Looking back at SqHalo24

Some seven months ago I met the Square Halo team. Well, sort of. It was through emails. Since then, I’ve read several of the books and written some blogs, but in March I met them, and the broader Square Halo community, in person at the annual Square Halo Conference.

As a first time attendee and a stranger to the city of Lancaster, it felt something like stumbling into a warm tavern and being met by a hundred and one delightful conversations and sounds. How could I not see things this way? There was music, drinks, laughter, storytelling, food, and shelter from the rain. This is essentially the recipe for any tavern scene in a story.

Here is something I now know about Square Halo. The community they have created is composed of some of the most brilliant and loveable people I know. Writers will say something on the lecture stage that will astound you and then you will think how have I never thought of that and how beautiful that was. Then you will be stacking a chair or drinking a beer at pub night and a stranger (who has most likely not written a book, but perhaps has because you really don’t know with this community how many writers there are) will say one of the most profound and kingdom like things you’ve ever heard leaving you with a great smile and sense of inspiration.

I'll also say there was much cheerfulness, laughter, and excitement in the conference. Gathering people who share a love for good books and art should have that effect. There was a button-making station where I cut out a sentence from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader with a small drawing of a lamb and pressed it into a button. My button sits on my desks and reads, “ ‘Come have breakfast’, said the lamb.” There was an art gallery with Narnia-inspired art by a variety of artists (including Ned Bustard’s linocuts from the new book Aslan’s Breath ) where people stood before the prints for quite some time till they stared themselves in and out of the images. The songwriters shared the personal histories of their songs and encouraged the many hobbyist musicians to keep creating whether or not you are the only listener. Ned even hosted a live linocut pop-up printing studio which gave a lot of people (like myself) a first-hand experience with the process that was demonstrated.

I feel there was also a shared concern throughout the conference for how a follower of Christ lives in a sometimes harsh world that makes the acts of creation, laughter, and intimacy with the Father feel impossible. From David Bisgrove’s opening lecture to Sarah Sparks’ closing concert, there was a very honest admittance that we often live in what St. John of the Cross called the “dark night of the soul”. I’m thinking especially of a lyric from Sarah Sparks’ song, The Artist. She says to the artist,

Use the brightest of the pigments
The most beautiful of hues
But the first stroke a dark shade of blue.

It was special to be in a room where communally it could be admitted that this whole Christian thing is not easy. It was comforting to see a speaker share a tear with his audience. I think these moments made this year’s theme of the Holy Spirit in Narnia feel so real. The “dark night of the soul” that obscures hope like Eustace’s dragon skin can’t be escaped by our own efforts and we ought to look elsewhere. If we look close enough in Narnia we would see the Holy Spirit was there all along and with it moments of comfort, grace, laughter, and warmth.

This year's theme—and the conference itself—was to me, a great breath of fresh air and a great welcome into the warmest, most bookish, and creative community I have known.

—blog post by Iman Mozoffarian | photos by Drew Nyguist

(Not so ) Tiny Thoughts

This week marks the release of a new book, a passion project from Square Halo called Tiny Thoughts That I’ve Been Thinking: Selected Writings of Leslie Anne Bustard. In the forward Théa Rosenburg editor writes:

[Leslie Anne Bustard] wrote poems and essays with startling abundance—more of them and more beautiful than seemed reasonable for a woman fighting two kinds of cancer. Though she had published a few pieces before her diagnosis, she spent her last three years publishing consistently in the writing communities that encouraged and supported her work, in addition to editing a book of essays and publishing a collection of her poems. The warmth and welcome of her writing drew others toward her, as though she’d thrown back the curtains in a dim room and readers couldn’t help but turn toward the sunlight.

This is the heart and soul of this book, but also only the beginning of it. Leslie’s collected writing is bound for hearts, not just for the pages they are written in. Her words had the incredible capacity to take on a whole new form of truth in my heart as I read this wonderful collection of essays, poems, and recipes. All the “tiny thoughts”.

Many of Leslie’s writings in this book come from her time in what she called “cancer-land” and despite the barrenness and bleakness one might expect of such a land, she maintained the sight and expression of the “goodness of the Lord in the land of the living”. As I read her writings and of her battle with two kinds of cancer, stage IV melanoma and stage II breast cancer, I couldn’t stop thinking about the land of the living and all the questions I had about it as a Christian. Where is it? Where isn’t it? When is it? My humanity is bound to certain answers. Maybe it’s where things are easy and stress-free. Maybe it’s where money isn’t a concern and where good health is aplenty. Or maybe it’s where one feels accepted, loved, and relevant. Rarely have my answers been good.  

This book answers those questions of where and when the land of the living is the way Frederich Buechner does when he says the kingdom of God is “now and then” and “already and not yet”. The Gospel gives us the good news that the kingdom of God has come down to earth, but in the course of our human lives we experience some very bad news that dims this trust of the kingdom’s presence here. We see homelessness, teen depression, forest fires, and cancer diagnoses. Pets go missing, our favorite restaurants close, and our aging bodies ache after tying shoes. What do we make of the “goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” when we experience all these reminders, great and small, of our broken and dying world? What does it look like to live the abundance of the kingdom in a world that is often barren and bleak.

Here is a book written by a saint who daringly did just that. She did it in her poems which saw beauty in faded yellow curtains and in her recipes that were each a little feast, meant to be tasted and shared with others. She did it in her commitment to community and in her blog posts that called a day in “cancer-land” a good day because she noticed the ordinary beauty of a cheesy omelet. Scholars can write all the theologies they want to with some beautiful words and convincing translations, but I think my favorite theology of the goodness of God belongs to Leslie Bustard who summarized it in remembering a good cheesy omelet in the midst of battling two cancers.

So, now I understand what Frederich Buechner meant by saying “now and then” and “already and not yet”. The kingdom of God and the land of the living is right here and it is right now. It has been inaugurated on this side of resurrection, but not yet fully consummated. As Christians we are called to participate in the kingdom come. We participate in it by noticing the grand beauty of a child’s birth or the sun’s setting over the Sierra crest mountains, but also in noticing the smaller beauties of healthy wet dirt or a picnic table. And even then when we feel the especially painful moments of cancer, death, and loneliness, we participate in the kingdom by properly mourning with our brothers and sisters and holding onto the promise of resurrection.

I’m without a doubt convinced of the warmth and love of Leslie Bustard which I have heard and read of now and I attest that the pages of this book are teeming with it. It is a strange thing to feel the warmth of someone and be fully convinced of their love for others without having ever met them. My suspicion is that is what it means to be remembered as one of Christ’s saints.

—blog post by Iman Mozoffarian

Aslan's Breath and the Ruach of God

My favorite Johnny Cash song is a cover of a famous hymn. It goes:

. . . the voice I hear, falling on my ear,
the Son of God discloses.
And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am his own

There is a deeply magical thing to breath. In the first act of creation, the spirit of Elohim or his breath, ruach in the Hebrew, tames the chaos waters ushering in the coming forth of all things. When God forms man, he breaths into him and calls him a living being and in Eden, the breath of God, his ruach, walks in the garden in search of man. In John’s gospel, he says of Jesus, “he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’”.

I think it is too often the case that we have grown accustomed to seizing things in our hectic world that demands a constant state of doing and producing. Like worn out runners we are panting for breath. I see myself there caught busy between the moments of college, tiring work in a kitchen, the chores of a roommate, and finding moments amidst it all to write and pray. I find myself in the space between a great exhale and a great inhale. In the moment between letting out a great gust of breath and waiting to draw a new one, there is a silent space to reflect on the very first breath that man drew into his lungs. It was the breath of God breathed into him which he only had to receive.

It’s a funny thought which I like to think that God made us to breathe in and out so there is that sacred and magical space between breaths. If we quiet ourselves and sit in the pause after an exhale, we may remember the God that gave the first breath as a gift, not a thing to be seized. Space and presence are perhaps one of the greatest needs in our humanity. Creating space in our lives and trusting God to be in the business of filling empty spaces with his presence is how I often think of the Holy Spirit. I think of God’s insistence on showing up in places where people said surely, not here. Nothing can come from this.

One of the great beauties of the triune God is that. Christ comes from Galilee, a region where people scoffed and thought, no good thing can come from there. Christ makes wine in a place where no ingredients of wine are. Salvation is breathed into men and women who have none of it together and the Holy Spirit enters empty homes. Where culture tells me, prove yourself and you bring it all to the table, Christ says, receive my body and blood and receive the Holy Spirit too.

Matthew Dickerson has written a wonderful new book called Aslan’s Breath concerning the question of where the Holy Spirit can be found in Narnia. The title offers an answer, but more than that an invitation to return to a land. Not so that you may go through Narnia and know it better through scholarship and research, but so that Narnia may go through you.

Historian Kevin Belmonte observes:"How seldom, these days, do we meet with books that are genuine friends for the journey. In the pages of Aslan's Breath, we find an author's voice that is conversational and winsome—a presence that comes alongside the reader. Matthew Dickerson knows the realm of Narnia very well indeed and shares many insights that bring richness to walking the paths of this good country. An air of discovering pervades this excellent book. What's more, and what is best—the gift of C.S. Lewis' writing about the Holy Spirit, amid scenes of comfort, reassurance, and peace, shines in this book. So, in these pages, we have a true gift: one that illumines the seven books of the Narnian Chronicles."

Dickerson walks one through the land of Narnia with the wisdom of a guide well acquainted with the terrain of his land, but also with the excitement and love of an explorer for that which may lie ahead. In some ways, the book feels like an introduction to a wonderful new friendship with Aslan who is full of all sorts of mysteries and complexities which you didn’t see in him before. Dickerson’s reflections on the imagery of Narnia shows the warmth and wildness of Aslan experienced by the characters of Lewis and calls the reader to go “further up and further in” in their own experience of the Holy Spirit.

—blog post by Iman Mozoffarian

Return to Narnia — The 2024 Square Halo Conference

It is with great joy and excitement that Square Halo invites you to join us in a “Return to Narnia” at our fifth annual conference held in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. From the afternoon of March 8th till the evening of the 9th, we will experience creativity, collaboration, and community together.

Our keynote speaker is Matthew Dickerson, author of our newest published book, Aslan’s Breath. We have seen God the Father and the Son in Narnia, but perhaps we haven’t always been aware of the Holy Spirit in that land. Matthew Dickerson will be sharing reflections on finding the breath of the Spirit which fills us as we plunge into Narnia again.

The conference will also feature a songwriter workshop, a theatrical performance of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, a live recording of a Square Halo podcast, a book table with all Square Halo titles, and a concert by Sarah Sparks whose album Into the Lantern Waste was inspired by Narnia. The breakout sessions and collective lectures will consist of previous Square Halo writers and friends.

