Gretchen Louise 3 Minute Read When I was in second grade, my mom would never have guessed that I’d grow up to be a writer. I cried more tears over my second grade A Beka Language Arts book than any other schoolbook except Saxon Math. Drawing lines and putting parts of sentences above, below, and beside was supposed to help…
Gretchen Louise 5 Minute Read Each autumn at YLCF, we take a peek into each other’s lives. This year we want to know what your passion is. But we don’t just want to know the ins and outs of your favorite hobby—but the purpose for which you know God gave it to you.
Gretchen Louise 4 Minute Read When I was a little girl, I was afraid of the dark. I always had to have a night light in my bedroom. My young siblings are the same way, calling out every night, “Leave the hall light on and my door open!” Last fall I began reading Stormie Omartian’s book Just Enough Light for the Step I’m On, and I realized that I’m still afraid of the dark—but in a different way. I’m afraid when I can’t see ahead in my life…
Gretchen Louise 3 Minute Read Two potty accidents, a spilled bowl of oatmeal, no morning naps, and I’m finally stepping into the shower at 11 a.m. I take a deep breath and tell myself, “This is the new one.”
It’s just one of the memorable anecdotal reminders for moms in Rachel Jankovic’s new book Loving the Little Years: Motherhood in the Trenches… She’s a young mom of young kids. She doesn’t pretend to have it all figured out. She doesn’t tell you how to parent. Instead, she challenges other moms as she challenges herself: adjust your attitude, change your perspective.
Gretchen Louise 2 Minute Read People tell me my children are good. But those are the people sitting in front of us at church. I know how many times they have gotten up or acted up.
But I don’t want to be raising my children to look good. I want to raise them to want to be good.
I know how little good it will do in the long run if they are “sitting down on the outside but standing up on the inside.”
Gretchen Louise 4 Minute Read I read a lot of books about relationships in my late teens and early twenties. Enough to know that they aren’t all helpful and encouraging. And they most definitely are not all must-reads. When I got married, there were the few books I didn’t pack — the ones I kept handy for reference as I…
Gretchen Louise 3 Minute Read When I opened Randy Alcorn’s latest book, The Chasm: A Journey to the Edge of Life, I had some idea of what I’d find. The Chasm, I knew, would be the gulf that separates us from God — and the bridge over it, the Cross.
But The Chasm is a lot more than just a little book expounding on that apt illustration. It is a modern-day version of Pilgrim’s Progress in the style of Lewis, Tolkien, and Peretti…
Gretchen Louise 4 Minute Read I have a special section for them on my bookshelves: books about books. As if I don’t have enough books already, I have books full of more book titles to find!
There’s Books Children Love: A Guide to the Best Children’s Literature by Elizabeth Wilson. And of course, Jim Trelease’s ever-popular The Read-Aloud Handbook, along with Terry Glaspey’s Book Lover’s Guide to Great Reading: A Guided Tour of Classic & Contemporary Literature…
Gretchen Louise 2 Minute Read I was at another meeting of homeschool moms. Tonight, the discussion topic was a book that only half of us had read.
I hadn’t read it. And I’ll admit, I was slightly prejudiced against the book and the authors.
But listening to one mom, I thought it sounded like a fabulous book on parenting.
Hearing another, though, I was afraid it might be filled with too many rules and not enough grace.
I laughed as I concluded that you could easily think you were hearing reviews of ten very different books when in a room full of ten homeschool moms who were talking about only one book…
Gretchen Louise 2 Minute Read Maybe it’s dog-eared and underlined and well-read. Maybe it’s a beautiful antique volume you found in the back corner of a used bookstore. Maybe it’s special not so much for what it is but for who gave it to you. Maybe seeing its cover brings back memories of a special bookshopping trip. Maybe it’s the inscription on the fly leaf that makes it incredibly dear to you.
Whatever it is, it’s your favorite copy of a favorite book. And even if you found a brand new, pristine hardback of the same edition, you wouldn’t ever get rid of this beloved volume.
Gretchen Louise 2 Minute Read Some people read dictionaries for the fun of it; I read book catalogs. I’d spend hours absorbing the brief peeks into the stories, my vivid imagination fed by those few lines under each book cover. Even the black and white catalogs devoid of pictures kept me drooling over the titles!
Writing book reviews for school was such a boring, technical process — guided by rules, not to mention an outline. But then I began publishing a newsletter, and couldn’t contain my enthusiasm for reading to just a column or two: I decided to put together my own favorite book list. The tri-fold brochure had rave reviews that read like the pages out of book catalogs.
When I started to receive copies of books specifically for review purposes, it seemed only fair to put the book in its best light…
Gretchen Louise 3 Minute Read It’s here! Our second annual March of Books.
Last year, we decided that since March is the time to “read the books you’ve always meant to”, we’d dedicate the entire month to sharing our mutual love of books — on our own blogs and here on ylcf.org.
This year, we have a whole slate of reviews, some fun posts on books and reading, more giveaways than ever — and some fun new link carnivals as well!
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