I sat down to read a stack of Black History titles on a day my heart was weary and sad. I don’t often not feel like reading, but that day, even reading felt gray and blah. In store for me …
Elsa Beskow giveaway winners!
Short and sweet today! Congratulations to our giveaway winners: 1st prize — mjnowlin 2nd prize — Gail Johnson Please email me at jillswanson61@gmail.com with your mailing address and I’ll get these goodies off to you pronto! If you’ve just found …
Elsa Beskow reads and read-alikes
It has been a tremendous pleasure for me to research Elsa Beskow and re-read her stories in order to share this week’s posts with you. I know many of you grew up loving these books or raised your children on Elsa’s …
coffee, conversation, & elf hats
I’m sitting in my friend Julie’s cheery kitchen. It’s a couple of days after a snowstorm dumped 10 inches of snow on the Twin Cities, so the sun reflecting off of all that white floods the room with clear light. …
gingerbread kindness — Elsa Beskow part 2
Welcome back to a week of celebrating Elsa Beskow, an early Swedish children’s author and illustrator whose imaginative, kind-hearted stories still enchant us more than one hundred years after their publication. Yesterday we looked at Beskow’s childhood delight in fairy …
elves among the birches + a giveaway!
A mossy forest floor sprigged with wild strawberries like tiny garnets leads to a cavity beneath an old pine’s sprawling roots. Jolly red caps with white polka-dots cluster here, looking for all the world like mushrooms. But look again! They’re …
let them eat cake!…a confection collection
Have you any idea that today — January 27th — is International Chocolate Cake Day?!? It’s one of a thousand new sort-of-pretend holidays but one that we shall feel magnanimous towards, I’ll bet 🙂 If this one has sneaked up …
batches of board books
Anyone else overwhelmed by the sheer number of board books that have sprouted up in the past ten years or so? They’re a happy lot, but such an enormous one! Board books, for me, fit the bill for a fairly …
super sisters and brilliant brothers
I know, I know. Sibling rivalry is a thing. Adjusting to a new sibling has its crying, reverting, meltdown moments. My experience though, as a mom of four, close-in-age, children is that the much-prevailing sentiment is one of acceptance, loving …
a 9-month guide for expectant siblings
9 months, written by Courtney Adamo and Esther van de Paal, illustrated by Lizzy Stewart published in 2017 by Frances Lincoln Children’s Books If you’re looking for a charming, lovely, helpful way to help young children understand just what it …
