Read-Aloud Revival ®
- Episodes
- 315
- Released
- every two weeks
- Latest episode
- Nov 12, 2026
About the podcast
Sarah Mackenzie helps your family fall in love with books, and helps *you* fall in love with homeschooling.
Episodes 315
RAR #291: Christmas Picture Books That Make the Nativity Feel New Again
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨The Nativity is such a familiar …
Show notes
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨
The Nativity is such a familiar story throughout the Western world that Christians and non-Christians alike can recite the story. We know the Wise Men and their gifts, we know the shepherds and the Star, we know the story so well that sometimes the story of the birth of Christ can lose its wonder and awe.
This year for RAR Premium’s Christmas School we decided to choose books that help us see the story of the Nativity through fresh eyes and renew our sense of wonder. This year’s Christmas School looks at the Nativity in three ways: through the hopes of trees, the eyes of a (very darling) mouse, and the grief of a particular wood carver.
On today’s episode, I’m joined by author Karma Wilson, RAR Premium Coordinator Leilani Curtis, and illustrator P.J. Lynch to introduce you to these wonderful stories.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- Why Karma Wilson wanted to write a child-forward take on the Nativity story and how that goal shaped the story
- How three trees give us a new perspective on the transformation and hope in the Nativity
- How P.J. Lynch altered his typical approach for the illustrations for The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey
Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:
Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/nativity-in-three-ways
RAR #290: Holiday Traditions Don’t Have to be Big to be Memorable
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨We all want to make lasting …
Show notes
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨
We all want to make lasting memories with our kids, especially at this time of year.
We want them to remember freshly-baked cookies, the fragrance of a freshly cut Christmas tree, the crackling warmth of a fire, the melody of your family’s favorite carols… The list goes on until suddenly we have a to-do list longer than the trek from Nazareth to Bethlehem.
Christmas is naturally a time for memory-making. But it’s also a time that invites us to slow down and savor the season as we wait in joyful hope for the birth of our Lord.
So this year, I want to invite you to take some of the pressure off of yourself to create grand traditions and make big, flashy memories. Because memory-making doesn’t have to be big or complicated to stay with you and your kids as they grow and eventually leave home. To prove it, today on the show, Audrey and I asked a few of our Read-Aloud Revival team members to share their favorite memories of growing up and from raising their own kids.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- Why holiday traditions don’t even have to happen every year to make lasting memories
- The way a small, unexpected moment of joy or feeling seen by you can stay with a child for life
- Why food is one of the best tools for making memories –– and it doesn’t have to be complicated or even homemade!
Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:
Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/small-is-memorable
RAR #289: Kate DiCamillo on the Mystery (and Miracle) of Stories
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨Today, I am over the moon to …
Show notes
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨
Today, I am over the moon to welcome one of my very favorite guests back to the show. She’s been on the show and visited us in RAR Premium several times over the years and I always love our conversations.
You know her as the author of some of your kids’ favorite books, like the Mercy Watson series, The Tale of Despereaux, and Because of Winn-Dixie. That’s right, Kate DiCamillo is back!
She’s here to tell us all about the brand-new, absolutely gorgeous 20th anniversary edition of The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. I don’t know about you, but I have a weakness for collector’s editions and friends and I know I’m going to be putting this one on my keepers shelf and I think you will too.
In our chat, we talk about writing to serve the story, not to please others, the real-life gift that inspired The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, and lots more!
In this episode, you’ll hear:- The stories from teachers and parents about Edward Tulane that capture the power of read-alouds
- How literature is made by the synergy of the writer, the reader, and the story
- Why there’s only one wrong way to be a writer
Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:
Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/kate-dicamillo
RAR #288: Why Board Books Are Important Tools (and Toys!) with Tabitha Paige
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨There is a type of children’s book …
Show notes
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨
There is a type of children’s book that we haven’t talked much about here in twelve years of Read-Aloud Revival. But it’s one that almost anyone who has spent time with babies knows well: board books.
Board books are how so many of our kids meet stories and books for the first time. They’re often the first books babies and littles are able to really get their hands (and mouths!) on, and experience touching the pictures and turning the pages for themselves.