We believe the banquet hall to be just as important as the lecture hall so we will also have communal times like pub night and dinner at local restaurants.

Tickets and information on lodging can be found on the Square Halo website and will be available until they are sold out. We hope to see you there!

Photos above are from last year’s “Ordinary Saints” conference.

—blog post by Iman Mozoffarian

KIDS BOOKS: Back to School

---

One of my favorite poems is by John Updike from his A Child’s Calendar. It goes,

The breezes taste 
Of apple peel.
The air is full
Of smells to feel––

Ripe fruit, old footballs, 
Drying grass, 
New books and blackboard
Chalk in class.

The bee, his hive
Well-honeyed, hums
While Mother cuts
Chrysanthemums.

Like plates washed clean
With suds, the days
Are polished with 
A morning haze.

Technically this poem, aptly titled “September,” is a bit more autumn feeling than the start of school in August or early September, when it feels as though the summer is still trying to beat up the other seasons. But as I have been readying my classroom for my fresh batch of Kindergarten students, I’ve been thinking about this poem. It feels like the beginning of school to me.

Plates-washed-cleaned is the feeling I have when the school year is starting, but there are many other smells to experience as we get ready: cleaner, fresh crayons, paints being opened, and new books!

Our God has gifted us seasons and renewal. He is a God of new beginnings. Just as the Creation story gives us the new beginnings of God’s grand story, just as Easter brings the new beginnings of the Resurrection, and just as Pentecost gives us the new beginnings of life with the Holy Spirit, the start of school gifts us the liturgy of new formation. Fresh starts, friendships, fond memories to come. The fact that autumn brings us the start of school every year is a visceral picture of Christ’s redemptive work in us, again and again. I pray for your start to school, the excitement, nervous anticipation, the joy and sorrows.

One of my favorite books I am bringing into the classroom this year is Little Prayers for Ordinary Days by Katy Bowser Hutson, Flo Paris Oakes, and Tish Harrison Warren. May this prayer, called For the Start of a School Day, ” and these beginning of school books be an encouragement to you as you start the year!

Dear God, 
Bless our school
and our teachers
and all of our helpers.
Give me courage to be a good friend,
especially to those who don’t yet have a friend.
It is a gift to learn new things about your world.
Let me be curious and kind.
And please keep everyone safe
all day long. 

—
This post was written by Carey Bustard, one of the co-editors of Wild Things and Castles in the Sky.

Tim Keller

A little over a year ago, I received a short email from Tim Keller. He had just returned to NYC after a moth of immuno-therapy. He wrote:

… the festshrift books we received the last day we were in Maryland—were particular moving to Kathy and I. It was something we had no idea was coming at all and so it was indeed an astonishing, joyful surprise.  After such a difficult June, the book just seemed like a kiss and an embrace, a gift of free grace. Many of the contributors are some of our dearest friends, but I don’t know every one of them and I don’t have all the email addresses. In fact, I’ve lost yours. (I know I used to have it!) And so could you simply pass on Kathy and my deepest thanks to all of the people involved in this and let them know how delightful this gift was to us?

What is this short email about? It is in response to me shipping the Kellers a box of our book, The City for God: Essays Honoring the Work of Timothy Keller.

The book was actually begun before Tim got cancer. The whole project was a secret, and we had been chipping away at it for a while before his diagnosis was revealed. As you can imagine, it was discouraging to think we might have worked so hard to honor and thank him only for Tim not to ever know. Therefore, we were quite relieved to be able to get it to him in time for him to enjoy it.

The City for God was a labor of love that was the result of a brainstorming session the Square Halo partners had one summer day. We were thinking about what books we’d like to publish. Rather than merely responding to book ideas as they were sent to us from folks, we asked ourselves: if we could do anything, what would we want to make? One idea was to write a festschrift in honor of Tim Keller. He had had a huge impact on the founding of my church, his preaching and planting in NYC had had a huge impact on our daughters, and his contribution to It Was Good: Making Art to the Glory of God was easily Square Halo’s most often quoted.

The City for God is divided into three parts and has a foreword by Russell Moore. The opening section is GOSPEL and it has essays about Character, Rhetoric, Apologetics, Accessibility, and Influence. The middle section is CITY and its topics are Presence, City of God, Prayer, Hope, Creativity, and Jazz. The final section is VOCATION with essays on Work, Both/And, Business, Counseling, Leadership, Mercy, and Legacy.

One of the things I particularly like about the book is that, although it has some “big names,” many of the people who wrote for it are not well known. They are simply people who were impacted by the ministry and vision of Keller, and have gone on to put his understanding of the Gospel into practice within their spheres. And at the end of the day, what could be better for a pastor than to know his flock was advancing the Kingdom of God?

Instead of endorsements like we’d usually collect for the front of the book, for this project I reached out to a number of folks to get “Thank Yous.” Here are a few:

“At strategic moments, God sometimes makes a surprising choice of human instruments (Gideon, David, Saul of Tarsus).  In our own time, I can’t imagine a more appropriate choice of a leader than Tim Keller to represent our faith in the fishbowl that is New York City.  By temperament, intellect, trustworthiness, and driving spirit, Tim is supremely qualified.”—Philip Yancey

“Tim was my pastor from 1999 until he retired from the pulpit in 2017. I came to Redeemer in New York City at a particularly lean time in my life. His ministry—following Jesus’ dictum to “feed my sheep”—deeply nourished my soul. He engaged my mind, softened my heart, and inspired my imagination. Tim was also God’s instrument for much of the C.S. Lewis work I have been a part of over the past twenty years. My debt to him remains to this day.”—Max McLean

“Tim and Kathy, your life and ministry have had an impact on mine in countless indirect ways, which, in being indirect, testify mightily to the power of your work and faithfulness over the years. Everywhere I go, I am blessed to work with, be edified by, and befriend those who have been shaped and formed by the Kellers. What greater legacy can there be than to influence those who go on to influence others, and so on, into eternity. I thank God for this kind of ministry. I thank God for you both.”—Karen Swallow Prior

We join with all of those who thank God for the Kellers. This book was one way to express that, and hopefully continue the impact of of Tim Keller’s vision and ministry in expanding the city for God.

KIDS BOOKS: Summer Reading

A dear friend recently gave me A House on Mango Street—a book she was reading while preparing for a new year of teaching 8th graders.  After she read parts aloud to me, I could understand her attachment to this book and her excitement to share it with her class. Written a couple decades ago by Sandra Cisneros, A House on Mango Street is a timeless, beautiful, and very human story (told in short vignettes), full of joy and sorrow. It is one of those books that you want to share sentence after sentence with someone and also write parts in your journal.  It was a hard-to-put- down book.

After reading Ms. Cisneros’s book, I remembered others that reminded me of it – books about home, laughter, struggles, growing up in hard times and places, and friendship.

A House on Mango Street, a good read for students in 8th grade and above, focuses on Esperanza, a Mexican-American twelve-year old girl, but also on her family and her neighbors. Her parents have bought their first house but it is not one she is glad for because it is small and run down and in the middle of a crowded Latino neighborhood in Chicago. The theme of how belonging, friendship, family, and community fold into a person’s becoming was both sweet and hard to witness.

Twig by Elizabeth Orten Jones is a perfect chapter book for new readers but also a wonderful read aloud for those in preschool and above. It’s a children’s fantasy novel about a girl named Twig and her backyard adventures, with a sweet spotlight on her affection for all her apartment neighbors.

You Bring the Distant Near by Mitali Perkins. I enjoyed this wonderful novel last month and invited several 8th and 9thgrade girls to join me in reading it. (We’ll meet later this summer at a local cupcake shop to talk about it.) This story focuses on five different women of one family with Bengali roots (from grandmother, to her two daughters, to her two granddaughters) and their individual experiences making their lives in America, but also how important family and community are to their formation as women and family . . . and their stories.

I Captured the Castle by Dodie Smith. Years ago, I was intrigued by this book when several women shared that they read it as teenagers and couldn’t forget it when they grew up. It is the story of seventeen-year old Cassandra and her family who live in a ramshackle castle. They are a quirky family and very poor. There are many fun, and awkwardly uncomfortable, exploits in this coming-of-age story.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. One of my daughters just recently read this for the first time and was overwhelmed by the sheer bittersweet - ness of it. The book is set in 1912 and centers on Francine and her family as they make their life in a tenement apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

And, of course, don’t forget classics like The Little Princess by Francis Hodgson Burnett or Great Expectations by Charles Dickens or Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. They are full of young characters, hard hardship, friends, community, and growing up.

---

Summer Picture Books

I wandered around the children’s section of Barnes and Noble and discovered these wonderful picture books that fit the “what a good summer read” category.

Wave by Suzy Lee

This wordless book about a young girl meeting and interacting with waves at a beach is a delight. The faces this cute little makes at the water, as well as how the waves are personified, will make you smile and laugh, and hopefully cause some fun conversations.

The World Belonged to Us by Jacqueline Woodson and illustrated by Leo Espinosa

The first book I’ve read in a long time that captures the freedom and delights of summer and also reminded me of my childhood in the 1970s (even though it is set in Brooklyn, and I grew up in Wilmington, DE). I loved the summer activities and how the writer captured them with such fun, poetic sentences and how the illustrator captured them through the colorful, happy illustrations.

Flip: How the Frisbee Took Flight by Margaret Muirhead and illustrated by Adam Gustavson 

I realized while reading this book that I never actually thought about how the Frisbee was invented! But this story, with its fabulous illustrations, piqued my interest and satisfied my history-loving heart. We meet a young Fred and Lu. They enjoyed tossing a tin popcorn lid around the backyard. Later, they get married and kept trying to figure out how to perfect the flying-disc (it takes them twenty years!). It’s a great history and science story.

There is a Flower at the Tip of My Nose Smelling Me by Alice Walker and illustrated by Queenbee Monyei

This is a newly illustrated version of this classic piece by Alice Walker. What a wonderful read to share with others with its focus on the natural world and us in it. I enjoyed the juxtaposition of how I smell the roses to how “a flower at the tip of my nose smelling me…” (and how this happens throughout the book with other natural elements).

The Honey Bee by Kristen Hall and illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault

Summer is a good time to think about bees and what they are doing during the year. The words and rhymes are very fun (and informative) and the illustrations made me glad to be reading this book. I could picture myself with one of my daughters on my lap enjoying this fun book together.

One Smart Cookie: Bite-sized Lessons for School Years and Beyond by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and illustrated by Jane Dyer and Brooke Dyer (Illustrator)

I haven’t thought about this book (and its companions) in years, so I was glad to see it at B&N. I do remember being enchanted by how the author was able to take words like kindness and empathy (character traits we would want to help our children know and grow in) and teach them through focusing on cookies and baking them. Also, I have love love loved the illustrations of Jane Dyer over the years, so her work in collaboration with her daughter in this book made it even more wonderful.  This book is one to read and return to while getting your children ready for a new school year and thinking of how to be “others focused.”

