Read-Aloud Revival ®

Join us for RAR's Summer Adventure. When I mention Shakespeare, a lot of people immediately conjure up visions of high school English class, struggling through Julius Caesar line by line.Which is an absolute shame, because Shakespeare’s plays are meant to be experienced–performed, seen, heard, felt. And experiencing Shakespeare with your kids is truly one of the most joyful things you can do together.Today, I’m returning to my conversation with one of my favorite Shakespeare lovers, Ken Ludwig.Ken is the author of How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare and one of our most celebrated, widely-performed playwrights. His plays are performed every single night of the year, and his enthusiasm for Shakespeare is utterly contagious and in this episode, we not only nerd out about our favorite plays, but share how to make teaching Shakespeare a true delight for you and your children.In this episode, you’ll hear: Easy tips for breaking down passages for young kids to make them fun and memorableWhy Shakespeare is the best way to introduce children to complex, inventive, and beautiful language How Shakespeare’s work informs all of the English literature (and plays and TV and movies!) that followed itLearn more about Sarah Mackenzie:Read-Aloud RevivalWaxwing BooksSubscribe to the NewsletterFind the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/joy-of-shakespeare

Join us for RAR's Summer Adventure. One of the very best ways to travel with your children is through books.Physically travelling as a family isn’t always possible for a variety of reasons, but by reading with our kids, we give them the gift of windows into unfamiliar worlds. Stories develop empathy and invite us to engage with another’s experiences in ways that can even go deeper than visiting a place in real life. Today, RAR’s Creative Director (and my eldest daughter) Audrey is with me to talk about the power of books to take us places, even when we’re not able to go far from home ourselves. In this episode, you’ll hear: How stories help us engage with creativity, community, and our CreatorHow books can give us deeper connections to the places we do travelHow reading–and especially reading aloud!–cultivates curiosity and wonderLearn more about Sarah Mackenzie:Read-Aloud RevivalWaxwing BooksSubscribe to the NewsletterFind the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/books-take-us-places

