I recently had the pleasure of reading Martha’s Vineyard: Isle of Dreams. When the author, Susan Branch, buys a cottage on Martha’s Vineyard, she “inherits” all the possessions of the elderly woman who had lived in it for years until she moved to a nursing home and passed away. Susan sadly concludes that among all the woman’s […]
Category Archives: Treasured Books
When I taught fourth grade, I assigned my students a nonfiction book report. To my surprise, one little girl did her report on Cinderella. When I told her Cinderella was fiction, she protested, “But I found it in the nonfiction section of the library!” Intrigued, I asked the school librarian. “Yes,” she informed me, “fairy tales […]
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 […]
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, […]
In this New Year, I’ve been slow to step away from the warmth of Christmas into the open expanse of January. It is silly, really, how I think in patterns. I felt somehow safe in the year 2014, because the pattern of that year had been an uplifting one. Now, I am outside its familiar bookends. […]
I often think of Einstein’s words: “There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.” Children live with a sense of awe. Sometimes I’m afraid that the pain in this life will chip away at my sense of wonder until […]
“This is one I’ll keep when the kids are grown,” my friend said as she handed me a picture book a weekend ago. Reading it made me happy. As my friend put it, the book “sentimentalizes modern life.” I vowed to myself to remember the title, but all I recalled two days later was that […]
