Tag: audio (page 1 of 1)

Read-Aloud Revival (Podcast)

I recently discovered Read-Aloud Revival (through Aslan’s Library, of course) and after listening to an episode or two was smitten. “I’ve found my people!” I told Mitch over dinner. He then pointed out that he was my people, as were the three little people around the table. Fair point.

So I found my other people, the bookish ones, the ones to whom phrases like “build your family culture around books” serve as rallying cries and who read poetry at lunch and read books about reading books. I found those people. And I love them.

What is Read-Aloud Revival? It’s a podcast about reading aloud to your kids. But wait—I can hear your skepticism brewing. How can someone devote a single hour-long episode to talking about reading aloud, let alone several episodes? What could there possibly be to talk about?

Read Aloud Revival: A podcast worth listening to! | Little Book, Big Story

Oh, my friend. There is so much to talk about. How do you choose books for your family? How do you discuss books with your kids? How do you read to toddlers or nuture your child’s imagination or read poetry to your kids? How do you introduce them to Shakespeare? How do you read aloud well, for that matter? Do you do voices or accents?

And what about the parents who don’t enjoy reading aloud but still want to nurture that part of their child that is fed by good books?

Read Aloud Revival: A podcast worth listening to! | Little Book, Big Story

If any of those questions hit that soft spot in your heart that brings you back to this blog more than once, then I think you’ll love Sarah MacKenzie’s podcast. Sarah MacKenzie is the charming host of Read-Aloud Revival, the one who has such engaging conversations with her guests that I find myself, at the end of each episode, wanting the conversation to go on for just a little bit longer.

Some podcasts are great for listening to while I cook dinner, when the kids are up and running amok, but not this one: this is the treat that I save for myself, the one that I listen to on the front porch during nap time, sketchbook open, paintbrush in hand. (My logic: if my hands are busy while I listen I’m less likely to impulsively purchase every other book mentioned on the program.)


Read-Aloud Revival (podcast)
Sarah MacKenzie

Songs For Saplings: Questions With Answers

This is not a review of a book. It is, instead, a review of some music written about a book—the book—and it is music that I think you and the little ones in your immediate vicinity would enjoy, so I am including it here, for your sake, for mine, and for the sake of those little ones.

Questions With Answers is a series of six albums by Dana Dirksen, who takes the Westminster Shorter Catechism and puts it to music. That means that while you run errands or cook dinner or take lengthy road trips, you and your children can memorize not only the catechism itself but various verses that relate to it (but will you ever be able to answer the catechism without singing? I don’t know. We certainly can’t).

Questions With Answers, by Dana Dirksen: music and theology for families | Little Book, Big Story

That is the good and wholesome answer to the question “Why should you listen to Questions with Answers?” But if you’d like an honest answer to why we have folded these into our family’s daily life and culture, here it is: they’re just really, really fun. You might be tempted to think—as I was—that six albums of any one musician could get old over time, but Dana Dirksen is a creative songwriter, and she pulls in just about every genre of music as she writes (just about: I haven’t heard hip hop in there yet, but then, we only have Volumes 1-4). And it doesn’t sound like she explores different genres because she’s trying to keep us listening: it just sounds like she’s having a great time. That joy produces the best music, I think.

These CDs have traveled with us halfway across the country and back. They have gone with us on the first day of kindergarten, down the Washington coast, over the Cascades, and across town. My daughter’s school used them as memorization tools last year; we have gifted them to missionary friends on the hunt for great preschool materials. We received them as a gift and love to give them to others.

That is the long answer to the question, “Why should you listen to Questions with Answers?” If you’re still on the fence, here is a short playlist of some of our favorite songs in the series:

And if you go to their website, Songs for Saplings, you can download all six albums for free! How compelling is that?


Questions With Answers, Volumes 16
Dana Dirksen, Songs for Saplings