Y’all. I’ve made it to the fourth week of the year without forgetting about preparing The Warren & the World for you. I’m gonna take that as a win (you gotta take them when you have them). We are so busy, and life is so full, and it’s easy to forget even the things that are routine. But we have a Father who never forgets us—he cares about the fall of the sparrow, how much more does he care about us? Isn’t that a gift?

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We Are Different, We Are Also the Same

Trillia J. Newbell reminds us of God’s creativity.

There is little about this past year that we would call ideal. From sickness to racial strife and discord at every turn, our society has been in a state of mourning and restlessness. My husband and I seek to be ahead of the culture as we teach our children about the world around them. Either the culture will teach our children, or we will. Part of my desire in writing Creative God, Colorful Us is to provide a resource that helps parents equip their kids for such a time as this.
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Caldecott-Buzzy Picture Books

The Caldecott Medal is a major award given to a picture book each year, and it’s always fun to peek in on which books are being considered.

The Barnabus Project, Our Little Kitchen, and I Am Every Good Thing are all contenders for this year’s Caldecott award for illustration.
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Goals? Dreams? Hopes for 2021? Stuck? How to Get Unstuck

Ann Voskamp reminds us that getting unstuck requires a Tree.

So I want to give you this story, and maybe it should rightly start like the best one does: “In the beginning.”
Because it was right in the very beginning of a brand spanking new year that my farming man asked me to go for a ride down to the river.
To make tracks through the fields of snow, to wind down through the woods hushed under its blanket of white, and make our way to where the river winds slow under the willows, laced in this skirt of ice.
But just south of this grove of gnarled apple trees, huddled close in the January winds, the field wasn’t frozen a solid safe, but was actually this soggy bog under an unsuspecting cloak of snow.
Which meant that? My farming man and I went down like a stone in a winter quicksand. Yeah: mud spinning up,
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Stories That Sustain Us

Michelle Jorgenson reminds us of the ways stories hold us up.

In June 2019, my oldest daughter was diagnosed with acute B-cell leukemia, an extremely aggressive form of that cancer. God was faithful throughout her treatment. It was intense and nearly fatal, but she’s still here.
In that crisis, I knew that we needed strength and encouragement from Scripture, but I struggled to bring specific verses to mind. There was too much to think about. And I realized that for children, verses plucked from passages they haven’t studied yet may not be as helpful as stories.
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Around the Warren

The Story of Life

J.S. Clingman looks at the story of life—which doesn’t always have a happy ending, but points to the happiest ending of all.

There are some stories that echo the truths we hold dear and the things we long for most, even when we don’t always realize it. Those are the stories that always stay with us; they are the stories that have meaning, that make us grateful to be alive. They find hope in the midst of darkness and help us see the world in a whole new way. Best of all, they have a happy ending.
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Three Cheers for Frances!

Helena Sorensen salutes one of my favorite books.

It was tough to choose just one Frances story to review. I almost went with A Baby Sister for Frances, one of the few books I remember owning and reading as a child. It’s a delightful story in which Frances deals with the intrusion of a new baby sister by “running away” to a cozy spot underneath the kitchen table with a bag of prunes and a box of chocolate sandwich cookies. She sings about the hardships of a big sister’s life while listening in on her parents’ conversation about the sad departure of their eldest.
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Something to Do with Your Kids

If your family is smaller–or someone just doesn’t want to join in the game night–it can be hard to find a game that works for a smaller group sometimes. Check out this list of the best family games for 2-4 players!

Something to Watch

Do you guys know Homestar Runner? I was recently reminded of the site (which was big among my friends when I was in college) because Adobe Flash is finally being put down and the whole site was built on Flash. Fortunately, though, the videos are on YouTube, including this one, about Trogdor the Dragon.