The Last Snake, Summer-Birds, and Poetry Bibles.

For the Littles:

The Last Snake in Ireland: A Story About Saint Patrick by Sheila MacGill-Callahan
I read this book approximately 100 times when we borrowed it for a week or so from the library. We’ve been learning about St. Patrick, and this is one of the more fanciful legends associated with him. The kids just adored this book—I think the fairy-tale mythology of it and the little twist at the end kept them wanting me to read and reread and reread it.

The Girl Who Drew Butterflies: How Maria Merian’s Art Changed Science
One of my daughters wants to be a nature scientist, so this book is absolutely essential for her. It is the true story of Maria, who studied and recorded the habits of “summer birds” (butterflies / moths). I loved that this book gives many of her original illustrations of creatures, and scientific explanations with actual photographs. We worked in science, history, and art when discussing this book. I thought it was particularly inspiring for my little nature scientist to see that Maria began this work as a child, and it remained her passion for her entire life.

Michelangelo For Kids: His Life and Ideas, with 21 Activities by Simonetta Carr
Everything Carr does is gold, first of all. This book is an excellent study on the life and works of Michelangelo; there are activities to apply concepts sprinkled throughout (like sculpting ice, painting on a “ceiling”, etc.). It is a longer book, so we actually did this as a readaloud over several weeks to take it bit by bit. I love that we incorporated art and history this way, and I’d like to read more of this series.

For Family Readaloud:

The Adventures of Sir Lancelot the Great by Gerald Morris
Highly recommend this for your emerging readers; very short and entertaining. It kind of reminds me of the dialogue in Princess Bride or Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail - very British and dry. Conveniently skips the Guinevere / Lancelot love story, and makes it all pretty innocent. There’s a series of these books, but my second oldest told me that the other ones “are boring.”

Harry Kitten and Tucker Mouse by George Seldon
This book is a real stinker. It’s the prequel to the magical Cricket in Times Square, but kind of meanders, loses the plot, gets boring. I’m not sure what was going on with this book; perhaps the author rushed it. However, we have a cute vintage copy with big illustrations, and the book is short, so every so often I read it to the kids when they twist my arm. Even the illustrations aren’t very good, and it’s Garth Williams! I don’t understand what went wrong here.

For Myself:
Louise Gluck: Poems 1962-2012
Bryan and I jokingly call this my “Louise Gluck Bible” because this is a hefty sucker. I’m writing a lecture on Gluck’s life and work right now for a reading / lecture I’m giving in March (if you live near Rome, GA, come by and check it out!). This volume includes all but her last two books (Faithful and Virtuous Night, and Winter Recipes from the Collective), but those books are no good and completely skippable anyway (I love you Louise, but what happened?!). It is instructive as a writer to read through a large collected works like this—to see how a writer’s voice develops over time, what risks she takes, how her tone and style shifts. I’ve enjoyed immensely looking at each book and how they differ. Plus you can get this book for under $15, a steal for how much poetry is in it! If you aren’t familiar with Gluck, I would recommend starting with The Wild Iris, one of her best and most accessible collections. Her style is sparse, dry, and witty, often biting with sarcasm. Here’s one of my favorite poems of hers, in persona (I hope!)(Persona is when a poet speaks as if they are another character), a poem which I believe showcases how she can twist at the end to come back and bite you:

Purple Bathing Suit
by Louise Glück

I like watching you garden
with your back to me in your purple bathing suit:
your back is my favorite part of you,
the part furthest away from your mouth.

You might give some thought to that mouth.
Also to the way you weed, breaking
the grass off at ground level
when you should pull it by the roots.

How many times do I have to tell you
how the grass spreads, your little
pile notwithstanding, in a dark mass which
by smoothing over the surface you have finally
fully obscured. Watching you

stare into space in the tidy
rows of the vegetable garden, ostensibly
working hard while actually
doing the worst job possible, I think

you are a small irritating purple thing
and I would like to see you walk off the face of the earth
because you are all that's wrong with my life
and I need you and I claim you.


Even If He Doesn’t: What We Believe About God When Life Doesn’t Make Sense by Kristen LaValley
Yes, I read a theology book by an Instagrammer. I’m not ashamed.

I would say read this with a grain of salt — her theology is for the most part pretty solid, but I don’t agree with her thoughts on not needing to be part of a church body (though I understand why she got there, after her family was burnt by a church). I think it could have been better had she waited to write this book—a bit more perspective and spiritual maturity—couldn’t that be said about any sort of personal memoir-ish book?

However, I do like to read this personal story style theology books sometimes. It helps to see how other relatable Christians have delt with suffering and trials yet stood firm in the faith. Her tone is easy to read but does share some hard truths that I could relate to, having gone through several miscarriages and the loss of a child myself. My favorite quote was:

“When we’re obsessed with finding the purpose for everything, we’re seeking comfort in the purpose rather than the comfort of Christ.”

Kristen LaValley

When Kit died, so many people wanted to find a purpose in it—even sometimes pointing to “and you wouldn’t have Barnabas!” — but I always felt like it was trying to put a band-aid on things, a silver-lining, or really trying to tie up the story with a nice happy ending. The truth is that there is no happy ending to losing a baby, not on this side of heaven, and sometimes suffering just IS. Suffering is part of being alive. Rain falls on the evil and the good, and we don’t have to know why, we just have to know God is good, independent of our circumstances.

Writing Updates:
Georgia friends, I’m giving a lecture and reading at Shorter University (Rome, GA) in late March! Message me if you’d like details. Free to attend.