes of my ventures.
Read more

The 75 Best Virtual Museum Tours Around the World

Looking for ways to travel when you can’t? Virtual museum tours are a great option!

Many of the virtual tours include exhibit walk-throughs and the ability to examine some of the world’s best paintings, sculptures, and other pieces up close and personal. These virtual tours are jam-packed with enough details to make you feel like you’re really visiting the museum. The experiences are sure to entertain the whole family, an art or history buff, or even those of us who want to imagine the joys of travel again!
Read more

Here’s A List Of Things Your Kids Can Do In The Garden Based On Their Age

Getting outside and making things grow is a wonderful way to push back against the darkness. Here’s some recommendations on how to do it as a family.

With summer arriving, it’s the perfect time to plant a garden with your kids. It’s a great family activity, there’s so much for your kids to learn, and you can eat the results.
Gardening is also a great idea for kids of all ages, if you make sure to tailor the activities to their interest level. Even the littlest of kids will enjoy the chance to plant and grow.
Read more

Around the Warren

Non-Absentee Parents in KidLit: A Defense

AJ Vanderhorst explores the missing parent problem of kidlit.

Fictional parents. Fictional kids. Never the two shall meet.
At least, as a compulsive reader of kids’ books, it often seems this way.
I’d love to see stats, compiled by someone else, of course, breaking down this pattern with decades of book data. What percentage of child protagonists are orphans? What percentage are latchkey kids? How many live with relatives who just happen to be blind and deaf? (Kidding…sort of.)
Read more

Carolyn Leiloglou’s Library’s Most Wanted

Laura Peterson reviews our friend Carolyn Leiloglou’s new book.

It’s every bookish kid’s dream job—deputy librarian! I know I loved anything that could connect me more to my church library and public library growing up; helping reshelve books, joining clubs, chatting about favorite reads with the staff. Story Warren regular Carolyn Leiloglou has penned a new picture book that looks at this joy of librarianship, but also the slight tendency many of us have to want to control everything. In Library’s Most Wanted, grade-schooler Libby is thrilled to be able to assist her Aunt Nora in the library, and takes her job very seriously.
Read more

Something to Do with Your Kids

It rained for two weeks straight where I live. My friend said to me last night that she’d been very grateful for Disney+ during the rain, but she wished she’d found more things to do. If this is you, here’s a giant list of indoor activities to try!