Contest Winners and More
$20 Bookshelf Challenge Winner Today is the big day for one Redeemed Reader: the announcement of our $20 Bookshelf Challenge winner. Thank you to everyone who gave it a try, especially Alane who was the first runner-up. (Alane, I’ll email you with my idea for a consolation prize…) First place goes to Cathy for her…
Read MoreRR Podcast 2: Tim Challies on Choosing Kids’ Books
Last week I had the honor of interviewing Tim Challies–author, publisher, and blogger extraordinaire–on the subject of kids’ books. Much of what he had to say will come as no surprise to the hundreds of thousands of people who have read his body of work, such as his review of The Shack or his other…
Read More$20 Bookshelf Challenge: Best Books for Beginners
Everybody seems to be pinching pennies these days. I am admittedly pretty miserly when it comes to buying books. As much as I value reading, I also like having money to buy food, clothes, and a roof overhead. So, what is it that you really, really need to start your kids’ library? In order…
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Author Interview: Simonetta Carr on Heroes of the Faith
Emily interviews Simonetta Carr, author of Christian Biographies for Young Readers. In today’s author interview, I talk with Simonetta Carr, author of several picture book biographies for kids on church fathers including John Calvin, John Owen, and Augustine of Hippo in her Christian Biographies for Young Readers series. Her newest book on Athanasius will be…
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‘A Story, A Story’: Thinking Through African Mythology
The Anansi stories have been handed down through generations of Ashanti culture…Born in Ghana I left at aged 3, leaving much of the Ghanaian culture behind. At aged 30 I can still remember a song about Anansi the spider, the only remnants left of my native tongue. I was given the Anansi book as a…
Read MoreRR Podcast: Kevin Twit on The Jesus Storybook Bible
It may be my freshman attempt at an interview, but Kevin Twit is no novice when it comes to focusing his listeners’ attention away from themselves and onto Christ. In his ministry at RUF of Belmont University as well as the music he helps create at Indelible Grace, Kevin has been preaching Solas Christus for…
Read MoreThe Digital Age
We’re in it; deal. Thanks to Kindle, iPhone, iPad, Android, and their promised descendents, digital publishing will eat its way like PacMan (remember PacMan?) into all areas of the book business, including children’s. This does not mean that the days of curling up on a cozy sofa with a beloved hardcover picture book are numbered–all…
Read MoreDystopia, Part Three
Part One. Part Two. What’s the problem with a glut of grim, futurist fiction on the YA bookshelves? Maybe nothing. Youth is resilient, and most young people are smart enough to know that fiction is fiction. If their reading is balanced, and they get out in the fresh air often enough, no harm done. Too…
Read MoreDystopia, Part Two
(Find Part One here) Besides being uniformly grim, there are other traits the current crop of dystopian novels share: A post-apocalyptic future–the story opens after an event of universal destruction so huge that humanity has to re-organize itself along new principles, usually some variation of survival of the fittest. A young hero trapped in circumstances…
Read MoreThe Whole Counsel of God: Complementing Your Story Bible
The claim that a story Bible isn’t actually a Bible may seem a bit shocking at first. I mean, it’s got the word “Bible” right there in the name, doesn’t it? But now that I’ve had a few years to teach my kids with one, I’ve come to realize that most story Bibles contain very…
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