This is article is in our modern Missionaries, Mystics, and Martyrs series. You can find all of our Christian biography articles here. “Of my free will, dear Jesus, I shall follow You wherever You shall go, in search of souls, at any cost to myself, and out of pure love of you.” – Mother Teresa…
Author: Sara Masarik
Curators of things Good, True, and Beautiful
Listening to Readers
I am not an expert. I am not even trained for early childhood education. I make no claims of expertise. I am just a mom who is a voracious reader and who will do anything reasonable under the sun to make sure that her kids have the right relationship with reading. A reading relationship built…
Reading Book Shelf Templates
I am a Bullet Journal failure. I am OCD enough to be utterly discouraged by my complete lack of artistic talent. My handwriting is terrible and I can’t draw to save my life. I do love the pretty BuJos that everyone is doing today and was particularly inspired by the bookshelf concept. I love having…
Missionaries, Mystics & Martyrs
Millions of people know who Brother Andrew is, I think. I, however, had never heard of him before last year. I came across his name when I read Corrie Ten Boom’s story in The Hiding Place. In the opening of The Hiding Place, the Sherills explain that they had discovered Corrie Ten Boom while doing…
As You Wish
I’m not your typical 80s kid. I was raised in a mostly t.v. free home. I had no idea what the “Wonder Years” t.v. show was until I got to college and everybody was watching it on rerun. I had no idea who Billy Crystal was or why I should care. And I certainly had…
CS Lewis’s Ransom (Space) Trilogy
To our shock and dismay we often see this series recommended to young readers – the 10 to 12-year-old boy niche in particular – and we could not more emphatically disagree. Our purpose with this review is to highlight some specific content issues in each of the three books so that parents can discern when to share this story with their children.
Little Britches #3: The Home Ranch
This article is going to be shorter than the others in the Little Britches series because this book is pretty unique for the series. Near the end of Man of the Family, we learned that Ralph spent his last summer in Colorado working for Mr. Batchlet. That summer proved to be a very important season in…
Seabiscuit, Family Friendly
“Separately they were nothing more than a failing jockey and a broken down horse. Together they would become the hard luck heroes for a troubled nation.” – Seabiscuit PBS Documentary In 1938, America was hurting. Not only was the nation poor, scared, hungry, and gearing up for war, but it was also broken. The Great…
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Several years ago my children were just beginning to enter the age where they could appreciate classic Disney live-action films, and I was thrilled to have an excuse to revisit some of my old favorites. I grew up loving Haley Mills, Tommy Kirk, Annette Funicello, and all of their Mickey Mouse Club peers. Top of…
Little Britches #2: Man of the Family
When Little Britches: Father and I Were Ranchers closes, we are left with an overwhelming sense of grief. It is near to impossible not to love Charles Moody and the ethic that he instilled in his family. Understandably, Ralph chooses to focus his first memoir on the father who was so crucial to his moral…
Reading Plan: Sara’s Approach
I grew up loving the Ben Hur film with Charlton Heston. Thanks to Anne Shirley, I discovered that it was based on a book by Lew Wallace and now I love the book even more than the movie. There is a key moment in the story of Ben Hur when Judah’s character is evaluating a…
The Red Falcons of Tremoine
The Red Falcons of Tremoine by Hendry Peart opens in the middle of a complex story. It took this reader more than a few pages to feel at home in the text, partly because it felt as though I had walked into the middle of a conversation, and because I was met with a lot…
Why I Sabbath
When I was a student at Hillsdale College, one of my dearest friends was the daughter of a professor on campus. My friend’s family is Jewish and I was regularly invited to their home on Friday evenings to participate in their Sabbath dinner. Those Friday evenings were a time of profound beauty for me. Leading…
Good Old Archibald
When Bethlehem Books was having their big summer sale, I combed through their catalog for books that would captivate my reluctant boy reader. My nine-year-old son is a much better reader than he gives himself credit for, but he is easily intimidated by long or text-heavy books. I knew that Bethlehem Books would have some books…
Little Men
In May of 1868, Louisa May Alcott started her most famous novel, Little Women. It was a story that she was loathe to write and would ultimately call “moral pap for the young”. Her editors demanded it of her so she obliged, begrudgingly. Despite her reservations, readers love it. I don’t believe that Little Women…