Whole 04: Bonus! How Stories Shape Your Children + Laura's New Book Transcript
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Emily Jensen: Over the years, Laura, I know you and I have talked a lot about the difference between didactic teaching—which is, I think, a word I first heard from you—which is just kind of spelling out what you want the learner to know—and teaching kids or others in a way that's more what some people would call show-don't-tell. It's more implicit and interpretive, and it gives someone an example or a story or a picture and then it leaves them to ponder and glean the message. What I think is cool is that, in Scripture, we see God teach us in both types of ways.
There are some areas of Scripture that are super clear, where he spells it out and there's really no other way to look at it. It's kind of “Here's step one, step two; here's my commands.” Then there are also lots and lots of ways and stories where Jesus teaches us, or God teaches us, through a passage in a way that is more show-don't-tell. It is a little bit more something that you need the Spirit to help you understand and interpret, whether that's in narrative or poetry or wise sayings or parables. And this is definitely something that originated with God.
What I love is—and we're going to dive into this today more—is that when you set out to write A World Wonder, I know that this was on your heart—to not only create a resource that taught kids something in a way that was not super “You should do this, and you should be like this, and this is what will make you happy”—but it tells them a story, and then it allows them to leave with an impression. We're going to be diving into that today, but before we get started, would you tell us briefly about A World Wonder and why you wrote it?
Laura Wifler: You bet, yes. I love talking about A World Wonder. This book really originated as a little bit of a biography of my own life. Cora is the main character, and she is a lot like me. She has big dreams, big aspirations, and in the story, Cora grows up to become this world-famous architect. Yet while she was a little girl, she kept talking about how she's going to make the world bigger and better. And there's this house at the top of the hill that Cora really loves, and she thinks of all the incredible things she'll do with it, but as she grows up, she becomes this architect. As an architect, she designs things that people say over and over again, “Oh, that's a world wonder. That's incredible.”
These buildings are huge blessings for people. Yet Cora doesn't ever feel totally satisfied. She moves back home to where that house was that she saw at the top of the hill. This is her hometown. She realizes the house is for sale and so she ends up buying the house because it's like, "Whoa, this is my dream. This is everything I've ever wanted." Yet she doesn't know what to do with it because it's her biggest dream. She feels a little paralyzed. She ends up just fixing up the house. As she is staying in her home, she starts to meet the people of the town. Slowly over time, they really teach Cora what a true world wonder is—what the real meaning and where we get satisfaction in life is.
That's not through our achievements or going bigger and better but about building community, giving generously of our time and our talents, and loving others along the way. Yes, this book was really somewhat of the things that I have had to learn. I also just thought, kids—I love raising big-dreaming kids. I love that. I think all parents are like, "I want a child that dreams big and believes the sky is the limit and has a vivid imagination." Yet, I kept thinking, “Well, how do we teach children to also be content in the midst of that?”
There's a danger with dreams where we suddenly are not content in the life God has given us, or we recognize that, actually, the limit is a little bit lower than the sky and that we're going to hit it. I think teaching children at a really young age where the true value and meaning and satisfaction in life comes from can allow them to continue to dream big and have a great imagination but at the same time understand what is really going to ultimately make them happy in life.
Emily: That's so good. I think, to loop back around to what I was mentioning at the beginning, it's so interesting that you chose to go this route—this storytelling route. I'm just curious—what's your why for telling this in a story? I know that you wrote a beautiful prayer book that tons of people have probably already purchased and loved. That one is also written in a way that kids can really engage in, but it is a little bit more straightforward in terms of teaching about prayer. What do you feel are the pros of sharing a life lesson or an aspect of contentment through storytelling versus just spelling it out for kids? Like, to write a story that's something like, “Be a dreamer—dream big, but don't forget to be content where you're at.” What are kind of the pros of that?
Laura: Yes, well I think you proved my point right there. It's not super engaging, but no, I know exactly what you mean. And you're right. I have written a more didactic book. There is nothing wrong with having a library that is full of great books that teach the truths of God in a very straightforward way, and we should have those books. I've written those books. I enjoy those books. I buy those books, but yes, what I wanted to do here was something that—when I was a little girl, I remember my mom had this book called The Book of Virtues. It's a big honking book. I'm sure you have it now. I think all my siblings—we all have the book now. It's just short little stories. Even the Declaration of Independence is in there. There's Greek myths. Any kind of classic virtue story that you can think of is in this book—the tortoise and the hare, things like that. My mom would read that to us periodically. There are so many stories in there that I would remember as I've grown up. There's this one story about a little boy who gets this magic ball of yarn and he ends up—
Emily: —That's one of my favorites.