—
This post was written by Leslie Bustard, one of the co-editors of Wild Things and Castles in the Sky.

KIDS BOOKS: Owl's Nest

I’m in the middle of reading KB Hoyle’s new book Son of the Deep and delighting in how Karin puts words together – crafting a new story out of a well-loved one. It’s these type of stories that make me glad books exist!

Karin Hoyle is an author and professional writer. She has published 10 books for teens and has taught creative writing and publishing courses, spoken at a variety of venues, created her own writing curriculum, and written for a number of publications. . . and now she and her life-long friend Katie Stewart have started the journey of running a new book publishing company called Owl’s Nest Publishers.

Learn more about Owl’s Nest at https://www.owlsnestpublishers.com/#/

Learn more about Karin at http://www.kbhoyle.com

Below, Karin shares about her new book and Owl’s Nest, and in Wild Things fashion, offers several book recommendations.

Your new book Son of the Deep looks fabulous. What got you started on this? And what was it like to follow your own vision but also take on some ideas from the original story?

Of all my eleven published books, Son of the Deep was one of the easiest to plan and execute since I was working from established content. I got started on it because I was inspired to write a retelling of an original fairytale that felt very much like filmmaker Kenneth Branagh’s retelling of Disney’s Cinderella (my favorite Disney film, as a child). There was so much beauty in Branagh’s retelling in how he pulled apart what was a classic Disney story and filled in the spaces with his own vision—but stayed very true to the original.

I was filled with the desire to do the same—not with Disney’s The Little Mermaid, but with Hans Christian Andersen’s original tale, which is fraught with beauty and elegance (and frankly sometimes gets a bad rap for having a “sad ending”). It was very easy to pull apart the bones of Andersen’s original story, use those bones as the structure of my outline, and fill in the rest with enough material to make up and imagine an original story that still remains true to the source material.

Please tell me about your new publishing company Owl’s Nest. What a wonderful name, which I imagine has a great backstory.

Owl’s Nest Publishers was established this past year as a shared vision between myself and my lifelong bosom friend Katie Stewart. It is an independent publishing house that we created because we see the need to make space for authors who want to write books for adolescents—real adolescents, rather than what the market often mistakes for adolescents. Thus, our company motto is “Capturing the imagination of teen and middle grade readers.” We know that there are many readers out there between the ages of 8-18 who feel lost in the bookstores trying to find books that represent their coming-of-age experiences—or who simply can’t find the books they really want to read! We want to be a reliable source of books for them (and a reliable source for their parents).

The name for Owl’s Nest comes from the family camp Katie and I attended as children—for our entire lives, really. We came together every summer with the same families for one week in July, and we had this group of friends with whom we grew up, at this remote place in Upper Michigan—one of those rare places that was special and unique and felt like a truly “thin place.” Many of the buildings there were named for things from either The Chronicles of Narnia or Winnie the Pooh, and there was a camp library that was the upper room over the rec center—that library was called the Owl’s Nest (referencing Owl from Winnie the Pooh).

The Owl’s Nest had window seats with cushions where you could sit and overlook the fields and the beach and read a book, and I remember spending mornings up there with my class as a young kid, listening to one of the Narnia books read aloud to us. But as Katie and I and the rest of our friends grew older, the Owl’s Nest became a place we would hang out on rainy afternoons, or if we just needed a change of pace and place—without any adults or supervision involved. Lots of laughter and fun and memories and imagination were forged up there.

We had lots of motivations for starting Owl’s Nest! Katie and I are both parents ourselves and feel the lack of options when we search for books for our kids. As a former classical educator, I can also tell you that after many, many conversations with parents, there is a real lack of options for books for young teens. Also, Katie has been involved in the book-reviewing scene for many years and has seen the lack of books—particularly for the upper middle grade age group—herself. Previous to starting Owl’s Nest, I struggled for a decade to find representation and acceptance in the traditional publishing world for my books, which were written for ages 13-16, despite finding acceptance among readers. I’ve watched many authors go through the same struggles.

Our hope for Owl’s Nest is that we can make space for these needed books to be published. We want to become a reliable publisher of adolescent literature for young readers and their parents, to grow and bring on an increasing number of authors who share our vision each year, and to publish books that capture the imagination of teens and middle grade readers in true, beautiful, and good ways.

At Owl’s Nest, we only publish books for adolescents, and our books are broken down into three imprints: Owl’s Nest Middle Grade, Owl’s Nest Teen, and Owl’s Nest Classics. Middle Grade is for books with an audience ages 8-12, Teen is for books with an audience ages 13-18, and Classics is a line of public domain literary companions that we are very excited about! These are public domain books that we will be publishing as study guides with annotations, questions, and essays to help introduce adolescents of today to Bildungsroman classics of yesterday.

And we are open for submissions! All our submissions guidelines can be found here: https://www.owlsnestpublishers.com/submissions

This fall another book is coming out titled Orion and the Starborn. It looks really interesting! What is that about?

We are so very excited about Orion and the Starborn at Owl’s Nest—and I am of course excited about it on a personal level since it will be my 12th published novel and the first in another series!

Orion has been such a difficult novel for me to define for people because it falls in that tricky in-between space: it’s in between genres and also in between audiences. It’s neither fantasy nor science fiction—it’s a little of both. It’s crossover middle grade to teen (so we’ll call it upper middle grade). The characters will age up as the story progresses, so it is true coming-of-age. Orion and the Starborn is the story of a boy who must find his place in the universe, literally, and the implications of what happens when he does. It should feel, when you read it, both like an old story you’ve read before, and something entirely brand new.

What are five book recommendations that you can offer us?

This is such a hard question for me to answer because I don’t like recommending books (especially to children) without knowing what sort of reader I am dealing with. But here are a few go to books:

The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander is a lesser-known fantasy series that is an absolute favorite of mine, as is Goose Girl by Shannon Hale.

The Girl Who Drank the Moon is a light and lovely children’s fantasy read.

My non-fantasy reader (who struggled to read as a child) loved to read The Bad Guys books by Aaron Blabey, so I recommend those to parents of reluctant readers.

And if I have a chance to buy picture books for people, I almost always choose Doreen Cronin’s Click, Clack, Moo books.

—
This post was written by Leslie Bustard, one of the co-editors of Wild Things and Castles in the Sky.

KIDS BOOKS: N00KB00KS

Local bookstore + excellent children’s book + Emma O’Brien = just the right shop for Carey and me in downtown Lancaster City, PA. What a delight to have Emma and her family move from Brooklyn, where she worked as consultant for startups and non-profits, to Lancaster, where she decided to open n00kb00ks.

Her story includes several different chapters, which came together for her family’s good, as well as for our community:  her mother’s love of books and Emma’s ongoing love for good books for children, having a baby during the pandemic, and finding a certain small quaint space, wondering where she can be creating, which all led to thinking “starting a bookstore seems rather natural.”

She and her husband love to bring people together, and as they were making plans to move here, they looked for places where they could place long tables with good food, and while on the hunt, they discovered this downtown space was for sale and the price was right. And from there, they bought the space and then a home with space to share meals with others. Then. . . their first child was born and a bookstore opened.

Emma’s desire is to stock n00kb00k’s shelves with hardback books that are long lasting, but also with books that are magical or offer empathy or highlight kindness. She enjoys finding stories that are the best quality—whether they are whimsical or thought provoking.  As other indie-bookstore owners have learned along the way, she has been paying attention to “how to stay in my lane” while also catering to what people want. Her favorites include older classics, translated works, self-published books, and also new pictures books from different cultural backgrounds. Most of her books come from smaller book publishing houses that offer a variety of aesthetics, such as Enchanted Lion Books.

Wandering around n00kb00ks is a sweet journey of delight. A large front window with happy colorful images framing the glass beckons one to enter, and the sunshine flooding the space welcomes you in. Hardback picture book fronts face out on one wall of shelves, helping you find just the right book to look through. More shelves on another wall offer books in categories such as Nature, Art Appreciation, Local Authors, and Young Adult. There are cozy spots where one can lean up against the wall with several books to look through and fun art on the walls.

Carey and I have enjoyed our trips to n00kb00ks and our times talking with Emma about books and children. We share the love of some of the same writers and illustrators, and she has introduced us to new ones to investigate. Emma hopes to share books with children and adults because “everyone’s inner child should be allowed to live.”

Here are some books she loves and books I discovered while perusing her shelves. If you find yourself in downtown Lancaster City, make n00kb00ks a place to checkout. Say hi to Emma and ask her for some good ideas to share with the little people in your life.

Follow her on Instagram .

A Few, New Emma Favorites:

Watercress by Andrea Wang —“Beautiful and bittersweet”

Little One by Kiyo Tanaka  (translated from Japanese by David Boyd) — “Happy find and about a little girl with an imaginary friend”

Pig and Horse and Something Scary by Zoey Abbot — “emotions, scary thoughts, friends, and tea”

What I found at n00kb00ks — Books for Inquisitive Minds and Perfect for Summer Time (or Books I Wish Had Been Around When My Girls were Younger)

Atlas of Adventures: A Collection of Natural Wonders, Exciting Experiences and Fun Festivities from the Four Corners of the Globe illustrated by Lucy Letherland — I’m just going to get this for myself because I love books about places with colorful little pictures and factoids spread around geographical maps. The companion book is

Curious about Crocodiles by Owen Davey with Flying Eye Books — This is part of a series such as Bonkers about Beetles and Passionate about Penguins and fun to look at and learn from. “Passionate about Penguins” just makes me smile!

The Big Book of Blooms by Yuval Zommer — This book has other companions like Big Book of Bugs, Big Book of Blue, and Big Book of Birds. It is another great one for looking at as well as reading. With titles like these I want to own every one.

Before spring ends officially and summer starts, be sure to check out And Then It’s Spring, written by Julie Fogliano and illustrated by Erin E. Stead — it’s a sweet story of a boy, his dog, and waiting for spring life. Carey love Erin E. Stead’s work and books.

—
This post was written by Leslie Bustard, one of the co-editors of Wild Things and Castles in the Sky.

KIDS BOOKS: Poem in Your Pocket Day

Today is Poem in Your Pocket Day!

Ever since 2002, April 29 has been designated Poem in Your Pocket Day. I do wish I had known about this day earlier, but it is never too late to share poems. You could extend this pleasurable day into the weekend. 

