Those who visit the Andrews’ family library may find themselves somewhat disappointed. Few first-edition, signed copies of the great works of the Western canon grace our shelves. Though our bookshelves burgeon with classics, our books bespeak a different kind of collection. Many were gathered painstakingly by treasure hunting at used bookstores, thrift stores, and garage sales. Some were gifts from friends and family. Others were acquired through liquidation sales at public libraries. Tattered and torn, the Andrews Library houses books our family has discovered, shared, read, and re-read through the changing years and seasons of our lives…
In Colossians 3:23-24, the Apostle Paul alludes to the fruitfulness of patiently abiding in the finished work of Jesus. He puts it like this: “Whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.” When I was engaged in my homeschooling efforts, I thought I had that wholeheartedness part down. I pushed and strove and worked diligently. But whether I did this “as to the Lord and not to please men,” well, that varied from day to day, from moment to moment...
It’s back-to-school time and emotions are running high. I can almost hear the air crackling with energy. Some of us are excited at the thought of another year of books and bouquets of sharpened pencils. Crisp fall days, sharp minds, early mornings, and familiar routines beckon and promise order, productivity, and progress. Others of us will admit to being a bit anxious, filled with a nagging fear that this year might look just like last year – a failure, that is...
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…
National Book Award finalist Eugene Yelchin offers a poignant satirical portrait of his childhood in his 2021 autobiography, The Genius Under the Table: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain. With humor and sensitivity, he describes his experiences growing up in Cold War Russia. The youngest of his family, Yevgeny (Yelchin) learns early the need to distinguish himself. He wishes he had a gift like his brother, Victor, a talented figure skater, but alas, his anxious mother fears Yevgeny has no talent…
I’m sure I’m not alone when I say this past year of homeschooling was pretty mediocre. Even for long-time homeschoolers like our family, this pandemic has brought about some challenges, and pulled more than a few weaknesses into the light! In fact, one of the only subjects that I can confidently say we’ve tackled with any measure of success is literature study. And, for my 8yo this year, lit study meant reading Anne of Green Gables…
When five-year-old Khosrou’s Shiite Muslim mother converts to Christianity, his life changes forever. Soon he finds himself hurried onto a plane, leaving behind his father and the familiar landscape of Iran to live as a refugee in the United States. Rural Oklahoma’s flat and dusty landscape isn’t the only thing unfamiliar to him; his very self seems strange in his transplanted condition. Everything is new: new home, new father, new school, new language. He even has a new, American name: Daniel. Who is he now?…
Welp, they’ve started canceling Dr. Seuss, and on his birthday, no less. And to think it could happen to Mulberry Street! March 2, Dr. Seuss’s birthday, is National Read Across America Day (#DrSeussDay across social media). It’s an annual event by the National Education Association (NEA) encouraging reading among school-aged children. Yet this is the moment that the NEA, along with the White House, has chosen to break from tradition…
It’s a wild world we live in. Consumption runs rampant, our politics resemble a rumpus, and we are cordoned off from community. Max, the wild child from Maurice Sendak’s iconic Where the Wild Things Are, knows a thing or two about such predicaments. From the confines of his bedroom, Max travels to the wildest world of all, embarking on a mysterious, monster-filled journey which culminates in a reminder of hope and our heavenly haven…
Escape the winter blues this January by joining CenterForLit writing tutor and instructor Dr. Augusta Hardy for a 6-week study of one of the most beloved novelists in the English language. This intensive course will explore Austen’s signature ironic wit and her abiding interest in her characters’ moral growth, beginning with selected juvenilia and her early novella Lady Susan, and concluding with an in-depth discussion of her novel Sense and Sensibility.
Disney claims The Snow Queen as inspiration for their Frozen movies. Spoiler alert: aside from a few frozen hearts melted by self-sacrificial love, the similarities cease. In fairytale form, The Snow Queen elucidates the true nature of innocence, the pitfalls of our fallenness, and the path into eternity. Hans Christian Andersen’s story leads us, with his characters Gerda and Kay, to die to the “sensibility” of the world and to discover the true essence of life…
Every redemptive story has a redeemer. This should go without saying — should. So often, worthwhile stories are interpreted in the shallows where they seem to satisfy modern affinities for personal affirmation. Their worthy depths wait, unsounded. Enter, The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Grey Bridge. This classic 1940’s tale by Hildegard H. Smith and Lynd Ward tells the story of a self-important little lighthouse who becomes despondent when an enormous suspension bridge is built by his side. It’s face-value message is that everyone has a pivotal role to play, no matter how small they might seem. Yet, this story contains an often-overlooked redeemer…
Once upon a time, there was a princess who was so beautiful that even the sun, who saw everything, was bemused by her beauty every time he shone down upon her. On hot days, she liked to go sit near a cool well on the edge of a dark wood by the castle, take out her favorite plaything—a golden ball—and pass time by throwing it in the air and catching it again. One day, the golden ball dropped and fell into the well instead of into the girl’s hands. The well was deep, deeper than the princess could fathom, and her golden ball was lost forever. She began to cry and cry (which is also a legitimate way to pass time)…
I find absurdity hilarious. It’s dark–my husband could use your prayers–but is there anything funnier than an existential paradox? Consider an example I have been pondering recently: Shakespeare. We hold him in such awe. We teach his work throughout the curriculum, hoping to instill some small fraction of his eloquence and wisdom in our students. We study his kings to inform our political philosophy. We study his comedies to understand love. We study his tragedies to shape our moral bearings. We study his humor…
From the moment we are old enough to be self-aware, we are on a quest to discover who we are. This search for identity is complicated by the many, disparate voices around us, but what they all have in common is a fundamental presupposition that identity is created – that we, as human beings, make ourselves…
As I sat rubbing sleep from my eyes this morning, wondering what new coronavirus mandates might come to disrupt our routines today, I found myself on social media. The comments and videos that most affected me were those from you moms who recently discovered that you were homeschooling by government mandate. You look tired, bewildered, and overwhelmed. You look like beginning swimmers who have been thrown in the deep end of the swimming pool – with your infants, toddlers, and teens. My heart goes out to you…
In Holy Sonnet III, Donne find himself in a state of violent and prolonged grief, yet unable to cry. He marks the tortuous effects of this condition, even as he admits responsibility for it. Speaking of tears as if they spring from a limited cask, he creates an image of his irresponsible and wasteful usage, which has left him with a water shortage when he most has need of the relief such “showers of rain” would afford him…
The use of language in any context rests on a single and essential tenet: words mean. And not only that, they mean something particularly. When anyone writes or speaks, they trust utterly, even if unconsciously, that they can, to someone who speaks their language, be understood.
