 I have a bucket of broken things.
It isn’t full, there is still a lot of life yet, but the bucket is heavy anyway. I stare at it. Push it away with my foot and glare at it. Of course it doesn’t budge. It’s mine. Full of all the broken things my life has collected: broken dreams, broken hearts, broken hopes, broken starts. I stare at it a little longer, knowing its weight without even picking it up. Then I lean over, wrap my fists around the metal handle and drag it to Jesus. I’m tired of carrying this bucket alone.
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 When you are on the hunt for great children’s fiction, with authentic faith lessons, it can be seriously challenging. Books are either weak on story line, wishy-washy in their faith content, or clogged up with preachy, didactic sermons. But when you find a book that gets this balance right, when the faith lessons are integral to character development and the story itself is also fabulous, you know you’ve got a winner.
That’s how I felt when I read Becca Wierwille’s Road Trip Rescue.  This is a post for writers. It is about our attempts to build an author platform and the challenge to stay small. Or at least, that's what I thought it was going to be about when I first started...
Attempt #7: I've written this post six times already, and each time I've sighed, deleted and stared again at the blank page. It would be easy to blame it on writer's block. But I don't think that's it. It's more like a stubborn inability to get into words what has been buzzing around in my brain. If you've been following my journey this year, you'll know it has involved a lot of slowing down. Just before the middle of the year, I took a break from social media and the impact of that decision continues to reverberate through my writing life. It's as if I've been having a staring competition with my author platform and my platform isn't winning...  Do you recognise the plant in my hand? It's the iconic New Zealand silver fern. The top side of the leaves are green, but the underside are this white/silver colour that reflect the light when they fall to the ground!
I was in New Zealand recently to attend the Australasian Children's Literature Association of Research (ACLAR) conference. The conference was held at Waikato University and included presenters from all around the globe, including Norway, Poland, the USA, Samoa and more. It was very exciting (and somewhat daunting) to be rubbing shoulders with a conference full of experienced children's literature scholars! Especially as I had been invited to present a paper from my PhD research!  As the northern hemisphere is wading through autumn leaves, and celebrating Thanksgiving, it seems appropriate to review this beautiful picture book! Written by Joshua Cooley and illustrated by Hannah Green, I can’t believe my eyes! is a lovely story about a boy and his dad, discussing what it means to believe in an invisible God.
The story starts off with Dad raking leaves. The wind is blowing and his son asks an important question, ‘Is God real? Some kids at school say God isn’t real because we can’t see Him.’ Rather than launching straight into a theological exposition, Dad decides to take his son kite flying. |
The Penny DropsIn high school I used to write what I'd call 'thinks' - little bits of writing about whatever topic or issue I was mulling over at the time. I still write these little pieces. Categories
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