Teach Them to Learn

In the middle of a phone conversation with my oldest son the other day, he said, “Oh, Mom, I’ve been wanting to remember to tell you something. I want to thank you for teaching us how to learn.” What? Huh? I’m choking up already. “Young people these days (he’s 33 and already complaining about the…

Eagle of the Ninth

Eagle of the Ninth (first of the Roman Britain Trilogy) Rosemary Sutcliff, 1954 When Marcus Flavius Aquila was ten years old, he and his mother had been preparing to join his father in Britain when word came that his father’s Legion, the Ninth Hispana, had marched north of Hadrian’s Wall to put down a rebellion….

A Walk in Wolf Wood

A Walk in Wolf Wood by Mary Stewart I noticed this book in the window of our local used bookstore one day as I was walking past. I must admit, I didn’t walk past, I walked in. Mary Stewart was well-known a couple of decades ago for her Gothic-type romances and, perhaps more so, for…

Wingfeather Saga #2: North! Or Be Eaten!

-SPOILER FREE- When CS Lewis wrote Narnia, he wasn’t really writing fantasy – he was playing with “dressed rabbits” – a style of anthropomorphizing pastoral animals and mythic creatures (like centaurs) so as to give the story a magical setting. Basically, however, the creatures all followed rules that were fairly basic to regular humans and…

Dinotopia Books & Movies

“‘You are in your middle years, Mr. Denison,’ she observed gently, ‘so your eyes are the test of all things. When one is very young or very old, one sees more with the heart then with the eyes.’ When I asked to sketch her portrait, she would always say, ‘Perhaps later. Come back when you…

James Gurney Art Videos

I cannot teach art. I cannot do art. I can barely appreciate art.  I was raised in a family that traveled extensively, visited museums regularly and had a wide variety of excellent art on the walls of our home. I absolutely understand the importance of art as a medium to express the true, the good…

Great Courses Company: How To Draw

This course, How To Draw, broke my  heart. A phenomenal instructor with excellent technique and compelling style, he truly helped my children (aged 4, 6 and 8 at time of viewing) to understand a considerable amount of drawing technique and appreciation for materials and tools. My kids are not particularly artistic and so their “art”…

The Great Courses are… Great!

Updated March 2022: The Great Courses Company is now also called Wonderium. Over 25 years ago, Tom Rollins, a Harvard Law student was unprepared for an exam. He found a videotape series that would help him acquire the material efficiently. When he began to watch the video lecture series, he was surprised, impressed and inspired….

Loving Evening Read Aloud

  When I was eight years old, my parents took our young family to Europe including my six year old sister and four year old brother. It was 1984 and the dollar was worth almost one British Pound. It was too good an opportunity to pass up. My mom packed three canvas army duffle bags…

The Black Star of Kingston

I am going to venture to guess that G.K. Chesterton would have liked this book. Not because it is the most sophisticated book. Not because it is the most elegantly written book. Not even that it is the best book of S.D. Smith’s Green Ember books. I think that Chesterton and his wife Frances would have loved…

Radical Hospitality

I am Catholic. I explain that to give context. Last summer on retreat, I  watched “Entertaining Angels” (the Dorothy Day story), and was deeply moved by the hospitality Day extended to the poor, lost and homeless in New York. At the time of my retreat, my husband and I were going through a life-changing transition. We were passionately…