Read-Aloud Revival ®

What if I told you there’s an Icelandic Christmas tradition where the whole point is to spend an evening sitting around, sipping hot cocoa, and reading books?

Sign me up, right?

Today, we’re talking about Jolabokaflod, which loosely translates to “Yule Book Flood,” how it started, and how you can bring the magic of this bookish tradition into your home this Christmas.

In this episode, you’ll hear: 

• Where the Icelan...

We all know there is no shortage of Christmas picture books out there. 

But for a book to make it onto my kids’ Christmas stack or onto a Read Aloud Revival Christmas Book List, it has to be excellent. 

And the books we choose for Christmas School? Those are the ones that go above and beyond excellent and are some of our most treasured, tippy-top favorite Christmas read-alouds.

Today, I have the author-illustrator...

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 wit...

Have you ever worried that you’re not meeting all of your child’s needs—academically, emotionally, spiritually, or even socially? Pretty much every day, right? 

You’re not alone. Most of us have asked ourselves if we are giving our kids everything they need at one time or another.

In this episode, I’m sharing a replay from one of our Circle with Sarah live sessions where RAR Community Manager Kelsey Murphy and I dug ...

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 friends...

Astrid Sheckels continues the wit and whimsy of childhood through her marvelous and magnificent illustrations and storytelling. 

You might recognize her from the Hector Fox and Friends series or Sea Dog and Sea Dog Rescue, and she created the gorgeous cover and interior illustrations for Beyond Mulberry Glen by Millie Florence. 

Today we’re chatting about her new book, Flora and the Jazzers, which Kirkus called “sump...

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 ...

What does having a happy homeschool mean to you? 

How would you describe it? What would you be doing?

Our homeschools are all unique. We have different kids, different spouses, different resources, different homes, different demands on our time and energy. And yet I have a hunch that when we think about what having a happy homeschool means, our answers would be remarkably similar.

As many of us are getting into the swing of a...

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 bo...

One of the all-time most useful things I’ve implemented in my homeschool is Quiet Reading Time.

I did Quiet Reading Time with my three eldest kids, who are now in college and beyond, during the most hectic years when I had all six at home (three of whom were babies at the time!), and I still do it with those younger three today. It has made a bigger difference in our homeschool than almost anything else.

It isn’t alw...

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...

Have you ever read a book and thought, “Wow, how did the author do that?!” 

Or maybe you’d love to sit down with your favorite author and pick their brain about their writing process or tips and tricks for when you get stuck.

Today, the Read-Aloud Revival team has compiled some of our favorite advice about getting creative from the archives of RAR Premium’s Family Book Clubs. 

Whether you write, draw, paint, or en...

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 ...

On the last episode of the Read-Aloud Revival, we talked about why Shakespeare is not a school subject. I hope we were able to convince you!

But if we know that Shakespeare isn’t a school subject or an item on a checklist, how do we actually do it? And how do we make Shakespeare not just doable in our homeschools, but delightful?

Today, we’ll talk through a simple framework your family can use to experience one of th...

When most of us hear the name “Shakespeare,” we probably think back to a high school classroom, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, while we struggled through Romeo and Juliet line by line—“wherefore art thou” and all that.

But here’s the truth:

Shakespeare was never meant to be dissected like a frog under a microscope.

His work, in fact, was never meant to be read AT ALL. He meant for his plays to be experienced. To be pe...

Why should we read the classics? 

So many of us want to read and enjoy them, but we don’t want to spend our precious free time feeling like we’re incompetent because we just don’t get it or that the internet has completely ruined our brains (is this just me?).

This winter in RAR Premium, we did a whole retreat about falling in love with your reading life again, and today I'm sharing one of those sessions, called How to Read ...

In this episode, RAR Community Manager Kelsey Murphy and I sat down to tackle some of your listener questions. 

We put our heads together to answer questions about loved ones who don’t support your choice to homeschool, curriculum overwhelm, reading aloud with older kids or a wide age range of ages, how to encourage your kids to read high quality literature, and more!

In this episode, you’ll hear: 

• How to make pea...

Today, one of my very favorite authors returns to Read-Aloud Revival. 

You know him as the author of Sweep, The Night Gardener, the Peter Nimble series, and The Fabled Stables. That’s right–Jonathan Auxier is back!

This time, we’re talking about the much-awaited conclusion to the Peter Nimble series, The War of the Maps. In our conversation, we delve into the guiding questions he explores during the writing process, ...

One of my favorite reads of 2024 was The Myth Makers by John Hendrix.

This gorgeous graphic novel tells the story of the remarkable friendship of C. S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. I thought I already knew quite a bit about these Inklings, but there was even more to uncover.

Today, I’m delighted to share my conversation with the author and illustrator of The Myth Makers, John Hendrix. We dive into his research and writi...