So today, we’re going to do a bit of a deep dive on board books, and I couldn’t think of a better person to join me for this than bestselling author and illustrator Tabitha Paige. Tabitha is a speech language pathologist as well as a creator of absolutely stunning board books, and in this episode she shares all about what they can do for our littlest readers as well as what to look for when choosing board books.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- How board books create positive experiences that make kids want to come back to books again and again
- Why realistic illustrations are an important tool for building vocabulary
- The way the multi-sensory experience of physically interacting with a board book enhances learning
Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:
Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/tabitha-paige
Best of RAR: Simple Habits for Nurturing Lifelong Readers
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨We all want our kids to be readers …
Show notes
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨
We all want our kids to be readers.
Not just kids who can read, but kids who actually do read. Who then grow up and keep choosing to read because they want to, not because they have to.
But there’s a curious thing that those of us who care deeply about raising lifelong readers tend to do, which is to treat our kids’ reading lives in exactly the opposite way that adult readers actually read.
We choose all their books. We tell them how long to read for. We ask them questions to prove to us that they read and understood the story. We make them write essays to prove their comprehension even further. And somehow, we expect that when no one is making them do any of this anymore, they’ll choose to pick up a book for the joy of it.
So today, I want us to think about this differently. Instead of asking, “How do I get my kids to read,” let’s ask the question, “What do real, lifelong readers actually do?”
Then give our kids more chances to do those things.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- Why letting your kids develop their taste by choosing their own books is part of their becoming lifelong readers
- The question to ask yourself when you’re considering what reading to require of your kids
- How to gauge comprehension without making conversation a pop quiz
Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:
Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/lifelong-readers
RAR #287: Bringing the Outside Into Your School Year with Ginny Yurich
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨The heart of homeschooling is …
Show notes
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨
The heart of homeschooling is relationships. Building meaningful, lasting connections is the real secret sauce of reading aloud with your kids. Those connections are also built when you spend time in nature together.
Sounds simple, right? Read books. Go outside. But it can also feel like yet another thing to add to your already packed to-do list. How do we make time in our already full days to get outside with our kids?
We’ve got an absolute treat for you today on the show. Ginny Yurich, the founder of the global 1000 Hours Outside movement, is here to talk about how families can bring the transformative power of nature into their everyday lives.
She candidly shares her journey from indoorsy kid to overwhelmed mama to the fall afternoon that planted the seed of 1000 Hours Outside. We also dig into the benefits of spending time in nature, and of course, practical strategies for spending more time outside.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- The lifelong physical, social, emotional, and academic benefits of spending time outside
- How accessible 1000 hours really is
- Practical ways to get more time outdoors, how to engage older kids, and why it doesn’t have to be that complicated
Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:
Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/ginny-yurich
RAR #286: Why We Write
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨Over the past few months on the …
Show notes
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨
Over the past few months on the podcast, we’ve talked a lot about how reading aloud benefits kids academically, how it develops their resilience, empathy, and virtue, and even reduces physiological stress. Today on the show, we’re diving into the flip side of reading: writing.
Without writing, we’d have no stories to read. But creating books to share with others isn’t the only reason why writing is so important. Writing also has tremendous benefits to the person sitting down and putting words on a page.
In this episode, Audrey and I talk about some of the many reasons to invite your kids –– and yourself! –– to write and we’ll share a few of our favorite exercises and tips for getting everyone’s creativity flowing.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- Why creativity is available to every single one of us, even if we wouldn’t consider ourselves to be artists
- How writing helps us slow down, notice details, cultivate attention and presence, and uncover what we’re thinking even when life is busy and messy
- How writing, like reading, has the power to connect and transform us
Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:
Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/why-we-write
Chapters (7)
RAR #285: Becoming a Book Woman with Caroline Starr Rose
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨Books are so much more than just a …
Show notes
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨
Books are so much more than just a collection of words. They are lanterns that illuminate our lives in so many incredible ways.
Today, I want to share a story with you about a group of women who also believed in the power of books to transform lives. So much so, that they were willing to endure quite a lot of hardship to get books into the hands of people who otherwise wouldn’t have had access to them during a difficult period of American history.
In this episode, I’m talking with Caroline Starr Rose, author of our newest Waxwing Books release, Books Up the Mountain: A Packhorse Librarian Story. Caroline is an author and editor of middle grade and picture books, and in our conversation she talks about the real-life program that inspired Books Up the Mountain, the scavenger hunt process of researching historical fiction, and writing stories that honor children and their experiences.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- About the Great Depression-era librarians whose work and communities inspired Caroline to create The Book Woman
- Why Caroline finds writing for children such lifegiving and compelling work
- The challenges presented by writing historical novels versus picture books, and what makes “picture book alchemy”
Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:
Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/becoming-a-book-woman
RAR #284: Finding Rest in the Mess (Circle With Sarah Sneak Peek)
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨How long is your to-do list? What …
Show notes
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨
How long is your to-do list?