Donne begins this meditative sonnet by giving himself up to God, an act which, he maintains, feels appropriate in consideration of the various titles he possesses and their diverse implications. “As due by many titles I resign / Myself to thee, O God…” He catalogues these appellations..
Greetings, CenterForLit folks. I have missed you! As many of you know, and the rest of you should’ve jolly-well gathered by now, I recently took a year-long hiatus from CenterForLit to pursue another teaching opportunity. I am home in Northeastern Washington now, and feeling blessed to be back among fine friends like you. (I include you all in that warm rejoinder. Except, of course, those of you who never noticed I was missing…)
In An Experiment in Criticism, C. S. Lewis suggests that every work of literature is both Logos (something said) and Poiema (something made). What he means is that each work not only communicates an idea, but does so via form and technique; it is a creation of the hands, not just of the mind. “As Logos,” Lewis writes, “it tells a story…As Poeima, by its aural beauties and also by the balance and contrast and the unified multiplicity of its successive parts, it is an objet d'art, a thing shaped so as to give great satisfaction” (Lewis 132). This suggestion leads me to wonder whether Logos and Poiema can exist independently in stories, or if you can have one without the other…
Do you ever feel guilty at Thanksgiving because you’re not thankful enough? Do you ever evaluate your degree of thankfulness and find yourself wanting? Does it sometimes seem like thankfulness is a duty, just one more thing that is expected of you that you are failing to perform adequately?
“Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?” questions Donne in this, his first Holy Sonnet. Using a poetic form that lends itself to question and answer, the poet poses the problem of personal sin even as he petitions his Creator for a solution. Will You allow Your own work to be compromised and destroyed? he asks. This provocative question recalls scriptures which proclaim the enduring nature of God’s work…
Here’s a rule that cannot possibly be overstated: language proficiency is the single most important component of an education, period. If your students do not learn to use the right words, they will become prisoners of the wrong ones. This applies to any subject, to any activity, and to any relationship. Give your students the tools of language, and their education is complete. Fail in this, and it can never really begin…
There’s a passage in the Gospel of Luke to which I have historically applied some bad reading habits. It’s the scene where Jesus compares his listeners to children calling out to one another in the street, saying “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not weep.” (7:32) To be honest, I usually just keep on reading right past this verse and move on to more accessible material…
When I sat down last week to teach my first class of the year, I will admit I was feeling less than enthusiastic. As you may have heard elsewhere, this was a big summer for the CenterForLit crew. I spent long days bent over my laptop in a hidey hole, fiddling with fonts and website design for our new CenterForLit Schools project. By the time I exited my dark den, eyes blinking in the harsh light, August had rolled to a close and it was time to take up the teacher’s mantle again…
For as long as I can remember, books have been my companions. I carried them to grocery stores, to doctors’ offices, to school, and to work. I toted tomes to movie theaters, to beaches, to park benches, and to parties. I never go anywhere without them. As a young girl, I remember reading while walking with my mother through the aisles of the local grocery store, my mom telling me to put the book away before I ran into someone…
Australian author Mem Fox illustrates the effects of the little “l” law in the parent and child relationship in a children’s book entitled Harriet, You’ll Drive Me Wild. With short sentences illustrated by Marla Frazee in pencil and transparent ink, Fox tells the story of young Harriet…
Those who visit the Andrews’ family library may find themselves somewhat disappointed. Few first-edition, signed copies of the great works of the Western canon grace our shelves. Though our bookshelves burgeon with classics, our books bespeak a different kind of collection. Many were gathered painstakingly by treasure hunting at used bookstores, thrift stores, and garage sales. Some were gifts from friends and family. Others were acquired through liquidation sales at public libraries. Tattered and torn, the Andrews Library houses books our family has discovered, shared, read, and re-read through the changing years and seasons of our lives…