Poets.org shared the following thoughts: “Every April, on Poem in Your Pocket Day, people celebrate by selecting a poem, carrying it with them, and sharing it with others, throughout the day at schools, bookstores, libraries, retirement homes, parks, workplaces, and on social media (using the hashtag #PocketPoem).”

Poem in Your Pocket Day takes place during National Poetry Month, which seems quite perfect since April feels like a living poem with all the flowers blooming, breezes blowing, and birds chirping. 

But why take time with poetry anyway? 

Says Missy Andrews in her essay about poetry in Wild Things and Castles in the Sky: Poetry “exercises in-sight. . . that inner vision is the stuff of imagination. . . While the modern mind associates the imaginative faculty with “unreality,” the Bible suggests that figured things are often more real than things material. The Apostle Paul argues: “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Cor.4:18 NIV). If this is so, how is one to perceive the unseen reality of the gospel but with the figurative faculty that is the imagination? How is one to perceive the invisible truths without poetics?” 

Not only does reading poetry help us move into the the deep beautiful mysteries of Scripture and life in Jesus, it helps us learn to pay attention, enjoy, lament, name, and move through our lives and places with open hearts and open eyes. Poetry can be a means of grace to help you and me and the children we know live our days well. 

Enjoy Poem in Your Pocket Day with a loved one or a beloved little one. Below are poems to recopy and illustrate, memorize or recite, or together share with others (maybe with a telephone call or facetime). 

I also suggest adding in pancakes or popcorn or ice cream to increase the fun. 

—
This post was written by Leslie Bustard, one of the co-editors of Wild Things and Castles in the Sky.

The O in Hope | Luci Shaw
From the book The O in Hope

Hope holds one lovely vowel like a promise!
Think how we cry “Oh!” at the round sun rising.
O is the shape of a mouth singing, and in 
the color of a round red cherry.
“Oh!” say our open eyes at surprising beauty,
and then “Wow!”  
O is as complete as a wedding ring,
a round pool, and the shape of ripples 
spreading on the water.
O is the heart of love and joy.
O was in the invention of the wheel.
O multiplies in the zoo, in an open door,
and in a cool drink on a hot day.
O grows in the heart of a green woood.
O is like the moon, and the looping paths of planets.
You’ll find O in food and books,
and cotton socks, and useful tools, and knitting wool.
We love the double O in good,
and how O is in itself complete and whole.
Love forms a circle that holds us all together,
safe in the center of the loving heart of God.

Puppy and I  | A.A. Milne 
When We Were Very Young

I met a Man as I went walking:
We got talking,
Man and I.
"Where are you going to, Man?" I said
  (I said to the Man as he went by).
"Down to the village, to get some bread.
  Will you come with me?" "No, not I."

I met a horse as I went walking;
We got talking,
Horse and I.
"Where are you going to, Horse, today?"
  (I said to the Horse as he went by).
"Down to the village to get some hay.
  Will you come with me?" "No, not I."

I met a Woman as I went walking;
We got talking,
Woman and I.
"Where are you going to, Woman, so early?"
  (I said to the Woman as she went by).
"Down to the village to get some barley.
  Will you come with me?" "No, not I."

I met some Rabbits as I went walking;
We got talking,
Rabbits and I.
"Where are you going in your brown fur coats?"
  (I said to the Rabbits as they went by).
"Down to the village to get some oats.
  Will you come with us?" "No, not I."

I met a Puppy as I went walking;
We got talking,
Puppy and I.
"Where are you going this nice fine day?"
  (I said to the Puppy as he went by).
"Up to the hills to roll and play."
"I'll come with you, Puppy," said I.

Who has seen the Wind | Christina Rossetti

Who has seen the Wind?
Neither I nor you.
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.

 Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I.
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by. 

The Duck | Ogden Nash

Behold the duck.
It does not cluck.
A cluck it lacks.
It quacks.
It is especially fond
Of a Puddle or pond.
When it dines or sups,
It bottoms up.

A Popcorn Song | Nancy Byrd Turner

Sing a song of popcorn
When the snowstorms rage;
Fifty little round men
Put into a cage.
Shake them till they laugh and leap
Crowding to the top;
Watch them burst their little coats
Pop!! Pop!! Pop!!

from Firefly | Li Po

I think
If you flew
Up to the sky
Beside the moon,
You would
Twinkle
Like a star. 

The Swing | Robert Louis Stevenson 
(This one does need to be read or recited while swinging on a swing.)

How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
Rivers and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside—

Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown—
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!

KIDS BOOKS: Book Release Day!

Today is the official “Welcome to the world, Wild Things and Castles in the Sky!” 

This new Square Halo release, something I started dreaming up summer 2020, would not have turned into the book I am so thankful for and proud of without Carey Bustard and Théa Rosenburg as my partners. I loved how we collaborate(d) together, and also how each of us have different strengths and passions that were needed for this project. 

As Wild Things and Castles in the Sky: A Guide to Choosing the Best Books for Children is not just many essays about books, but also a plethora of recommendations, here is a list of books that are important to Théa and her daughters. Another place to check out Thea’s book thoughts and recommendations, follow her at Little Book, Big Story . Théa is one of the wisest people I know about books and a favorite Square Halo editor. Following are a few of her family’s favorites….

---

When your children range in age from six to almost-fourteen, it can be tough to find read-alouds that engage and challenge everybody. A few on this list hit that sweet spot, and a few others are books that all four girls have loved when they were at the perfect age to love them.

The Complete Brambly Hedge, by Jill Barklem

I’ve never quite been able to decide if the magic in this book flows mostly from the illustrations or the stories. Probably, it’s the harmonious blend of the two: Barklem’s tales of the Brambly Hedge mice are delightful and sweetly told, and her watercolor illustrations (especially the cutaways of the homes!) have drawn our family into the world of Brambly Hedge over and over again.

The Misadventured Summer of Tumbleweed Thompson, by Glenn McCarty

When I started reading this book to my girls, I had a hunch they’d enjoy it. But this frontier story so quickly won us all over and became such a foundational part of our summer lunch read-alouds that we’ve since read every other Glenn McCarty book we can find. And how’s this for full circle: I bought this book after reading Carolyn Givens’s recommendation in Wild Things!

James Herriot’s books (all of them)

At some point, all four girls have discovered James Herriot’s Treasury for Children, and we’ve lingered together over his stories of life as a country vet in the 1930s. But as the older girls have outgrown that book (as much as it’s possible to outgrow it—I’m not sure you ever really can), we’ve discovered Herriot’s other memoirs. These books include a lot more details about birth and veterinary procedures and aren’t exactly meant for teens and tweens, but Herriot is such a fantastic storyteller, he makes even these details riveting and somehow warm and wholesome. I’m pretty sure we’ll all love these stories forever.

The Secret Life of Walter Kitty, by Barbara Jean Hicks

Barbara Jean Hicks and Caldecott-winning illustrator Dan Santat get the double life of the cat just right: they capture the inner life of Walter, a cat who answers to Fang and imagines himself as pirate, superhero, and explorer, and they set that alongside his everyday existence as a house cat—a sucker for catnip and chin-scratches, who is also willing to answer, in his weakest moments, to Snookums. We’ve loved so many picture books over the years, but this is one of those rare gems that still makes us all laugh.

The Wilderking Trilogy, by Jonathan Rogers

The summer we listened to the audiobooks of this trilogy over lunch was also the summer the girls ran along hiking trails barking like bog owls at top volume. (This was startling for other hikers and hilarious to me.) Rogers’s reimagining of King David’s story is set in a swamp filled with some of the most memorable characters you’ll meet, and it hits that sweet spot for readers who are ready for an adventure tale, but not quite ready for anything too scary or intense. But these books aren’t all fun and adventure: there are some deep, true moments in here that you’ll carry away with you and think back on for years.

KIDS BOOKS: Poetry for Easter

May this Holy Week, these days of walking with Jesus and seeing how he set his face toward his death on cross and “did not despise its shame,” find you meditating on Scripture and other good words — to enlarge your imagination concerning God’s love found in Jesus Christ and to unite your heart to praise his name.

Here are a few poems you and the children in your life can share together, as you enter in the story of the Cross.

Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe | CS Lewis 

“Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.”

April | John Updike

April
It's Spring! Farewell
To chills and colds!
The blushing, girlish
World unfolds

Each flower, leaf,
And blade of turf--
Small love-notes sent
From air to earth.

The sky's a hard
Of prancing sheep,
The birds and fields
Abandon sleep,

And jonquils, tulips,
Daffodils
Bloom bright upon
The wide-eyed hills.

All things renew.
All things begin.
At church, they bring
The lilies in.

Royalty | Luci Shaw

He was a plain man
and learned no latin.

Having left all gold behind
he dealt out peace
to all us wild men
and the weather

He ate fish, bread,
country wine and God’s will

Dust sandalled his feet

He wore purple only once
and that was an irony

Quiet | Leslie Bustard 

…like a robin’s egg in a nest,

a row of yellow tulips, petals closed,

the last few shadowed moments

on the eastern horizon,

and Holy Saturday, 

as Christ was lying in the sealed tomb,

and the angels were waiting. 

The Lion, the Witch, the Wardrobe | CS Lewis 

The rising of the sun had made everything look so different – all the colours and shadows were changed – that for a moment they didn’t see the important thing.  Then they did.  The Stone Table was broken into two pieces by a great crack that ran down it from end to end; and there was no Aslan.

“Oh, oh, oh!” cried the two girls rushing back to the Table.

“Oh, it’s too bad,” sobbed Lucy; “they might have left the body alone.”

“Whose done it?” cried Susan.  “What does it mean? Is it more magic?”

“Yes!” said a great voice behind their backs.  “It is more magic.”  They looked round.  There, shining in the sunrise, larger than they had seen him before, shaking his mane (for it had apparently grown again) stood Aslan himself.

Emmaus 2 | Malcolm Guite

We thought that everything was lost and gone,

Disaster on disaster overtook us

The night we left our Jesus all alone

And we were scattered, and our faith forsook us.

But oh that foul Friday proved far worse,

For we had hoped that he had been the one,

Till crucifixion proved he was a curse,

And on the cross our hopes were all undone.

Oh foolish foolish heart why do you grieve?

Here is good news and comfort to your soul:

Open your mind to scripture and believe

He bore the curse for you to make you whole

The living God was numbered with the dead

That He might bring you Life in broken bread.

from The Jesus Storybook Bible | Sally Lloyd-Jones

And the King says, “Look!”

God and his children are together again.

No more running away. Or hiding.

Nor more crying or being lonely or afraid.

Nor more being sick or dying.

Because all these things are gone.

Yes, they’re gone forever.

Everything sad has come untrue.

And see — I have wiped away every tear from every eye!”