Laura: It is one of my favorites too. I think of it all the time. For anyone who hasn't read it yet, I should know the name. I'm not sure the name of the story.
Emily: “The Golden Thread” or something. I don't know.
Laura: Yes, well, basically the idea is that, if he is ever bored or wants to pass the time because the time's moving too slow or too painful or too hard, he can pull this piece of yarn that's on a ball and he'll wake up and now it's the next day or the next week or the next month. He starts with moving it maybe an hour or a minute, and then suddenly it's a week, and then suddenly it's all of his growing-up years, and he's an adult now. Then he misses his baby—his child years. It just shows how much of life he's missed.
And so often, I wish away the time. That's the virtue—to not wish away the time, because you want to experience things, and it shapes who you become, and you understand why you do what you do, and how you made the choices you did. If you wish away that time, you lose so much of that. That story comes back to me a lot when I find myself wishing away my life and thinking, “I don't want to endure this. This is too hard. I wish I just had a magic ball of yarn.” Yet, we know at the end of that book, it turns out that that's not a good thing. He regrets having passed so much of his life.
That story, among many others, has really stayed with me through adulthood. That's something that I really wanted to do for children. I'm sure I have not accomplished it the way the greats have in The Book of Virtues, but one of my desires is to be able to share truth with children—I think this is kind of a lost art in our modern age—through storytelling and help them have vivid pictures and imagination around a virtue. These types of books tend to be a little bit more inspiring, I would say. My book on prayer is a great book. I don't know that it's, like, so inspiring for how incredible—the great things that prayer can do.
There are other books out there that probably do that. It's a nice how-to for how to pray. This book—my hope was that it would inspire someone to say, "Oh, yes, I want to use my gifts to serve and love others. Oh, I want to do great things for God, but I also want to love my family along the way and keep those in balance and check." That is one of the reasons why I wanted to engage in this type of writing, because I feel like these types of books really stick with you for a long time and don't just teach you the logic of it—they really inspire you towards wanting more of it.
Emily: On the flip side of that, do you feel like there are any drawbacks to this type of storytelling? What are the limitations or challenges?
Laura: Yes, oh for sure. I mean, nothing's perfect. I think the biggest challenge or potential risk that you're taking is that a child won't understand what you're trying to say, or they'll take away a meaning that you don't intend. Hopefully, it's still a good meaning. In general, if it's a well-written story, you're not going to get something that's super erroneous or terrifying, but it's certainly something that you risk. I know I read A World Wonder—I had a lot of kids read it as pre-early readers. In general, they were humming around the same topic, but each of them had a little bit of a different angle.
To be honest, for me personally, I feel really comfortable in that, but I think some people maybe feel less comfortable having different meanings or someone being able to take an interpretation on it. Then, of course, there's always the risk that the child won't love it, as these types of stories are meant to capture the imagination. They're meant to be, in a way, even entertaining, and I think there's an element as an author that you always risk a child being like, “Meh,” and then just moving on and it makes no impact.
Emily: Yes, sure. I guess, even thinking about virtues and—specifically, I also note in those didactic books sometimes it can feel like “Do this, but don't do that,” and when it comes to kids, why do you think they are so drawn to story as a way of learning and observing?
Laura: I think that children love—they're just naturally curious, right? They love to put themselves in other people's shoes and start to ask, “Why would they do this? Why did they do that? What would they do if this? What if, what if, what if?”—which is a great childhood characteristic that I think we can model even more as adults too. I think that there's something about this that kids love because they can really picture themselves in the book. Charlotte Mason calls it a “living book.” So probably a lot of women who are listening will be familiar with that term. There's something that I think—the child can start to picture themselves in that character's shoes, and they can start to understand or relate to the choices that they made.
It also makes them primed and ready to somewhat learn from a character's decisions. What I love about these kinds of books for kids is that it moves them beyond the logic of something. If you have a straightforward, didactic book—and, again, I think there are places for those books—but it tends to be like, “This is what you should do, and here is how to do it.” There can be some inspiring element to it, but it doesn't feel nearly as inspiring as when we start to say, “Look at this in action.”
Suddenly, we don't just know what love is. We see love. We feel love. We start to like—our literal bodies, our hearts, are pulled into starting to feel like, “Oh, I care about that character.” I think there's something really powerful when you can tap into a reader's emotion and allow them to start to experience what you're trying to teach them that takes that book a little bit further on. We don't just have them knowing what to do. We have them wanting to do what you should do.
