Podcast: Read-Aloud Revival

At the start of a new year, we are overwhelmed with the phrase “New Year, new you!” And of course, we want to be better wives, better mothers, and better people.  This desire to improve ourselves filters into our reading lives, too. It’s easy to justify a lot of our reading if it helps us…

Gather your aspiring writers and littlest book lovers for this episode.  I am so excited to welcome back author Millie Florence to talk about the beautiful book we created together, Beyond Mulberry Glen. Millie and I are chatting about the making of the book from inspiration to final draft with a series of fun questions…

What do happy homeschoolers have in common? Over the years, I’ve spoken with thousands of homeschoolers from all over the world. When I asked experienced moms what they do to cultivate peace and joy in their homeschool lives, I discovered there are five habits happy homeschool mamas often share. The good news is that YOU…

What if I told you there’s an Icelandic Christmas tradition where the whole point is to spend an evening sitting around, sipping hot cocoa, and reading books? Sign me up, right? Today, we’re talking about Jolabokaflod, which loosely translates to “Yule Book Flood,” how it started, and how you can bring the magic of this…

“Marley was dead, to begin with.” That is one of the most famous first lines in English literature. It comes from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, which is perhaps the greatest Christmas ghost story ever told. What is it that speaks to so many of us about this story of Scrooge and his ghosts?…

As homeschooling moms, we often focus more on what we’re not doing than what we are doing. We fret about the lessons we should be teaching or the projects we should be creating. But here’s what we want you to remember (and what we try to remind ourselves): what you’re already doing is powerful. It’s…

How do you know a good book when you see it? I remember walking into the big, beautiful children’s section at the library with my oldest, who was a baby. I wanted to find books to read aloud to her, but it was hard to know which ones we would love.  That longing to find…

A library should be a kind of paradise, don’t you agree? Author and illustrator Barbara Cooney certainly thought so.  Barbara Cooney was an extraordinary author and illustrator of over 100 children’s books with stories that span the world, from the shores of Greece to the mountains of Appalachia. The more I learned about Barbara, the…

Raising creative kids is a beautiful, worthwhile endeavor, but not one that is always neat and tidy!  In today’s episode, I’ve invited two of my good friends and fellow creatives—authors S. D. Smith and Carolyn Leiloglou—for a conversation on how our creative work as adults impacts our kids. We discuss everything from the challenges of…

What if I told you that your homeschool could be relaxed, bookish, and ordinary? If you’re anything like me, that’s music to your ears.  Our kids thrive–and we do too–when our day-to-day homeschool is relaxed, bookish, and ordinary. In fact, that’s what over 726 experienced homeschool moms told me were the three most important qualities. …