I’m thinking about you homeschool moms this week and remembering my own years in the trenches with my kiddos. So, I dug out some old journals from my 25 years of homeschooling to remember what filled my thoughts and heart in those Septembers past…

When young Carter Jones opens his door at 7:15 one morning, he never expects to find an English butler. Enter Mr. Bowles-Fitzpatrick, a gentleman’s gentleman from England whose master, Carter’s grandfather, willed him to the family upon his death. When Carter’s mother, stating the obvious, suggests a dearth of gentlemen upon the premises, the butler merely eyes Carter, retorting, “Perhaps not yet…”

I was recently troubled by a conversation that occurred in a book club meeting I attend. We’d read The Five Wounds, a contemporary novel by Kirstin Valdez Quade about a dysfunctional, multi-generational Hispanic family. A participant expressed doubt about his ability to read Quade’s novel with proper understanding and "sensitivity," because he doesn’t share the author’s heritage or gender…