All Will Be Well: Learning to Trust God’s Love
By Lacy Finn Borgo, illustrated by Rebecca Evans
Reviewed by Sonya VanderVeen Feddema
Julian asks Mima to tell her again about the person she was named after, Julian of Norwich. The young girl, sad about her grandmother’s illness, is comforted by the story she’s heard so many times before about the selfless woman who relentlessly cared for sick people during a plague.
The next day, when Julian tells her grandmother she doesn’t want her to die, Mima assures her granddaughter that she will be with God when she dies, and she repeats a version of Julian of Norwich’s oft-quoted words: “Because God loves you and God loves me, all will be well, all will be well, everything will be well.”
Author Lacy Finn Borgo’s compassionate narrative and illustrator Rebecca Evans’ endearing pictures capture a sense of hope, love, and encouragement in sad circumstances. (IVP Kids)
Colin and Samir (YouTube)
Reviewed by Sam Gutierrez
With over 2 billion monthly users, YouTube has become a cultural force that cannot be ignored. What started in 2005 as an online place where anyone (the “You” in YouTube) could post a video, the online search engine has grown into a platform on which some are building brands, careers, and in some cases entire companies.
If all of this makes you feel like you’re lost in a strange and disorienting jungle of technology and jargon, then fear not—you have help in the form of faithful guides named Colin and Samir.
Using a video-podcast format, they interview YouTube’s most successful creators and have seen their own subscriber count steadily increase. Recently, Colin and Samir posted a video of the exact moment their channel reached 1 million subscribers.
The Daily Poem (Podcast)
By Goldberry Studios
Reviewed by Kayleigh Van Wyk
The Daily Poem offers one essential poem each weekday morning, from Shakespeare and John Donne to Robert Frost and Langston Hughes.
The poems are read aloud by David Kern and other contributors with some light commentary to provide some context for the poet and the poem’s form and language.. It’s an easily accessible way to engage with poetry.
One thing that’s easy to appreciate about this podcast is the way Kern reads the poems. His ability to alter his pace and tone—speaking whimsically for some of Lewis Caroll’s works or almost whispering for Emily Dickinson’s “I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died”—is engaging and refreshing. (Acast)
Rembrandt Is in the Wind
by Russ Ramsey
Reviewed by Sara Kyoungah White
Russ Ramsey is not an art historian or scholar. He’s a pastor who has loved art for many decades, and his recent book shows a writer’s ear for a compelling story, an enthusiast’s sweeping eye for history, and a pastor’s heart that conveys and inspires love not only for art but for humanity.
Rembrandt Is in the Wind is for Christians who want to better appreciate art. It opens windows into the historical contexts, fascinating life stories, and theological underpinnings of some of the world’s most well-known artists and their works, from Michelangelo and Johannes Vermeer to Vincent van Gogh and Henry O. Tanner.
In learning about the world’s great masterpieces, we are handed a key to rekindle our own loving imaginations for the very real people in our midst. (Zondervan)
The Lowdown
An Indigenous Vision for Wholeness: In an era in which “resistance” has become tokenized, popular Indigenous author Kaitlin Curtice (Native) reclaims it as a basic human calling in Living Resistance. (Brazos Press, March 7)
Based on a True Story: Starring Sally Hawkins and Steve Coogan, The Lost King is inspired by the true story of finding British monarch King Richard III’s remains under a Leicester parking garage. (IFC Films, in theaters March 24)
Season 3 Finally Drops: After a nearly two-year wait, The Mandalorian: Season 3, will release on March 1. (Disney+)
Hello, Beautiful: From Ann Napolitano, the bestselling author of Dear Edward, comes a poignant and engrossing family story. An homage to Little Women’s Laurie, this book tells the story of a lonely young man who gets swept up in a loving family with four daughters. Will tragedy unravel their bonds?