Join us for RAR's Summer Adventure. Hey hey, it's Sarah Mackenzie!I am here with a bonus episode. I host another podcast — it's called Circle with Sarah— and it's a short, weekly podcast that helps all of us become the peace-filled, joyful mamas we're called to be. It goes up at RAR Premium every Monday during the school year. Recently, I recorded an episode for that podcast called "God is Not Disappointed in You." And not only did it really resonate with RAR Premium members, but we got several requests from members to please post this on the Read-Aloud Revival podcast so they could share it with their friends even if their friends weren't inside RAR Premium. Here's the episode:In our recent Circle with Sarah Retreat, you were all invited to submit questions about maintaining peace in your homeschool, because of course that was our theme, and so many of you did!It has been just a complete joy to read through those and consider them. Almost 120 questions came in actually, and we were only able to touch on a few during the retreat, and then we touched on a few more in our last Circle with Sarah Live.But as I was reading through your questions and just prayerfully considering how to answer them, one thing jumped out at me over and over again. I mentioned it, actually, at the very end of the September Circle with Sarah Live. It's this pervasive fear that so many of us have that really feeds into our anxiety about our homeschools and our kids and our parenting and our worry that we're not doing a good enough job with any of it. And the underlying belief that is a problem here is that we believe that God is disappointed in us as homeschooling moms, that we're failing Him, and He's disappointed.And I think this fear is probably exaggerated somewhat for us if we had a father or really any authority figure over us at any point in our lives who did express chronic disappointment in us. I think then it's very easy to translate that into feeling like God must also be feeling disappointed in us. That seems like the easiest thing to believe, like the truest thing.But listen to me, God is not disappointed in you. He is not surprised by anything you are facing in your life, your motherhood, your homeschool, your marriage, any of it. He's not surprised by any of it. On your absolute worst days, He's not surprised by how you acted or reacted. He already knows the worst and hardest and most challenging things that you are facing right now, and He loves you and He's calling you to this work anyway.He actually never asks us to be good enough. And He never asks us to get this just right. And I think it's worth remembering that He didn't actually think you would do a better job than you're doing. He's all knowing. He's sovereign. He didn't think you'd do a better job than you're doing at anything, in any part of your life. And He's not disappointed in you. I wonder if you can sit with that for just a second, like really sit with it? I want to read from Psalm 103:"The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love."Later in that same psalm we read, "For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust."So He knows who we are. He knows our capabilities, He knows our limits, He knows our frame, and He remembers that we are dust. And yet He is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love.I wonder if you can say that out loud to yourself. God is not disappointed in me. Try it.How did that feel? Did it feel true? Did your voice wobble? Did you feel choked up? Did you feel like, I don't know if that's true? Listen, this is what you can say to yourself and know it is true. God is not disappointed in me. He is not disappointed in my kids. He is not disappointed in my homeschool. He is not disappointed in how I cook or how badly I cook. He is not disappointed in how clean I keep the house or how much laundry I got done this week, or whether I even touched it at all. Whether I ever follow through on teaching my kids chores or following up on that character issue or taking care of the parenting issues that are screaming at us in the face. He is not disappointed in how often I read aloud or how much homeschool we got done, or how many activities my kids are in, or whether my kids are still in their pajamas at 4:00 PM. None of this is a disappointment or a surprise to Him. He loves me. He loves you. And He promises us peace that transcends all understanding.That's a big one so I'm just going to leave us here today. We're going to come back to it again next week. But I wonder if at different points during your week, you can remind yourself, God is not disappointed in me. Write it on a post-it. Put it in a few different places. Put it wherever you brush your teeth. Put it where you wash your dishes, put it in the car when you're getting in the car to take your kids to activities or run an errand. Put it by your coffee pot in the morning. God is not disappointed in me. Write it down. See if you can maybe start to believe that this week and we'll circle back to it next week. You have everything you need to teach with peace that transcends with all understanding. You were made for this life. I'm praying for you.--- If you want a podcast episode like this to start each week on the right foot, you probably want RAR Premium—that's where you get access to the CWS podcast. Find out more at rarpremium.com or circlewithsarah.com.

Join us for RAR's Summer Adventure. Many of you will already know that I am a huge fan of The Chronicles of Narnia. Today, I want to introduce my fellow Narnia lovers to a new book that jumped right off the shelf as soon as I saw it. Giant is a middle-grade novel by debut author Judith McQuoid where we meet Davy, a fictional working class boy from East Belfast, Ireland who is sent to work in the wealthy Lewis household in 1908. There, he forges a friendship with Jacks–as C.S. Lewis was known to his friends and family–over books, stories, and building worlds of imagination and adventure.Giant is a must-read for Narnia fans that adds a whole new depth of experience to C.S. Lewis’s world and will help you read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in a fresh way. And today, I’m chatting with the author about what inspired her to write the book, how much of the story is fictionalized, and how the process of writing the book shaped her identity. And you’re going to love her Irish accent! In this episode, you’ll hear: The way her dad’s love of Narnia and Lewis’s Belfast heritage inspired Judith to write this story How Judith started with a “skeleton” draft and added layers of detail and depth with revisionsThe faith that carried Judith through the ups and downs of creating GiantLearn more about Sarah Mackenzie:Read-Aloud RevivalWaxwing BooksSubscribe to the NewsletterFind the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/judith-mcquoid