Emily: That's so interesting. We're going to talk just in a little bit here about how that can impact us as moms when we read a story, but I wanted to loop back around to Cora, in specific, who is the main character of A World Wonder. You've already told us that she is a little bit of a biographical representation of you and some lessons that you've learned through your life. Would you share a little bit more with us about how you have learned this virtue of being content where you're at, maybe through motherhood specifically in these last ten years or so?
Laura: In the book, Cora is really learning about what really matters in life. It's not an explicitly Christian book. We all know that what matters most in life is that we know and love God and we follow him. Yet the book is pointing towards that in a natural way of recognizing that life isn't about our achievements, our accomplishments, our resume and accolades, but it's about the people we love along the way. I think, for me, I'm a big dreamer. I'm constantly thinking about the next big thing. I love business ideas and entrepreneurship, and I like accomplishment. I mean, at the grossest sense of the word, productivity and things like that. I think it's something that we talk a lot about at Risen Motherhood and I think a lot about in my life as a mom: we don't know what is going to make an impact in our lives.
It could be that what you and I are doing here at Risen Motherhood—doing this podcasting and talking about the gospel in motherhood—is of huge value in the kingdom. I believe at some level it is. But I would never dare to say that it is more valuable than the work that I do quietly in the home where no one sees it—just me and my kids. I think that there is a kingdom economy that doesn't make sense in our world that we need to be reminded of consistently. I think I had to learn that my time with my children is just as—if not perhaps even more—impactful and more powerful for what I will do for the kingdom than some of these bigger, flashier, outward achievements.
That's something that I wanted to acknowledge in the book—that Cora's accomplishments as an architect were still valuable. It's pretty awesome what she did. I don't think we should feel bad about that, right? It doesn't mean those things are worthless or meaningless, but it means that what probably brought them ultimate value was whenever she had people she loved to share them with and where she was able to say, “Oh, I'm using my gifts in a way that's serving others" and to see that “This relationship is just as valuable—actually more so—than this other thing that I created.” Placing proper value with things—and that's what I wanted to portray in the book—to not dampen dreams, but sometimes I think dreams can be elevated so much that they're more important than people. I wanted to be able to flip that upside down I think a little in the book.
Emily: Well, you definitely accomplished that. I'm excited for readers and moms— children and families alike—to enjoy that story together. It's interesting because, as you and I talked about this book and this idea came about, I know you mentioned to me over and over again your desire to be in spaces where this could be common grace to families and kids that maybe aren't believers. Because, as you mentioned, it doesn't explicitly mention the gospel—it doesn't explicitly mention God or anything like that. Maybe dive into that a little bit more. I think that's not very common right now in the Christian space.
There are really overtly Christian books, and then you go to the public library and there's a whole bunch of overtly non-Christian books that aren't just secular, but they have their own whole agenda. I feel like people who are not following God have no problem writing their worldview into books and putting them on our bookshelves. Yet, we don't see that on flip side. Tell me a little bit about what your vision is for this book.
Laura: Yes, as you mentioned, I don't see a lot of Christian authors doing this, and I felt it was risky when I first wrote the manuscript. I can't remember the moment, but I'm sure you were the first person that I told about it. I probably felt very hesitant—of like, “Oh, but just so everybody knows, or just so you know, it's not Christian explicitly.” And yet, I do think I would like to see more Christian authors pivoting back and forth. I think it used to be a lot more common thirty, forty, fifty years ago where you did have Christians in both spaces pivoting back and forth. But yes, we've definitely become a little bit more siloed with things.
I thought about something like The Book of Virtues having such an impact on me as a kid who grew up as a Christian kid—grew up as a believer with believing parents—and yet God used a story that doesn't have a mention of him to help teach me something that he cares about—of living and enjoying your life and not wasting it—not frittering it away. I thought, “I would love to be able to do that for kids,” and I would love to be able to just be a part of that and be in spaces where my book could be read in school. That was something that my other two books—in some spaces, they've not been allowed into.
In fact, I've had one of the books be banned in a certain library, which is a wild and fun experience. I think that there's an element that—I wanted to write something that I could read in my kids' schools, that I could read at the public library, and to just be, like you said, a gift of common grace to these people and to be a blessing. Then, hopefully, if they like one book, they come and check out my backlist and they discover the things of God. That would be my hope—that someone would enjoy an author and their work and see the light of God shining through between the words.
I think that's something C. S. Lewis—of course, everyone would mention him—but he does so well with The Chronicles of Narnia. It's known—whether you're a Christian or not, you know what The Chronicles of Narnia are—even some of the most atheistic God-haters out there know The Chronicles of Narnia and love it. They love those books, even if they won't acknowledge God in them. Again, not putting myself at his level—far, far, far cry from it—but that idea still remains.