And then a deep, beautiful voice that sounded like thunder

In the sky says, “Look, I am making everything new!”  
—
This post was written by Leslie Bustard, one of the co-editors of Wild Things and Castles in the Sky.

KIDS BOOKS: Easter Stories for Your Imagination

The other day someone on Facebook asked, “Which book would you like to reread for the first time?”

I didn’t check the other answers so I could come up with my own idea.

After a quick moment I knew I would want to relive many of those magical first moments in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S— like being with Lucy when she has tea with Mr. Tumnus, with the Peter, Susan, and Lucy when they come before the magnificent Aslan, and with Edmund as he trudges through the melting snow while spring musically makes its way into Narnia.  Rowen Wlliams in The Lion’s World: A Journey into the Heart of Narnia says Lewis was seeking to re-enchant us with the glories of the gospel. The Chronicles of Narnia are Great Supposal stories. Suppose there was another world, and Jesus acted in that world, what would it be like? And seeing Jesus and how he acts (Aslan) we might see him as if for the first time and our dullness to the Scriptures may be replaced with awe and gratefulness. I have experienced this. (spoiler) Reliving the death and then the resurrection of Aslan chokes me up often. I don’t remember how I felt when I first read it when I was 12, so I imagine rereading these scenes for the first time and experiencing the joy of Aslan, Susan, and Lucy romping around the broken Stone Table might enchant me even more to the glory of Christ’s resurrection. 

Epic stories like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter capture, like The Chronicles of Narnia, the sacrificial love of Jesus without actually be allegorical. Rereading these or even excerpts from them would be a way to assist the imaginations of our young people as we invite them into the true miracle of the gospel story.  The following are several more stories that can be read during Passion Week and can help us enter into the amazingness of this time of the year and church calenar.

1.     Bare Tree and Little Wind: A Story for Holy Week by Mitali Perkins and illustrated by Khoa Le. “A lyrical, captivating retelling of the Palm Sunday and Easter story…” I love how my imagination gets caught up in the Holy Land through the characters of a tree and wind. Through these characters I witness what happens to Jesus and then I’m given the hope of his return that will restore the whole earth – people and nature.  Mitali Perkins is a wonderful storyteller and the pictures by Khao Le are colorful and captivating. 

2.     Oscar Wilde Stories for Children by Oscar Wilde, illustrated by P.J. Lynch

“The Selfish Giant” and “The Nightingale and the Rose” are short stories which beautifully and achingly point us to Jesus and his sacrifice. P. J. Lynch’s illustrations in other books have been a favorite of mine for a longtime; these are a great addition to enjoying these stories. 

3.     “Maundy Thursday” by Walter Wangerin

I found this story in Stories for the Christian Year by The Chrysostom Society, but you can also find in online through Christianity Today. 

I read this story every Maundy Thursday to my family and anyone will listen. This story helps us remember how Jesus broke the bread and shared the wine with his disciples before he was arrested and then died. It is funny and endearing; it chokes me up every time I read the end.  

4.     The Light Princess by George MacDonald and illustrated by Ned Bustard

This novella, with all the trappings of a traditional fairy tale told with a nod and a wink and clever word play offers insight into what true sacrifice looks like. (Also, the illustrations are perfect, created by my husband Ned. He fills each picture with lots of fun things to look at . . . yes, I might be slightly biased).

5.     The Biggest Story Bible Storybook written by Kevin DeYoung and illustrated by Don Clark. 

When my daughters were younger, and if I remembered (!), I would read all the Bible stories starting with Palm Sunday and ending with Christ’s death. Then on Easter and a few days after we would read the rest of the glorious story. (Each day we would focus on the stories that happened on that day.) Reading straight from the Bible is always a very, very good idea; supplementing with a storybook Bible is good, too, especially if the illustrations can capture your imagination without replacing any images in one’s mind already. This new one published by Crossway has colorful and dramatic illustrations by Don Clark, are modern-vintage; they are clear enough to give you an idea of what is going on, but because they are so stylized you don’t think it is actually how everything looked.  
—
This post was written by Leslie Bustard, one of the co-editors of Wild Things and Castles in the Sky.

KIDS BOOKS: Resources

Several recently published books have come into BookEnd (the name my husband gave to our house here in Lancaster) that just need to be shared. These are great resources for adults and teeangers. 

1.     Special Grace: Prayers and Reflections for Families with Special Needs by Elrena Evans. 

Joni Eareckson Tada shares in the forward the words of a mother with three special needs children. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve teetered on the edge, desperate and wholly overwhelmed, barely able to utter a mere “Jesus, help me.’ How wonderful to have a Christ-loving mom articulate much heartfelt, spot-on prayers for nearly every circumstance! I so appreciate her faithfulness, her honesty, and her humor. “ I know how much I have needed the prayers of Every Moment Holy to help me trust God in everyday ups and downs, so I am excited how this book can help families with special needs children pray (and also help me pray alongside my friends). Topics include Family Life, School, Public Life, Changes, Seasons of the Year, and Thanksgivings (and other prayers).  What a gift this book is to the Body of Christ. 

2.     Rembrandt is in the Wind: Learning to Love Art Through the Eyes of Faith by Russ Ramsey. 

Several years ago I heard Russ Ramsey give several talks that linked Scripture and gospel truths with stories of certain artists and their paintings. My heart and mind could not have been happier. I’ve been looking forward to this book. Russ Ramsey writes about nine artists, including such greats as  Michaelangelo, Rembrandt, Vermeer, van Gogh, Tanner, and Lillias Trotter. This book will be great for those who love art or would like to dig deeper into the importance of art and beauty in our lives, and even grow in their appreciation of it.  My husband got to write one of the endorsements in which he praised the book, saying: “Ramsey is a deep lover of art and a student of art history. In this book he takes the reader on an amazing guided tour through an art museum that doesn't exist. In this carefully curated collection of art from around the world, he offers you an experience that only someone who really loves art can. This book inspires the reader to engage art in an eye-opening way and understand how these famous works of art bring glory to God.”

3.     Steeped in Stories: Timeless Children Novels to Refresh our Tired Souls by Mitali Perkins. 

Recently I wrote that Mitali Perkins is the Literature professor I wish I had had. This book is memoir, “classroom instruction” on the ins and outs of each story, as well as discussions on the virtues and vices these stories point us to. At the same time, she, while in love for these stories and their authors, also speaks to those challenging parts that many classics contain. It’s such a very good read. I love how she doesn’t tell us to throw away these classics but to see their value by modeling what it looks to truly be refreshed by these books; but at the same time she helps us think seriously and discerningly about legitimately troublesome parts (usually how “the other” is portrayed). Mitali Perkins discusses Little Women, A Little Princess, The Hobbit, Anne of Green Gables, Heidi, and Chronicles of Narnia. This book would be wonderful for an adult to read so they can have solid and wise tools to interact with young people they know who are reading these books – tools that can help them highlight all the good and work through the hard parts. 

4.     The Scandal of Holiness: Renewing Your Imagination in the Company of Literary Saints by Jessica Hooten Wilson  

Do I need to make a disclaimer that I am on the launch team for this book? Probably not, except to say after I heard the author speak at a conference on renewing the imagination this past September, I knew I would love this book. Getting a jump-start on reading it has been a delight. Jessica Hooten Wilson says “Novels introduce us to ways of imagining God already at work in our hearts, present in the world, transforming and sanctifying his creation all the time.” She discusses eight contemporary classics, such as Kristen Lavransdatter, The Moviegoer, The Book of the Dun Cow, Moses, and Man of the Mountain. In each chapter she narrates and highlights the plot and the main characters, as well as instructs the reader in different aspects of holiness, as each book discusses one aspect of holy living. This book would make a solid read not just for adults who love books and the life of the mind and imagination but also upper-high school book-lovers and readers who desire to think deeply about what they are reading. 

5.     Literarily: How Understanding Bible Genre Transforms Bible Study by Kristie Anyabwile

I am also on the launch team for this book that was just recently released. Kristie Anyabwile is a Bible teacher I have enjoyed listening to. She is a wealth of Scriptural and theological knowledge, a love for the Church, and has a great ability to share truths in a way that is solid and accessible. Her book Literarily will help readers of Scripture dig in deeper (to sound like a cliché) by helping the them understand the importance of the authors use of certain genres, such as law, history, prophecy, and poetry, as well as literary themes and devices used within them.  This book is an important tool in helping adults and teenagers thoughtfully encounter God’s Word.

6.     A Guide to Reading and Thinking Series edited by Karen Swallow Prior

The novels in this series are books I read in high school (Scarlet Letter) or classics I sought out in my adult years (Jane Eyre and Sense and Sensibility), as well as books I have been planning on reading sometime (Frankenstein and Tess of the D’Urbervilles). And while each book truly looks wonderful on my bookshelf (the covers look classy and feel welcoming), I have been glad for how each book in the series enlarges my mind through Karen Swallow Prior’s introduction and guidance through the themes, characters, etc. Since reading her first book Booked: Literature for the Soul of Me and then Fierce Convictions: The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More—Poet, Reformer, Abolitionist, and On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books, I have sought her out to learn how to think more deeply about the classics.  Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy and The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the novels with her reader’s guide, have recently been released. These books and the other ones are perfect reads for high schoolers and adults. 
—
This post was written by Leslie Bustard, one of the co-editors of Wild Things and Castles in the Sky.

KIDS BOOKS: Easter Books for Toddlers

When last year’s leaves have turned to mould in the flower beds and the vines of the clematis are black and brittle, that first glimpse of a golden crocus feels like a promise. Spring is coming! When my daughters were younger they’d wonder at each new spring flower, and I was never sure how well they remembered seeing the same flowers the previous year. Now, they are old enough to know: when we’re out walking, we’ll interrupt each other to cry, “Crocus!” and clap and maybe make fools of ourselves. And then we’ll go back to talking about middle school math, or a book they just finished. We delight in the changing season together, but we both know it happened last year and that it will (most likely) happen again next spring.

But when they were little: ah! Those crocuses were a burst of color where a second before everything had looked brown and sodden. The spring was brand new to them, and they marveled at each crocus (and then, at a certain age, most likely tried to eat it). The Easter story, nestled neatly into spring as it is, was new to them too. And over the years we found that the best Easter books for toddlers told the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection with color, promise, and joy. They gave our daughters something to wonder at, delight in, and remember. These Easter books for young readers became some of our very favorites.

Easter is Coming, by Tama Fortner

This lovely, large-format board book tells the littlest readers the story of Easter from Genesis onward. The illustrations in this one are particularly lovely.

The Garden, the Curtain, and the Cross, by Carl Laferton

This one, too, tells the whole story of Easter, from the garden of Eden to Jesus' return. But it's not as long as you'd think such a telling would be—better yet, it's now available as a board book! And while it’s not technically an Easter book, it does offer a companion Advent-style calendar for the two weeks leading up to Easter.

