We’ve playfully been referring to our early Summer 2021 trip out to Maryland as “Spring Break 2020” because that was the first thing we had to cancel mid-March as the Pandemic closed the world down, and it’s the first thing we’ve really done as the world opened back up. There is nothing like having tiny…
Newbery Review #84 (Kira-Kira, Kadohata, 2005)
2005 Newbery winner, Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata (2005) is about Japanese-American sisters Katie and Lynn who move to the South in the 1970s with their baby brother and under-employed parents. The title means sparkling or shimmering, a term about beautiful things that are both seen through and reflective (the sky, eyes, the sea). At it’s…
Newbery Review #83 (The Tale of Despereaux, DiCamillo, 2004)
2004 Newbery winner, The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread by Kate DiCamillo is a lovely fairy tale about a brave knight who loved a princess. The knight happens to be a very small mouse, and the princess happens to be recently motherless…
Newbery Review #82 (Crispin: The Cross of Lead, Avi, 2003)
2003 Newbery winner, Crispin, by Avi is about a medieval boy with no name and only a mother who had no current social status but could read. The book opens with her death and a great concern about what is going to happen to the boy. He learns that he has a name, a noble…
Waiting for the Spirit: The Pentecost Vigil Readings Retold for Children
Like the children’s game, “Red Light, Green Light,” Pentecost Sunday can sneak up on you, a quick red week before the long green summer. Easter and Christmas are hard to miss: they each have month-long, purple-clad fasts culminating in vigils the night before to prepare our hearts and minds for the shining white and gold…
Newbery Review #81 (A Single Shard, Park, 2002)
2002 Newbery winner, A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park (2002) is set in 12th century Korea. It chronicles orphan boy Tree-ear’s apprenticeship to master potter Min. The village of Ch’ul’po is renowned in all Korea for its beautiful green clay ceramics and made slightly unusual by the presence of a crippled homeless bridge dweller Crane-man…
Waiting for the Dawn: The Easter Vigil Readings Retold for Children
Last year, Holy Week at home with the kids was such a special time. And we are largely planning on doing the same things (You can read here a full description of what we did here: Holy Week with Toddlers), but this year I did want to try and do some Easter Vigil Readings. For…
Newbery Review #80 (A Year Down Yonder, Peck, 2001)
2001 Newbery winner, A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck (2001) follows Mary Alice as she spend the year with her formidable Grandmother in a little town in rural Illinois in the middle of the Great Depression. It’s a gem of a Newbery: short, funny, and skillfully written. A sequel to the delightful A Long Way…
A Simple Prayer for the End of the Day: Jim and June Young’s Evening Prayer
For Lent, right before we go to bed, we’ve been lighting a candle, singing a song, and saying a short evening prayer compiled by our dear family friends Jim and June Young. During Advent and Christmastide our kids loved lighting the Advent candle with the wreath and singing “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” in our…
Newbery Review #79(Bud, Not Buddy, Curtis, 2000)
2000 Newbery winner, Bud, Not Buddy, by Christopher Paul Curtis: Bud Caldwell, age ten, is a motherless boy with spunk and a hunch that he can find his long-lost father. Set in depression era Flint, Michigan, Bud is a young African American boy who has been at an orphanage or out at various foster families…
Simple Home Church Service Resources and Ideas for Families with Young Children
Over the past few months we’ve been developing our home church practice after Wisconsin’s weather made outdoor church services no longer possible. And while we miss church a lot, especially the eucharist, it’s been a sweet thing to do church together in a way that’s meaningful for each member of the family. I think it’ll…
Newbery Review #78 (Holes, Sachar, 1999)
1999 Newbery winner, Holes, by Louis Sachar stars Stanley Yelnats, a chronically unlucky boy who is sent to the juvenile detention Camp Greenlake on false charges of theft. With half the story taking place a hundred years before, the past and present of Stanley, the other inmate/campers, and “The Warden” are spun into a tight,…
36 Books for My 36th Birthday
This is my 7th year of birthday reading lists! (You can see the others here: 30 // 31 // 32 // 33 // 34 // 35). My top picks for this year are The Soul of Discipline, Okay for Now, Bandersnatch, Fertile Ground, The War that Saved My Life, Krakatoa, and The Body. Adult Fiction 1. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. This…
Newbery Review #77 (Out of the Dust, Hesse, 1998)
1998 Newbery winner, Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse is a verse novel set in Depression-era panhandle Oklahoma during the devastating Dust Bowl. Narrator Billie Jo is an only child of fourteen whose mother is finally pregnant with a much anticipated new baby while their farm is enduring a terrible drought. I came into…
Christmas Letter 2020
Dear Friends and Family, Last week we started doing a little Advent devotional time with the kids. Pajamas on, teeth brushed, kitchen clean, all the lights off we gather around the table. We strike a match and light our first beeswax advent wreath candle and say together “Jesus Christ is the light of the world!”…