Mary Jo Tate In honor of St. Nicholas Day, my boys and I are about to snuggle by the fire and read one of our favorite Christmas books: The Baker’s Dozen: A St. Nicholas Tale A fair but tight-fisted baker learns an important lesson about generosity. This new edition includes a recipe and pattern for St. Nicholas cookies. … Read more
Are you overwhelmed by juggling everything on your endless to-do list? Is it tough to balance your family life and work responsibilities? Throw in a home business and/or homeschooling, and the challenges grow even more! If you’re frustrated, exhausted, and overwhelmed, you may benefit from my 7-hour home study course, How Do You Do It … Read more
I teach a weekly literature class for grades 9-12 as part of our homeschool co-op. Here’s this week’s assignment, which I developed 4 years ago in response to a student’s complaint: “Why do we have to read this stuff? Why can’t we just read whatever we want?” The answers were fascinating. Eager to hear what … Read more
“Real Men Read Austen.” That’s the title of chapter 1 of Peter Leithart’s excellent book, Miniatures & Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen. Leithart says if he could have dinner with a dozen of the greatest British and American writers, he’d want the seat next to Jane Austen because she would be the most … Read more
Just read a fascinating article by Brian Brown at Humane Pursuits. Here’s the gist of his answer: “I think we like Jane Austen because we like stories with men in them. Do not misunderstand me. We don’t watch a Jane Austen movie because Indiana Jones and Jason Bourne aren’t men. But we face—and have been … Read more
Great titles are really important to the success of a book (or movie). A while back there was something called “Lesser Titles” on Twitter. Here are a few of my contributions: The Sun Also Peeps through the Clouds in the Rain The Cerulean Letter The Taming of the Meerkat Sleepless in Schenectady Lost: Pair o’ … Read more
One of my favorite authors, Eudora Welty, was born 102 years ago today. It’s hard to believe it’s been almost 10 years since I attended her funeral, which I wrote about for the Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook. I was privileged to meet Miss Welty at a writing conference in the late 1980s. In this … Read more
Back when sports fans were filling out their college basketball brackets, I wrote on Facebook that these were the only brackets that interested me: [ ] ( ) { } < > I was wrong. Even better than punctuation brackets is a book bracket. Now this is a competition I can really get into! Voting … Read more
The three-year wait for the final volume of Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle is nearly over. Random House announced that the fourth book, Inheritance, will be published on November 8, 2011. Books already published in the cycle include Eragon, Eldest, and Brisingr. Paolini was a 15-year-old homeschooler when he wrote the first draft of Eragon. He … Read more
Michael Flaherty, co-founder and president of Walden Media, says they are considering filming The Magician’s Nephew next. Read the story here. If they continued following publication order, The Silver Chair would have been next. However, their argument that the popularity of each Narnia movie corresponds to the popularity of the related book makes sense. I’ve … Read more