What is Easter?, by Michelle Medlock Adams

This sweet rhymed board book tells readers not just what happened on Easter but why we celebrate it the way we do. Where does the bunny come in? What's up with the new dresses? What is Easter? answers all those burning questions and more.

Holy Week, by Danielle Hitchen

This board book primer takes readers through the events of Holy Week, supporting each page with Scripture and emphasizing the different emotions Jesus and the disciples may have felt as the week went on. 

A Very Happy Easter, by Tim Thornborough

This one also focuses on emotions as it tells the Easter story (those toddlers and their emotions!), but it tells the story differently, in an interactive and delightful way.

Jesus Rose for Me, by Jared Kennedy

This exuberant telling of the Easter story looks forward, beyond Jesus' death and resurrection to this moment, today, and helps readers understand why Jesus died—and why his resurrection still matters so much to us. This is one of my favorites.
—
This post was written by Théa Rosenburg, one of the co-editors of Wild Things and Castles in the Sky.

KIDS BOOKS: Happy Birthday to Carey!

I checked in with Carey, my oldest daughter and a co-editor of Wild Things and Castles in the Sky: A Guide to Choosing the Best Books for Children, to make certain it was okay to use her birthday, February 16th, as an excuse to post a list of children’s books that I read to her when she was little. She said it was okay… and even reminded me of a few of our favorites. 

The majority of these books are from our very first years of reading books together. These books are also ones that are still sitting on the bottom three shelves of the tallest book shelf in BookEnd, our home in the west end of Lancaster. Although I discovered most of them in our local library, we loved them enough to buy our own copies. 

 Carey was the reason I discovered the goodness of a well-told and well-illustrated story, and how I also discovered my love for sitting on the floor, back against the couch, with a child on my lap (and later, when her sisters came, a child on one side of me, another child on my lap, and maybe another one rolling around on the floor or on top of me . . . and a book in front of us). Big cozy chairs do just fine, too. Snacks help. 

 Making a book about books with Carey has been a delight because, now that she teaches four year olds, she has continued developing her love of books and has also introduced me to many, many new books, authors, and illustrators in which to delight. It’s fun to have our roles reversed.

We spent many years going back and forth to the library, discovering stories written by people of all backgrounds and stories of all kinds… but these are the ones that got me started on my journey to learn more about books and to make reading a part of our family culture. These are the books written or illustrated by people we still remember. In the list below, there maybe be one book named with it’s author, but most likely that author has more books worth checking out. As with the suggestions in our upcoming book (Wild Things and Castles in the Sky—which should come out in early, early spring, 2022—shameless plug!), this list is just an introduction.

Read With Me Bible: An NIV Story Bible for Children 

Tomie de Paola’s Book of Bible Stories by Tomie dePaola

Sing a Song of Popcorn: Every Child’s Book of Poems by Beatrice Schenk de Regniers

Mudpies and Other Recipes: A Cookbook for Dolls by Marjorie Winslow

Children Just Like Me: a Unique Celebration of Children Around the World by Barnabas and Anabel Kindersley

The Going to Bed Book by Sandra Boyton 

Winnie the Pooh and Some Bees (and the others in the classic board book collection )

Giving by Shirley Hughes 

Tom and Pippo Go Shopping by Helen Oxenbury

What the Sun Sees by Nancy Tafuri

Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey 

My First Little House Books: The Deer in the Wood adapted by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Corduroy by Don Freeman 

McDuff Moves In by Rosemary Wells

This Quiet Lady by Charlotte Zolotow

The Lovely Present by Charotte Zolotqw

Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans

Just Only John by Jack Kent 

Island Boy by Barbara Cooney 

Miss Fannie’s Hat by Jan Karon 

Jennie’s Hat by Ezra Jack Keats

Mr. Putter and Tabby Paint the Porch by Cynthia Rylant

Frog and Toad are Friends by Arnold Lobel

Little Bear by Elise Holmelund Minarik
—
This post was written by Leslie Bustard, one of the co-editors of Wild Things and Castles in the Sky, coming Spring 2022.

KIDS BOOKS: Winter Books

The winter months are a struggle for me. It feels like the gray sky cuts to my core and refuses to shine. On top of that, I live in New York City, and the tall, cold skyscrapers create merciless wind tunnels through which I must crawl. Suffice to say, I’ve been dreading the approach of the next few months. But today I was put in my place while reading with my Junior Kindergarten students. We start every day with Thoughts to Make Your Heart Sing by Sally Lloyd-Jones, and as always, her words were exactly what I needed:

Winter

In the winter it looks like the trees have all died. Their leaves wither and drop off. They stand like skeletons against the cold, desolate sky.

But did you know before even a single leaf falls to the ground, next spring’s bud is ready? Next summer’s leaf is furled inside that tiny buddy, waiting.

And Jesus says there is nothing broken that won’t be mended, nothing sick that won’t be healed, nothing dead that won’t live again. Because God is making everything sad come untrue!

We can’t see it now– but remember the fruit tree in winter? It looks dead. But the buds are ready to go. And come spring–blossom and fruit!

I am talking with my students about winter, snow, and animals who live in colder climates during our Enrichment time this week. Instead of me begrudgingly bringing my students along on an adventure, they guided me with their awe for winter wonderlands. They have eyes to see how detailed each snowflake is, they have the excitement you need to enjoy the icy air. You never know what could happen when you’re out walking in the cold! We looked at Renaissance painter Peter Bruegal’s Hunters in the Snow and Impressionist Camille Pissarro’s Chestnut Trees at Louveciennes and each student pointed out reasons why they would like to be tramping through those particular snowy scenes.

I was challenged to see winter in a new light, to see that we need the cold for spring to come. How can we enjoy the warm air and the green buds if we don’t experience the stark opposite? I don’t want my heart to be “always winter, but never Christmas.” I need childlike eyes to see God’s glory shine through this harsh season. And so, with the help of a few of my favorite winter books below, I invite you to get out of this frigid funk and be reminded of God’s healing hand. 

A Big Bed for Little Snow by Grace Lin

The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats

Little Penguins by Cynthia Rylant, Christian Robinson (Illustrator)

Over and Under the Snow by Kate Messner, Christopher Silas Neal (Illustrator)

Frederick by Leo Lionni

Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost, Susan Jeffers (Illustrator)

Katy and the Big Snow by Virginia Lee Burton

Owl Moon by Jane Yolen, John Schoenherr (Illustrator)

Toot and Puddle: Let it Snow by Hollie Hobbie

Brambly Hedge: The Winter Story by Jill Barklem

Look at the Weather by Britta Teckentrup 
—
This post was written by Carey Bustard, one of the co-editors of Wild Things and Castles in the Sky, coming Spring 2022.

KIDS BOOKS: New Year's Reads

Although I have switched my planner from 2021 to 2022, and although the calendar pages look clean and pristine, January 1 still feels more like a continuation of whatever was happening pre-Christmas holiday than an actual new beginning. 

Since I’ve never been very good at keeping up with New Year’s resolutions, I’ve recently been thinking of the first of the year as a way to re-orient where I have gone off track or to strengthen what I have let grow weak. And as I try to reset, I need my imagination to be sparked and my heart encouraged to keep going on the path that’s been set before me.

CS Lewis helps me with this in The Silver Chair. Jill and Eustace have been put on a journey to find a long-lost prince. Puddleglum, a Narnian Marshwiggle, is to accompany them. Aslan, when giving Jill this quest, listed for her the four signs that if followed would bring them success. Along the way, she was to keep reciting the signs so as not to forget them and miss the landmarks. Although she started with good intentions to keep reciting them, she eventually fell prey to several distractions, causing the three travelers to get into some scary situations. As the story continues, Aslan shows up and offers grace, making it possible to continue the journey. I have needed this story to remind me how daily remembering God’s promises and his words are a means of grace in my life. 

Another Chronicles of Narnia tale, The Horse and His Boy, has also been helpful to my imagination.  Not only is it a great adventure story, it’s a long, lovely parable of God’s providence. Throughout the story, Shasta deals with several scary situations and assumes it’s been fierce lions that have been following him on his journey and causing his hardships. In the end we learn what has been following him, as well as explanations him and the reader better understand what actually has been going on. This big reveal still continues to remind me of the providential hand of God; when my days are hard, I can remember Jesus promises to always be with me even when I don’t understand my circumstances and that he is the good shepherd leading me through dark valleys.

The following is a compilation of books to inspire you and the children (of various ages) in your life as you all continue into 2022. May these stories enlarge and strengthen your spirit and mind for the year ahead. This list has been compiled with the help of my editing team and a couple writers of Wild Things and Castles in the Sky: Choosing the Best Books for Children (coming out this March!), as well as several book-loving friends.  

I recommend:

Extra Yarn by Marc Barnett | Illustrations by Jon Klassan

A young girl has a box of magical yarn. Through the book she keeps knitting things for the people in her community; the yarn never runs out. After finishing the book, I kept thinking that this was a wonderful picture of what it means to use one’s gifts for one’s people and how the love of Jesus in us is never ending.  

The Hobbit, or There and Back Again by JRR Tolkien

I love Bilbo. I love how he finds the Took in him to go on an adventure with Gandalf and the dwarves. And I love how over the course of the journey he becomes a hero and a true friend. During the first half of the book, he keeps pining for all the good things of his home. But as he continues the adventure, he finds all the ways he is able to complete the job he is given, making he return home sweet. This is one of my very favorite books to teach middle school students— many interesting things in the story to enjoy and to talk about. 

Carved in Ebony: Lessons From the Black Women Who Shape Us by Jasmine Holmes

Be inspired by ten black women who served God in extraordinary ways. Benefit from the research of Jasmine Holmes on these women and learn how these women, although not remembered in history books, have been important to the growth of the God’s Body, the church. As the website says, “This book is an unapologetic rejoicing in the fact that God chose to make each woman profiled in this book black and female for his glory, and it was good.”

Life in the Big Story: Your Place in God’s Unfolding Story by Heidi Johnson

Heidi deftly and wonderfully works through the book of Deuteronomy and other Scriptures to help us see how we are called to live a life glorifying to God. A wonderful way to biblically inform your imagination, and learn how the Old Testament (Deuteronomy) and the New Testament (John and Ephesians) are connected and inform how we live like we belong to God.

---

Carey Bustard, co-editor of Wild Things and Castles in the Sky and Pre-K teacher at The Geneva School, recommends these picture books:

The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds

Vashti decides she cannot draw. Her art teacher instructs her just to make a mark on the page and sign it. Vashti does. The next time she comes to art class, her signed dot is hanging behind her teacher’s desk in a swirly frame. This inspires Vashti to not only do more dots but to encourage another discouraged friend.

