At school, my class of 5-7 year olds, my colleague and I are learning about the power of the present progressive tense, thanks to Mini Grey’s wonderful Traction Man books. While many stories are told in the past tense, these quirky comic-book style adventures are relayed as happening here and now, like a running commentary:…

My brother has the art of being coolly and casually profound. With one word from a letter of his, I have been sustained and heartened for weeks. The traditional greeting for a birthday is, of course, Happy Birthday. But this year, as my birthday approached I began to wonder, what on earth is happy anyway? Happy seems…

It began back in January: this nagging fascination with the magic of giving. It was when I was reading Ann Voskamp’s gold-mine of a book, The Broken Way. As I read of how Ann and her family traipsed around their town putting dollars in dollar stores for her birthday, I was at once curious and hopeful. I…