Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul . . . Emily Dickinson I was struggling with contentment. The city felt crowded, scary, and full of sadness. My husband works hard to provide this lovely old home in a safe neighborhood, but I was having trouble being grateful. As usual, I was […]
Category Archives: Children’s Book Moments
It can happen beneath a starry sky, during a prayer of sincere thanks, upon hearing laughter spill from a tiny child, and almost always while watching the sun rise over the ocean: heaven draws near. I’ve been noticing the “thin places” all my life without having a name for them. While reading one of Shauna […]
Have you ever experienced the scent of bluebonnets? I don’t mean holding one to your nose; rather, the aroma that floats on the breeze over a blooming field of blue. Walking through a meadow last weekend, alone with that sweet scent, I cried. It was too much beauty to contain. They were, of course, happy […]
He says riding feels like flying. Wearing that ball cap, grinning, he looks like he did when we fell in love at 19. Strangely, I can’t recall a single motorcycle on the illustrated pages of a picture book. Ralph, riding a toy one in the middle-grade novel The Mouse and the Motorcycle is little comfort. […]
Have you ever met someone whose storytelling ability is even more wonderful than the stories themselves? I haven’t met Kate DiCamillo face to face, but when I’m reading her work, I’m astounded by the tapestry of her words. Simply by describing a setting, this master storyteller can spin my mind into a place rich with […]
When I was a child, The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton, was my favorite book. In it, a country cottage endures trials (urban sprawl), only to be transported, in the end, to her former life in the paradise of the countryside. The problem with my girlhood love of this book is that it […]
I Corinthians 13 is the famous “love chapter” of the Bible. Its poetry defines love in exquisite detail. I think Mark 10 deserves a similar designation: the “Jesus Loves Me” chapter. In it, right after we watch Jesus drawing the little children close and blessing them, we get to gaze at a person through Jesus’s […]
We bought it because Aunt Debbie cautioned, “Buy a house you could live in forever. Look at me.” It was large for two, but we’ve grown to fit inside its sheltering walls. These baby boys, now big and burrowed deep in my heart, came home here. They’ve gone to play with Granddaddy today, and, strangely, […]
It came to her in a dream. Margaret Wise Brown awoke and captured it in a form near to the one we cherish today. She called her editor, who immediately approved of her genius. Goodnight Moon was born. It is surprising to me that more mothers-to-be don’t paint their nurseries bright green, install red carpet, […]
I’m afraid I haven’t been blogging much lately. I admit that I haven’t been working steadfastly on my children’s books either. Instead, I’ve been engaged in living a better story. Shortly after Christmas, friends from church gave me a book by Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. It’s not a children’s book, […]