Hana Hashimoto, Sixth Violin by Chieri Uegaki and illustrated by Qin Leng

This is a beautiful tale of a little girl who has a vision of what she wants to do – play her violin for the school’s talent show, even though she’s only had a few lessons. Even though she has her discouragers, she still pursues her goal, surprising even herself by what she is able to produce.

Many Shapes of Clay: A Story of Healing by Kenesha Sneed 

Eisha lives with her mom who makes ceramics. She’s having a hard day, so she and her mom create things out of clay together. And here we see how broken pieces can make up a new whole. 

Lenny & Lucy by Philip Stead and illustrated by Erin Stead

A little boy moves to a new house in the middle of the woods. Because the woods seem scary, he creates a guardian named Lenny made out of pillows and sets it outside of his house for protection. Then he makes another one so Lenny isn’t alone. And it is because of Lenny and Lucy that he makes new friends, and the woods seem less scary. 

---

Thea Rosenburg, co-editor of Wild Things and Castles in the Sky and also owner/curator at Little Book, Big Story website, recommends

Sing a Song of Seasons Edited by Fiona Waters | Illustrated by Frann Preston-Gannon

This lovely, large-format, lavishly illustrated anthology features a nature poem for each day of the year. Whether read aloud or lingered over by independent readers, Sing a Song of Seasons is a treasure full of creative wordplay and lively imagery.

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin 

Fueled by the stories her father tells her, Minli leaves the barren mountain of her family's home and sets out on a quest to change her family's fortunes. Along with its companion books Starry River of the Sky and When the Sea Turned to Silver, this book is richly informed by Chinese folklore and features color illustrations by the author herself.

Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu

Ursu's gorgeous reimagining of "The Snow Queen" is set in the present day, where Hazel's best friend, Jack, disappears into the woods and she must go in after him. Though Breadcrumbs is inspired by an old story, there is something magical and wholly new about it.

The Outlaws of Time Series by N.D. Wilson

Sam Miracle's arms are scarred and damaged; his dreams are so vivid they seem more like memories than dreams. This trilogy begins with a bang and doesn't let up until the end of the last book—and the action only stops there if you manage not to pick the first book up and begin the whole series again. 

---

Missy Andrews, co-director of the Center for Literary Education and author of  My Divine Comedy: A Mother’s Homeschooling Journey, recommends: :

Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare

This Shakespeare story, a good choice for junior high and high schoolers, explores the nature of tyranny, so rooted in the nature of man, with the virtuous and well-meaning Brutus concluding by the play's end that the spirit of Caesar cannot be extinguished because it lives in himself. Would that all of us in the present cultural moment appropriate Brutus' sight of self!

Devotions by Mary Oliver 

A collection Mary Oliver arranged of her own works—her “best of.” These poems demonstrate a remarkable sensitivity to spiritual truths perceived in the created world as well as the poet’s supple artistry with language. The work's opening poem, "I Wake Close To Morning" sets the tone for all that follows. Oliver asks, "Why do people keep asking to see/ God's identity papers/ when the darkness opening into morning/ is more than enough?" 

---

Laura Peterson, a writer for Story Warren and a librarian, recommends:

Everything Sad is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri 

A reminder of the truth is always a good way to start a new year, and this YA novel/memoir is full of this truth: life is full of pain and struggle, and yet there is resilience and beauty and hope. It weaves memories of the author's childhood in Iran and immigration to America with insights about the refugee experience and flashbacks to the lives of family members, creating a non-linear but mesmerizing soup of story and memory. The audiobook is also excellent, and maybe even a better way to experience this story than reading it on the page.

The Losers at the Center of the Galaxy by Mary Winn Heider 

Unresolved grief is one of those things determined to keep you stuck in the past - wondering, regretting, but not moving forward into what's next. The brother and sister in this middle grade novel have been dealing with the grief of a missing father for some time, but they just seem to be stuck. In this case, moving forward is going to take a rare and somewhat ridiculous combination of science experiments, tuba playing, first crushes, and escaping from a live bear. It's goofy and heartfelt and a great picture of what it looks like to take a deep breath and turn the corner into what's next.

---

I asked Matthew Dickerson, a prolific storyteller and essayist and one of the writers for Wild Things and Castle’s in the Sky, which of his books would be a good to read in January. Although he highly recommended the classic Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander, of his books, he said The Road and the Work: The Song of Kristine, Son of Finn.

Set in the mid-7th century in the days when monks (many with Irish and English roots) were bringing the Gospel back down to Europe, and when the Gospel was first being preached to a very pagan Scandinavian culture, this story is about calling and the value of story, song, and art, and also how God works through story.

---

I asked Shawn Smucker, author of a couple books recommended in Wild Things and Castle’s in the Sky, which of his most recent books would he recommend to start the year reading.. would it be The Light from Distant Stars, These Nameless Things or The Weight of Memory?

This story reminds readers to focus on what’s important: the present and the people we love. When Paul receives his terminal diagnosis, his life basically stops. All he cares about is finding a home for his granddaughter back in the town where he grew up. This novel is great for high school and older.

---

Byron Borger of Hearts and Minds Books recommends:

When Stars Are Scattered by Victory Jamieson and Omar Mohamed 

This graphic novel tells the story in the co-author Omar Mohamed. Omar, originally from Somalia, spent much of his young life in Dadaab, a refugee camp in Kenya, where he had the opportunity of going to school. He tells of his life as a refugee, including his journey to the US where he was settled in Arizona, where he got a college degree in international development and became a US citizen. It’s informative, interesting, and inspiring — a great read for age 9 and up.

Leo, Inventor Extraordinaire by Luke Cunningham.

 It isn’t every day a Christian publisher releases an adventure book for a boy that isn’t fantasy with mythical creatures in a middle-earth type scenario. This is not that sort of fantasy. And this now has garnered incredible reviews from the likes of Super Bowl champion and TV personality Michael Strahen, who says “Leo: Inventor Extraordinaire is a book all kids should read, with a hero we all can root for.” 

---

Jaime Hilton, children’s and high school theater teacher and director, recommends two William Shakespeare plays.

Much Ado Amount Nothing is a comedy and a drama. It has an easy to follow narrative. Benedict and Beatrice make some self-discoveries and choose to change their ways.

As You Like It has an accessible story line, too, as well as fabulous wordplays. The subtext is all about true nature vs. what we show to the world, which would make good conversations for the beginning of a new year. 

---

Check out your local bookstore for these titles. Or connect with Hearts and Minds Books at https://www.heartsandmindsbooks.com.

—
This post was written by Leslie Bustard, one of the co-editors of Wild Things and Castles in the Sky, coming in 2022.

Resolutions for the 2022 Reader

What kind of reader are you? Maybe you’re a disciplined reader, who ends each day with a few chapters of a new novel. Maybe you loved reading growing up, but can’t seem to find a book you love or time to read in your everyday life. Maybe, like me, you collect books and reading is a full-time hobby; you have a favorite local bookstore, you’re excited for new releases from favorite authors, and you always have a book or two going at the same time. 

Perhaps you also have a unique relationship to New Year’s Resolutions (which I refused to participate in, for the last four years. As a new teacher, it felt like every day was already full of resolutions: Russian doll lists of lists to accomplish, each day ending with a slew of new ideas, better strategies, and another set of to-do’s.) Whether resolutions are a fun reset to a new season, or guilt-inducing promises for which you know you’ll need a do-over come February, there is something satisfying about setting a goal and pursuing it, day by day. 

When I finally decided to pick a resolution for 2021, I decided it would be around reading and the gratifying discipline of cultivating new rhythms. Reading is the way I learn, my medium for excitement and delight in life, and the way I relax. When I decided to read 52 books in 2021 (finishing about a book a week) the resolution was about practicing something I already knew I loved. The challenge wasn’t learning a new hobby, or mastering a discipline that felt like a chore, but keeping track of the books I read, making time to sit down and read, and keeping pace, as the busy-ness of each new season changed my reading rhythms from month to month. 

Whether you’re planning to read a hundred books this year, or you hope to finish the two titles that have been colorful coasters for the coffee mug on your bedside table since last Christmas, these reading tips and resolution ideas will motivate new and seasoned readers alike. And don’t miss the recommendations listed below! These titles are an excellent addition to your 2022 book lists.

1.  SET A GOAL, NUMBERS OPTIONAL

When we think of book lists, we often think about reading a certain number of books. One book a month, or a solid-sounding 25. This year, switch it up by crafting your reading list with intentional themes or creative significance, with three ideas below.

• Be a Completist
  For 2022, one of my non-numerical goals is to be a “reading completist” for an author or two who I already love. Prolific authors like Madeleine L’engle, Zora Neale Hurston, and Beverly Cleary, have published books across genre and generation, and tracking down every book they’ve written is rewarding treasure hunt. I’m looking forward to feeling like a L’engle, Hurston, or Cleary scholar by the end of 2022. Bonus points for reading in order of publication— what an enriching journey into one writer’s growth!

• Read More __________. 
  Do you love fiction, but want to read more poetry? Do you find yourself mostly reading the classics, and hope to meet some new authors this year? Does your younger reader return to the same series over and over? It’s time to branch out! In 2021, I filled in this blank with “re-reads.” I wanted to revisit the novels and memoirs I spent much of my college years nodding along to, and foisting into the hands of those around me. Did I still love them as much as I did several presidents ago? Which lines would find me with new solace in this new season of life? And perhaps most intimidating: did they still hold up? Whatever you fill in the blank to read more of this year— Writers of Color, philosophers from the 18th century, YA books, or theology, taking inventory of the books you love and those you haven’t met yet could spark a new list for 2022!

• Pick a Number, Any Number
  Pick your age, “22” for 2022, or a number corresponding to an anniversary, to determine how many books you want to read this year. A playful numerical decision-maker could be just the thing to set a big numerical reading goal, or mark a specific life season with your book list this year. With young children or middle grade readers, this could be a fun discussion and activity, if you are preparing for the new year as a family. Picture child-decorated posters, with their number (a random choice, their age or grade) and book list, with space beside each book for their thoughts! Add a one to five star rating or a drawing of their favorite scene, upon completion.

2. START A NO-BOOK BOOK CLUB

Who are your book people? They may be friends in real life, readers you’ve interacted with through social media, or the people in your home. A “no-book book club” meets once a month, at the end of the month. Surrounded by stacks of finished books and to-be-read books, snacks and beverages (perhaps with a theme!) readers talk to the group about what they read that month, and what they are excited about reading in the next month, sharing takeaways and quotes with one another. 