Join us for RAR's Summer Adventure. Peace. It sounds lovely, right? It’s what so many of us want more than anything else in our homeschools. We long for peace, even if it often feels unattainable.But what does peace actually look like in the midst of a real, chaotic homeschool day?Last month in Circle with Sarah–my mentoring program for homeschool moms inside RAR Premium–we had a retreat. And our theme? Maintaining Peace in Your Homeschool.Over four sessions, we walked through practical tips for letting go of guilt and holding onto peace when your day doesn’t go as planned–which we all know is basically every hour of every day, right? Today, I’m sharing the first session of the retreat, called “What Do We Mean by Peace?”I hope you find encouragement for maintaining peace within the everyday rhythms of homeschooling and that you get a better picture of the peace that’s available to you right here, right now, regardless of the circumstances you find yourself in.And if you want to check out the rest of the retreat, all of the sessions are available now as part of RAR Premium (Join us right here!).In this episode, you’ll hear: The real definition of peace (hint: it’s not always calm and quiet!) Our primary responsibility as moms and homeschoolersHow our fears cause us to lose hold of peaceLearn more about Sarah Mackenzie:Read-Aloud RevivalWaxwing BooksSubscribe to the NewsletterFind the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/peace

Join us for RAR's Summer Adventure. Today, I have a very special treat for you! This spring, our publishing imprint here at RAR, Waxwing Books, celebrated the release of Painting Wonder: How Pauline Baynes Illustrated the Worlds of C. S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien at one of my favorite bookstores, Fabled Bookshop in Waco, Texas.I had so much fun talking to Painting Wonder’s incredibly talented author and illustrator, Katie Wray Schon, about this picture book biography of the fascinating woman behind the iconic illustrations in the works of C. S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. We knew this conversation would be too good to keep to ourselves, so we recorded it, and now we’re sharing it with you!In this episode, you’ll hear: Why Katie wanted to write and illustrate a picture book about Pauline Baynes Katie’s process for writing, illustrating, and revising a page-turning book What Katie would go back and tell her younger self, plus her favorite resources for aspiring authors and illustratorsLearn more about Sarah Mackenzie:Read-Aloud RevivalWaxwing BooksSubscribe to the NewsletterFind the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/painting-wonder-launch

Join us for RAR's Summer Adventure. Summer break . . . It’s often not much of a break, right?Even if you find yourself with a little less on your plate, anxiety and second-guessing have a way of filling the gaps where we want rest and relaxation to fill.To find peace that lasts throughout the school year, we can’t just “take a break.” We need to break free from the stories and fears that keep us mired in anxiety.When homeschooling moms ask me for advice, they rarely need advice. What they’re really asking for is reassurance, a chance to take a breath and let go of anxiety or fear, so they can trust themselves and trust that the Holy Spirit will guide them.Today the RAR team selected some of our favorite pieces of wisdom on the theme of rest and reassurance from the RAR Premium private podcast, Circle with Sarah. Think of this episode as a little vacation for your homeschooling heart. In this episode, you’ll hear: How acting like we know we're loved helps us let go of anxietyWhat we’re actually responsible for when it comes to raising our kids How you know when you’re doing enough in your homeschool Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:Read-Aloud RevivalWaxwing BooksSubscribe to the NewsletterFind the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/vacation-for-your-heart

Join us for RAR's Summer Adventure. If you’ve been around the Read-Aloud Revival for a minute, you might know that C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters is one of my all-time favorite books. It’s the book I have read and re-read the most, and it’s also the source of some of my favorite read-aloud memories with my young adult son.Today’s guest has written a book in a similar style with the modern woman in mind, and in this episode we talk about how the enemy is working the hearts and minds of women today. Emily Wilson Hussem is the author of Sincerely Stoneheart: Unmask the Enemy’s Lies, Find the Truth That Sets You Free, as well as a speaker and YouTuber who shares her faith around the world. It was a delight to have her on the show. In this episode, you’ll hear: How Emily adapted C. S. Lewis’s format to get to the heart of the most common struggles in women’s livesWhy embracing friendship, connection, and community is key to thriving as women and mothersThe ways distraction, comparison, and dissatisfaction all pull us away from living in the truth of our identities as beloved daughters of God Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:Read-Aloud RevivalWaxwing BooksSubscribe to the NewsletterFind the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/emily-wilson