Snow is drifting down outside. A warm fire is burning in our woodstove. Christmas music is streaming through our speakers. It’s the time of year when I want to spend all my time curled up under a fuzzy blanket, with a mug of hot tea in one hand and a Christmas book in the other….
When I got married, my aunt Margie gave me an aloe vera and four cactus starts–two Thanksgiving cactus, a Christmas cactus, and a traditional prickly cactus. The Thanksgiving cactuses were cuttings from a plant that belonged to Mrs. Maysel Lyon, my dad’s and my aunt’s beloved first grade teacher. (We heard many stories about this…
When I’m not writing or reading, I’m pondering a plot line, developing a character, dreaming up a new idea, or wondering what happens next in the book I’m reading. With an allegory, I know what happens next. I know that the Greatest Author of All Time will write the character’s story, redeem their brokenness, and let in the…
Someday we should open a bookstore… We’ve said it to each other for years, from our first dates (siblings in tow!) at The Book Bin, to our honeymoon when we found every used bookstore in each town we visited (and came home with a stack of children’s books). We repeat it when we leave the…
I may have spent the better part of my childhood pretending I was Queen Lucy, but the Chronicles of Narnia and George MacDonald’s Scottish tales were as close as I got to Medieval fiction. Until our pastor’s wife offered me a copy of her book, Sirocco Wind from the East. And as I delved into…
Herbert and Alma were married on September 26, 1929. Just over one month later, the stock market crashed. By the time the effects of the Great Depression were felt in Ohio, Herbert was out of work and he and his new bride had to move in with his parents, Marion and May. They hadn’t fared…
An unopened letter. A childhood friend. A bootlegger “cousin.” It’s 1922 in the town of Emmett, Washington. Fluffy biscuits fresh from the oven to feed to paying boarders. The love of a precocious 4-year-old girl and the friendship of a maiden sister. The white three-story boarding house should be a domestic delight to 24-year-old Grace…
The Printed Letter Bookshop–a bookshop, not a bookstore, mind you–is where Aunt Maddie invested everything, including the money from Uncle Pete’s life insurance. And while it may not have shown great monetary profits, the close-knit community of friends she’d made is priceless.
“Tell me honestly, do you really believe one word of all that?” The skeptic’s question to the curate was a staggering blow to someone whose occupation presupposes faith in God—rather like assuming a child brought up in a Christian home will automatically become a child of God. The story of Thomas Wingfold, Curate (republished in the…
I was Lucy the Valiant, Queen of Narnia. In one hand I grasped my shield–a metal garbage can lid–and in the other I held a wooden sword. Together with my brother, Peter, High King of Narnia, we vanquished the White Witch and brought spring to Narnia once again. The books I read as a child…
Dear Reader, Larkin is one of my favorite games, stories, and dreams. Alan W. Harris’ The Tales of Larkin are adventurous, exciting, and comical. All four books are perfect for the whole family to read aloud. Hawthorn, a young Larkin, is off on his first hunt when he is ambushed by the Renegades. He is…
“A children’s story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children’s story. The good ones last.” -C.S. Lewis If a good children’s story is one that can be enjoyed by all ages, then Love, Mary Elisabeth is a good children’s story indeed. In Love, Mary Elisabeth, Christy Martenson has given us a winsome…
The End.
The End.