As much as I love reading and discussing books, the traditional book club with one book a month that participants invariably finish or don’t (and I’ve been both parties…) can give readers homework-feelings about an otherwise vacation of a book. Have you ever picked a favorite title for a group with delight and anticipation, and then just looked at it, the bright cover staring back at you from a bag or bookshelf, until the event comes? The spark is gone; the book is suddenly a chore, regardless of its true readability, or the initial excitement of choosing it. No-Book Book Clubs, without one assigned book, allow readers to share their stacks, share the joy of finishing a good book, and even allow readers to share physical copies, without a deadline, celebrating the diversity of different styles of reading.  

Speaking of homework feelings… 

3. START THE NEW YEAR WITH GUILT-LESS READING 
When I shared my big 2021 reading goal, or another book I had finished with friends, I started to notice one consistent response: guilt. Friends, content with their already-full and fruitful lives (without a passionate interest in reading), expressed resentment at their lack of time to read, nervousness about a half-finished book begun a year ago, and instead of discussing characters, plot, or ideas, we would talk at length about how to feel less guilty about not reading— or I would be asked to give an explanation for how in the world I had all that time to read. What was being left out? There’s a time for everything, and every conversation that went this way was beneficial in its own way, but these discussions left me feeling fierce resolve for my friends and fellow readers, full of new questions: how can we take the guilt out of reading? Where did we inherit this idea that instead of feeding our families, catching up with friends on social media, or enjoying a new album on the commute, we should be reading? 

If book-guilt of any variety plagues your would-be reading life, if your current season has changed your once-insatiable reading habits, or if you’ve always wanted to be a reader, but have never understood the hype, here are a few tips:

• Pick a time, and make time
  Whether it’s with morning coffee, or as you relax after a long day, delegating fifteen minutes of reading during an already cozy, enjoyable moment of the day, makes reading feel like the act of leisure it is, and reinforces reading as your time. To incubate and reset before the kids wake up, to take a breather with lunch, or to mark the end of another day. Meals are another great time to include a read-aloud, while forks and knives clink, or as a treat with dessert!

• Have book, can travel
  Keep a novel you’ve always wanted to finish reading, or a deep and thoughtful nonfiction title with you in the passenger seat, for the parent pick-up line, instead of scrolling during an oil change, or in a long line at the grocery store. Every paragraph counts, and the near-counter-cultural move of pulling out a paperback instead of a screen can feel luxurious and like a break in and of itself, especially if your usual days don’t always include a quiet hour to read.

• Trust your boredom (Precious is for moments, not books)

  If you’re bored, it’s not a sign to push through and fake it for another few chapters— even if (especially if) it’s a classic or comes highly recommended from other readers. Reading has become another “good thing you know you should be doing.” And getting lost in a book is too fun, and your time is too valuable to make reading another “should” that shadows a full to frenetic life with additional worry. Don’t make reading a burden it was never meant to be. Don’t let the idea of reading, book choice, or time spent reading, keep you from reading what you love, when you’re able. Why read if it’s another “should?” (If you’re a college student or an English major, my prayers are with you. Make it fun.) 

I read to furnish the living room of my mind. (Motto: It’s your room, and you get to hang whatever art you want.) So, trust your boredom, and switch it up. 

 And while some things are sacred, sometimes “preciousness” around how you read, what you read, and where you read, can discourage motivated readers. Get out a pen for that hardback theology title and add your own thoughts (and question marks). Include a start and end date, and a doodle or two in the front cover of your favorite new novel. For some, this is an aesthetic preference. For me, reading is a sacred practice, but physical books are made to be consumed! My books are wrinkled friends: dog-eared, enjoyed in pools and on picnics, and bursting with marginalia. Reading without rules around perceived preciousness could be just the thing to unlock a sense of fun, delight, and play in your 2022 reading. For instance, when I read nonfiction and the sentences start to swirl, I start from the last chapter, and read from there, or open the book in the middle. 

So, If you’ve heard it’s a great book and you just can’t get into it, sell it, gift it, or bury it. I’ve been reading long enough to know, books find you when you need them, and especially when you want them. To this end, I’m saving most of the Russians, all of Dickens, and (apologies to my brilliant teachers) all but a few Jane Austen novels until I’m at least 60. There are just too many books I can’t wait to read right now. 

A few favorites (chuck if bored):

Picture books (best served with family dinner or Saturday pancakes)

         This Moose Belongs to Me by Oliver Jeffers         

         The O in Hope by Luci Shaw

         God’s Very Good Idea: A True Story about God’s Delightfully Different Family by Trillia Newbell

Middle grade (blanket forts and staying up late encouraged)

         The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street by Karina Yan Glazer

         The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

Spiritual Formation

         Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortlund

         Nailed It: 365 Readings for Angry or Worn-Out People by Anne Kennedy

Theology

         Naming the Animals: An Invitation to Creativity by Stephen Roach

         Lifting the Veil: Imagination and the Kingdom of God by Malcolm Guite

Literary Fiction

         Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

         Home by Marilynne Robinson

Cultural Criticism 

         Pulphead by John Jeremiah Sullivan

Memoir

         Everything Happens for a Reason (and other Lies I’ve Loved) by Kate Bowler

         The Place Trilogy by Margie Haack

Pick up a few from your favorite local shop, or one of our favorites like Hearts and Minds Bookstore and Eighth Day Books. Happy New Year, and happy reading!

—
This post was written by Joy Strawbridge, one of the contributors to Wild Things and Castles in the Sky, coming in 2022.

KIDS BOOKS: Gift Ideas

“Put on that shirt, the yellow one” 
“Thinking,
I was thinking
Of all the pieces of dust that float
And shine
In the sunshine
And I was thinking of lemons and limes, and oranges
And yellow.”

The excerpt above is from The Thinking Book, a picture book I purchased for my daughter, Carey, as a Christmas present. This book published in 1960 and written by Sandol Stoddard Warburg and designed and illustrated by Ivan Chermayeff, records a parent’s directives (in bold) paired with the musings of the child in response. 

After enjoying the yellow double-page spread with it’s bold, colorful illustrations, I quickly turned the page to read what came next. A huge watermelon and pink flowers took up most of the page, accompanied by these words:

“I was thinking of watermelons
I was thinking of pinks
I was thinking”

I could picture a little child matter-of-factly explaining what was running through his mind as his parent asked him to keep getting ready. I could relate to the experience of the parent. But it was what the child was thinking about that made me want to go hug a little person in my life. 

I felt this bubble of delight, contentment, and longing rising up in me as I read the story and this feeling stayed with me all day, reminding me of the magical world of words and sharing them with children. I made a running list in my mind of books that had created that happy, cozy feeling that spilled into my love for the world and then increased it. I called my children’s book-loving friend Joy Strawbridge to talk stories that cause such happiness. I stumbled over my words trying to explain that morning’s experience of reading The Thinking Book—how I loved the ordinary-ness of the setting, the use of words strung together connected to the bold colored pictures, and the increased love I felt for the world in those moments of reading. 

Is there a special word for this? Maybe it is a combination of the Danish word hygge  and the German word sehnscuht. Simply, hygge is about creating a place that increases coziness and contentment, while sehnsucht is about yearning and wistful longing. But there would also need to be another word for the feeling of joy that Marilyn Robinson in Home describes, “Their father said if they could see as God can, in geological time, they would see it leap out of the ground and turn in the sun and spread its arms and bask in the joys of being an oak tree in Iowa.” (italics mine)

Frog and Toad stories by Arnold Lobel have given me this mercurially magical feeling. Recently A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles caused an elusive delight for me from beginning to end. Sentences like this would have been underlined had I been reading my own copy of the book: “Manners are not like bonbons, Nina. You may not choose the ones that suit you best; and you certainly cannot put the half-bitten ones back in the box.”

The following excerpt from Jim the Boy by Tony Earley, which I read more than a decade ago, is still intertwined with yearning and wistfulness for me. 

“When Jim opened his eyes, he saw Uncle Zeno’s face swimming inches from his own. Uncle Al and Uncle Coran knelt on either side of him.
“Hey, hey. Shh,” Uncle Zeno said. “What’s the matter?”
Jim waved an arm out at the world beyond the end of the mountain.
Uncle Zeno frowned and shook his head.
“It’s too big,” Jim said.
“What is?
“Everything.”
“I don’t understand, Doc.”
“I’m just a boy,” he said.
Uncle Zeno rocked back on his heels. He looked at Uncle Coran and Uncle Al, then smiled at Jim.
“We know that,” he said, “But you’re our boy.” 

Hygge-senschuht-joy inspiring books make perfect gifts. These days I find it a little overwhelming to figure out what to buy for people. Children, teenagers, and adults are bombarded with ads and marketing strategies of what to want, making it hard to keep up. I want to give meaningful gifts and to add something good into people’s lives, even if it is easier for me to give money or a gift card. Books are usually my go-to presents . . . given with the hope that the receiver, even the young ones, will find the treasure in the words and stories I am sharing with them.

Here is a list of books that have created that inexplicable feeling of delight welling up, bubbling over into contentment and joy for the world around me. My daughter Carey, who teaches Pre-K and loves picture books more than I do, helped me with this list. May you find gift ideas here for someone you love this Christmas or maybe even something for yourself. Although most of the books are published for children, these books will also delight adults. 

The Thinking Book I bought as a Christmas present for Carey was given to her as a “just because I cannot wait” gift because I had to share it with her . . . I will probably find another book to give her at Christmas. 

Board Books

But Not the Hippopotamus written and illustrated by Sandra Boynton 
But Not the Armadillo written and illustrated by Sandra Boynton
Woodland Dance written and illustrated by Sandra Boynton 
Hello Baby by Mem Fox and illustrations by Steve Jenkins

Picture Books

A Troop of Kangaroos written and illustrated by Lisa Mundorff
Home written and illustrated by Carson Ellis
A Walk in the Forest written and illustrated Maria Dek
Another by Christian Robinson
Goldfish on Vacation by Sally Lloyd Jones and illustrated by Leo Espinosa 
Rain by Sam Usher
Thank you, Omu by Oge Mora
Into the Snow by Yuki Kaneko and Illustrated Masamitsu Saito

Read Alouds

Tales of Trotter Street written and illustrated by Shirley Hughes
The Light Princess by George McDonald and illustrated by Ned Bustard
Winnie the Pooh A. A. Milne
Reluctant Dragon by Kenneth Grahame and illustrated by Earnest Shepherd 

For Teens

My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell
The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle 
Once We Were Strangers by Shawn Smucker 

 I like buying my books from independent stores, such as Hearts and Minds Bookstore, Eighth Day Books, and a new Lancaster local children’s book store, n00k b00ks (found on Instagram). 

—
This post was written by Leslie Bustard, one of the co-editors of Wild Things and Castles in the Sky, coming in 2022.