making space for creativity
Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan is told from the perspective of ten-year-old Anna as she and her younger brother Caleb await and meet the woman who answered the advertisement for a mail-order bride their father had placed. Set in 19th century American Prairie, the book is short and sweet, honest and compelling. I’ve…
For me chopping up onions and celery for paleo stuffing feels like one of the first moments of the holidays. While this is certainly not a recipe from my childhood (I’m pretty sure that we often had boxed stuffing for our Thanksgivings. Not that I’m complaining, I loved boxed stuffing. It’s magic and delicious…
The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley won the 1985 Newbery medal. Only daughter of a king, Aerin is looking for her place in a kingdom that is suspicious of her just as they were of her foreign, magically powerful and long-dead mother. Aerin finds a recipe for an ointment that protects the wearer…
A few months ago I was emailing with a dear friend, also named Amy, who was about to have her first baby. (Here’s a picture of us when I was pregnant with Jackson.) Amy is wise and kind, an ennegram 1 with a 2 wing (like me!), organized, caring, and especially wants to be organized…
Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary is the 1984 Newbery winning epistolary novel starring Leigh Botts writing letters to his favorite author Mr. Henshaw. At first Leigh is young, just learning to read and write, then as he gets a bit older (6th grade) he writes Mr. Henshaw for a school assignment. After Leigh tries…
The last of the warm Wisconsin breezes are bringing down the very first yellow ash leaves of Fall this week. All summer I’ve been trying to find the words to write about our local Anglican parish closing, to explain something so big and complicated, private and yet at the same time a deeply shared experience….
Dicey’s Song by Cynthia Voigt won the 1983 Newbery. It’s the second installment in a seven-part series called the Tillerman Cycle. I read the first book of the series in fourth grade, and I clearly remember being completely taken with Homecoming: the details of these kids being abandoned, counting their money and buying a tiny…
Writing in the style of William Blake’s short lyrical poems, Nancy Willard’s short, beautifully illustrated book A Visit to William Blake’s Inn: Poems for Innocent and Experienced Travelers won the 1982 Newbery. It was the first book of poetry to win the Newbery, and Alice and Martin Provensen’s illustrations won the book a Caldecott honor…
Last week we came home from our third trip of the year with two little kids. Our first one in March ushered in Spring with a road trip out to Durham, North Carolina and this last one we headed up to Northfield and Minneapolis, Minnesota. In between I took the kids down to Wheaton, Illinois…
The 60th Newbery winner, Jacob Have I Loved, by Katherine Paterson, is the first of these Newbery books that I still have my copy of from when I read it as a child. Evidently, I liked it enough to print my whole address in the front, so it could be returned to me should I…
For a long time I thought that having such a small house and such small children meant that we couldn’t have a sweet little altar space to put our crosses and icons and prayer books, but having it at the kitchen table has ended up being so great. It truly is the heart of our…
Our 59th Newbery is historical fiction written as the diary of one Catherine Cabot Hall age 13: A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl’s Journal 1830-1832 by Joan W. Blos. In her diary entries, Catherine chronicles two years of going to school, tending the house, caring for her little sister, dealing with her father’s…
I recently had two opportunities to share part of my birth stories. One was on the Christian Birth-Story Podcast “Birthing in God’s Presence” Episode 30 (You can listen to it here. Scroll to the bottom of this post for links to what I talked about.) And the other was as part of our parish’s Good Friday service sermons:…
Ellen Raskin’s The Westing Game was the 58th Newbery winning book and the award’s first mystery. Set in southern Wisconsin along Lake Michigan (Milwaukee perhaps?), 16 people move into an apartment complex and are each invited to prove that he or she is the true heir to their wealthy next door neighbor by discovering which…
Last week, as the sun began to start warming up early April Wisconsin, I was walking with Lily (11 months) and Jackson (3 1/2) when two older women passed and called out, “We’re jealous of you. We miss that stage!” I laughed and thanked them. But inside I thought, “Well, you wouldn’t…