Emily: That's so cool. I am excited to see what God does with it. I know you've even mentioned your backlist of other books and hoping that, if someone loves this, they're going to run across who you are and look into that more and more. It's just exciting to think about believers writing stories that all different types of people can relate to and coming away from that story with this sense of like, “There's something different here, and this is leaving me encouraged and uplifted in a way that's different from other books that I've read, and I can't quite put my finger on it.” Then being able to hopefully discover that that's because there is an element of godliness and true goodness in it that maybe they're not reading in other books.
Laura: That's something that I talk a lot about whenever I talk with other people about writing children's books—that we have the privilege of echoing the greater story and that we do hold to a higher truth. This isn't my truth. This isn't what I think is right. This isn't the popular thing that is right in culture today that I'm gliding along with. Instead, there's a sobriety as a children's author—or any type of person who handles creative work or words—that I bring to it because I'm not writing just what I want to write. I'm writing underneath and pointing towards that greater truth.
I think, like you said, that my hope is that someone will do the sniff check on it and be like, “That is different,” because it's really ultimately not the truth that I've decided that Laura Wifler thinks it's best. It's the truth that God has decided, and that's some great guardrails and a privilege to get to walk into as a Christian kids' author.
Emily: So switching gears a little bit back to stories and reading them with our kids—I know you've probably had this experience too, but I'm always amazed when I read a children's story to my kids, and I'm more impacted than they are.
Laura: Oh, I know.
Emily: I remember reading—I think it's called The Sower—is it Scott James?
Laura: Yes.
Emily: I want to say for sure—this is a great book for kids. It is written for kids. It's beautiful, but I read it, and I was choking up.
Laura: You told me about this.
Emily: I think my kids were like, "Okay!" [Laughter] I almost felt like this is a book for me. It looks like a kid's book, but it's a book that's touching my heart too.
There's this story I read with my kids one year in the fall, and it's called Too Many Pumpkins. It's about this old lady, and this big pumpkin falls off a truck and it smashes in her yard. She's kind of disgruntled and frustrated about it. She's scooping the pumpkin away, and it's rotting and stuff, and she forgets about it.
Then, the next year, all of those seeds end up becoming this abundant garden overflowing with pumpkins. She has too many pumpkins, and she's sick of pumpkins. Then she starts using them to make different things. She's making pie, and she's making breads, and she's giving them all away to people. In the end, all of these pumpkins—this thing that happened to her that was so frustrating that she didn't want ended up becoming this huge blessing in her life in a way that she was overflowing blessing to others. I'm probably way reading meaning into it that the author didn't even intend but—
Laura: The author probably loves that you're doing this right now, actually.
Emily: I was like—this story is such a picture of what happens to us in life. A hard circumstance drops into our lap, and we don't want it, but then it's growing fruit. I'm trying to explain all this to my kids, and they're like, "Yes, what's the next story, Mom?" I'm still like, “Remember that book, you guys, about the pumpkins?” and they don't remember it. I think it just goes to show something as simple as a picture book that we stumble across can leave such an impact and can speak to us figuratively where we're at and can show us a lesson.
I'm just curious, for you: what virtue stories have really impacted you throughout your life and what characters and stories have encouraged you to walk by the Spirit?
Laura: Oh, man. This is hard to even boil down. Of course, as I mentioned—The Book of Virtues—I just highly recommend it. I can't probably overstate that enough. They even have a kid's version that's illustrated, with a few less stories. Not every single one is perfect in there, but in general, it's a great one. One of the ones that always sticks out to me is one that you recommended to me with The Quiltmaker's Gift by Jeff Rambu—I think. Brumbeau, maybe. That book is so good.
Emily: Oh, that's a good one. Oh, so good.
Laura: It was so good.
Emily: I've made the mistake of starting that book before bedtime, and it's a long book.
Laura: It's a long book. I brought it to read-aloud at school and some of the kids were looking away, and I’m like, “Da, da, da, da, da,” because—
Emily: It's a thirty-minute read.
Laura: Oh, it's a long read, but it is so good. Actually, I've caught my kids reading it on their own a lot, so maybe it's a little bit better for older kids, even though it's a total picture book. The illustrations are so detailed and elaborate, and there's so much going on. You could study those illustrations for days. I won't even go into why because I feel like I have too many to list, but go buy that book. It is worth a purchase. It is such a beautiful book about generosity and, again, what matters in life.
