It’s a big week for a few of our friends, and we’re going to be sure you know all the details. We’ve also got some suggestions for you as you try to introduce your kids to Black History month. Read on for more!

Around the Web

TWO Crowdfunding Campaigns!

A Slugstarter

If you haven’t checked it out yet, get on board for Slugs & Bugs’ Slugstarter for Sing the Bible Vol. 4. You know how much we love Slugs & Bugs, and we are here for it! Help us as we support Randall and the Slugs & Bugs team to make new music and open the doors to more great truths of Scripture earworming their way into your heads!

Every morning I carry my Bible up the stairs. And these days, I’m so glad it’s heavy. It’s like a counterweight to all that would pile on and sink me into oblivion. As I read, the Bible lights a joyful path through the darkness. So naturally, I can’t wait to share these new word-for-word Scripture songs for Sing the Bible Vol. 4!
Support the Campaign

A Bandersnatch Kickstarter

Bandersnatch Books has launched a Kickstarter to publish their first title—and here’s where it gets a little weird to keep talking in the third person: It’s my book, Rosefire, and Bandersnatch Books is my new publishing company. My friends and I want to see more books that don’t get picked up by major publishers find their way in the world, and a successful Kickstarter campaign for Rosefire will help us enter our first year of publishing without debt, allowing us to publish more new authors with less financial risk. Rosefire is a young adult fantasy novel, but would be good as a read-aloud for upper elementary kids, too. Here’s a little intro:

Asael is a kingdom in crisis.
Perhaps it is a coincidence that Anya arrived on Karan’s doorstep—without a past and with great skill in magic—the same night that Crown Prince Loran died, but Karan is not certain she believes in coincidence anymore. As Karan and Anya, along with Karan’s brother Richard and friend Edmund, begin to seek the promised Rose of the Ancient Writings, they learn that the destinies of kingdoms are forged, not always in the heat of battle, but in the hearts and minds of their leaders.
Support the Campaign

Picture Books about Pluto–The Underdog Ex-Planet

Our friend Carolyn Leiloglou has collected a list of books about the planet I did a science project on in eighth grade—that one that isn’t a planet anymore.

My youngest daughter has been on a space kick recently, so I thought I’d bring you a round up of picture books about Pluto. Pluto has always been such an underdog, even before it was kicked off the planet roster, that it tends to be many people’s favorite. Ready for a book list that’s out of this world?
Read more

5 Things About Family Devotions I’ve Learned the Hard Way

Ed Drew has some good words for those struggling with family devotions.

I have a photo I show whenever I am asked to speak to parents. It is me leading a family devotion. I am sitting in the middle of the sofa with my Bible open. My eldest is curled over one arm of the sofa, her back to me, her bottom directed towards the Bible. My middle child has his face embedded in the other arm of the sofa. Only my youngest seems engaged, and that is because my arm is clamped around his waist so he can’t escape. I show this photo because it captures our normal. I write books of family devotions and I want to inspire parents to raise their children knowing Christ, but my own family Bible times are rarely inspirational.
Read more

Teaching Kids to Be the Bridge

I don’t usually point straight to a tweet, but this thread from Be the Bridge had some great advice for teaching your kids ways to honor Black History Month.

Looking for ways to honor #BlackHistoryMonth with your children? We’ve got your covered with three easy suggestions:
Read more

Around the Warren

A Place Called Home

Kevin Ford finds home again.

What is Home? To me it will always be the little map dot in Southern Kansas where I was raised. To others, St. Leo, KS is nowhere, but to me it is home. St. Leo is an intersection of a blacktop and a sand road thirty miles from civilization. A Catholic church with a 110-foot steeple is the most prominent, landscape-dominating feature, and the dozen or so houses surrounding it comprise what I call a town.
Read more

Hello Ninja Packs a Punch

Carolyn Leiloglou reviews N.D. Wilson’s board book instant classic.

If your kids are anything like my 8-year old, they may be slightly obsessed the the Hello Ninja series on Netflix. It’s loosely based on N.D. Wilson’s picture book of the same title. And after listening to Wilson discuss it on the Stories Are Soulfood podcast episode about poetry for kids, I was curious to give it a try.
Read more

Something to Do with Your Kids

Erica over at What Do We Do All Day has a great list of card games you can play as a family using no more than a standard deck of cards. Check it out!