Miss Rumphius is one that I read as a little girl. Always loved the illustrations—that's about making life beautiful. The Giving Tree—I know people are torn up on this book, both directions. It is a sad book. There are pictures of motherhood in The Giving Tree. It's just like, “You give, and you give, and you give.” Anyway, that one always stuck with me. The Winnie-the-Pooh series. I rediscovered those as a young mom—A. A. Milne. I don't even know if I realized they were books—I just thought they were cartoons—but they are funny and clever. Just very high-quality literature, and there's so many great virtues displayed.
A more recent one, for example, is Extra Yarn by Mark Barnett. This is a newer book in the last five years or so—I could be wrong on pub date. That's a great book just about—another kind of contentment book. There's a greedy old king in there that steals the box of yarn, and so it's great. And of course, we have the older books—beyond picture books, I think a lot of those middle school novels can do a lot of great work. We've mentioned it, but The Chronicles of Narnia, Anne of Green Gables. . .
I know Anne—I wanted to be Anne as I grew up. She was just so spunky and fiery and the best friend anyone could ever imagine. I grew up reading her a lot. Laura Ingalls Wilder—she shares my namesake, so of course I liked her. A lot of these characters are stories that I know are go-tos, but they're go-tos for a reason because they're very rich stories that really capture a kid's imagination. They show through example what a life well-lived looks like. So, there's a handful—a quick list for you.
Emily: Well, we could spend a whole episode talking about good books. Just to help break it down for us—like get didactic for a minute. Maybe describe why do you think or how do you think it is that children's books can impact the moms who read them so much and why does that make it worth it, all the more so, to choose books with truth and beauty?
Laura: I often think of parents as my secondary audience as I'm writing. Of course, as a children's book author, you're writing to children. I know the power of a kid's book of what it can do for an adult, and so I often am also thinking about that person who's going to read it aloud and the impact it can make. I think there's something about reading these very simple books from a perspective of a life that you've lived. Like—you're not an eight-year-old; you have experienced; you have suffered.
Emily: It's like The Velveteen Rabbit.
Laura: Yes. Oh, that's another great one that should be on the list. You've experienced grief and pain and selfishness, and you've probably been the villain at some points. You've been the hero—you know what it means; you know the cost. I think, as we read those, it's a different perspective that we can read them as an adult because, just like you were saying, the author probably didn't intend all this. Well, actually, the author probably did. She didn't maybe expect the children to fully get that, but that is a great book at work when a mom can start to say, "Wow, look at all these parallels to my life." That's the hope—that we grow into the stories that these authors are writing.
For any author who really cares about the literature they're writing, we want those stories to grow with the kids. I always think of Lucy's comment to Aslan; Aslan appears, and she says, "Aslan, you're bigger," and he says to her, "No, every year you grow, you will find me bigger." It just—we never outgrow God. That's the symbolism there. I think the best stories—we never outgrow those stories. They are ones that stick with us and that we want to be reminded of again and again because, ultimately, they're all pointing us to the greatest story that God's writing. They're just echoes of the greatest Author.
I think it's worth working hard as a mom to choose books that exhibit truth and beauty because that's the kind of stuff that we want to point our kids to. We want to expose them to the best of the best in order to develop a palate.
It's funny because, the other day, we showed our kids a movie. It wasn't a bad movie or anything. We turned it on—it's the whole-family—but our kids were looking away a bunch because it was a little bit scary. It was on the edge of their scary threshold. It started to become where we're like, "Okay, look away. Look away," just because they're just a little too much for them.
I said to my husband, "Hold on; turn this thing off." We do not want to teach our children to look away every time they're a little bit scared—like, that’s an okay movie to watch just as long as you look away from the bad parts or the scary parts. You can still engage in that. I was like, “They need to just be old enough to watch this movie without looking away because they can handle whatever this is.” Otherwise, we're developing a palate for them that—someday, it's going to be stuff like—movies that—
I remember watching a scary movie as an older kid that I shouldn't be watching at all, but you're like, "I'll just look away when it's scary. I'll just plug my ears—la, la, la.” I think there's an element that—we start to train our palates. We train them from a very young age of what's allowed and what's not allowed. How do we engage with media? How do we engage with books? We have a unique opportunity as parents to young kids to start developing a great high-quality sense of what makes good literature. That then trains them of what they're going to go off in the future and want to read and engage in. I think we have a prime opportunity to do that now, and there's no shortage of great books. That's the great news—that there's a lot to choose from.
Emily: Awesome. Well, definitely A World Wonder is one of those. Before we head out, tell us where can we find it and remind us when it releases.
Laura: March 5th. I think that'll be like next week from the release of this episode. That'll be anywhere books are sold. You can grab it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Target.com—all the places, and you can go to laurawifler.com/aworldwonder if you want to learn more.
Emily: Alright, thanks, friend.