What if you added in all the extra shoulds and supposed-tos that you are in your head but you don’t even write down because that would be too overwhelming? How long is it then?
It might feel a little cliché to talk about how busy we are. But I think it’s helpful to acknowledge that most of us are at least a little bit (or more) fried.
So why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we keep piling things onto our to-do lists?
If you take a closer look at your list, I think you’ll find that underneath that busyness, the reason is relationships. Your list is long because you love your kids, and you want them to feel loved and supported by the things you do for them, from teaching to cooking to cleaning to working outside the home.
But a hard truth I’ve learned in nearly 25 (!!) years of motherhood is that restless busyness can make it harder to do the things that actually allow us to nurture our kids, develop fruitful relationships with them, and model God’s love.
Today on the show, I want to help you find some rest in the mess so you can show up in all of your relationships with more peace and even, dare I say it… joy.
To do that, I’m going to let you in on some of our favorite moments from Circle With Sarah over the last year. Circle With Sarah is one of our Read-Aloud Revival Premium members' favorite features. It’s a private podcast, live virtual events, and biannual virtual retreats all designed to support you in the journey you’ve chosen as a mom.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- Shifting your focus to how far you’ve come from how far you have left to go
- A simple exercise for getting to the root of worry and learning to trust that what we do is enough
- Tips for reframing interruptions, prioritizing rest and connection
Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:
Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/finding-rest-in-the-mess
RAR #283: Our Favorite Reads for Forming Virtue in Our Kids
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨Here at the Read-Aloud Revival …
Show notes
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨
Here at the Read-Aloud Revival, we’ve been asked more times than I can count to create virtue-based book lists. And I always say no.
Today, our Creative Director (and my eldest daughter) Audrey is back with me to talk about why we don’t make lists of books that specifically set out to teach kids about kindness, honesty, or other virtues.
The reality is, all good books have a powerful capacity to inspire us towards virtue, and the ones that are the most effective are the ones that don’t set out to teach. They just set out to tell a good story. Good stories, by their nature, form us in virtue.
We’re going to talk about what makes a story formational, and of course, share some of our favorite books that have been formative in our family.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- Why learning virtue doesn’t need a lesson plan or bullet points, and can even be delightful
- How stories invite us into the experiences of others, with all their human strengths and weaknesses
- The guiding question behind every book recommendation we make at RAR
Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:
Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/books-forming-virtue
Chapters
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RAR #282: Sparking Creativity with Research
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨ When you think about the various …
Show notes
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨
When you think about the various work that goes into making a children’s book, research probably isn’t at the top of your list.
It might not make it on your list at all!
But research is often an essential part of the process. And I can tell you from personal experience that research can be a time-intensive, sometimes overwhelming, but often the most delightful task.
Today on the show, we’re hearing from some incredible authors and illustrators about the research that goes into children’s books. Whether you’re an aspiring author or a curious reader, you’re in for some surprises.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- Two big reasons why authors do research, whether they’re writing a biography, historical fiction, or even fantasy!
- How every research question can be a doorway, from talking with subject matter experts to primary sources to searching your own heart and mind
- The challenges and opportunities in having too little or too much information available about a person or topic
Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:
Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/sparking-creativity-with-research
Chapters
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Best of RAR: The Joy of Shakespeare
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨When I mention Shakespeare, a lot …
Show notes
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨
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 memorable
- Why 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 it
Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:
Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/joy-of-shakespeare
RAR #281: Homeschooling High School with Rachel Kovac
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨How do we homeschool high school? …
Show notes
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨
How do we homeschool high school? It’s *the* question, isn’t it?
A lot of us go into homeschooling ready and excited for the younger years. Then as high school approaches, things start to feel… a little more complicated. To say the least. Navigating difficult subjects, transcripts, college applications, and alternatives to college if that isn’t a good fit for your child can be intimidating.
It’s no wonder that homeschooling high school is one of the most-asked topics here at RAR.
As many of you know, I have three kids who I homeschooled through high school who are now in college and beyond. My guest today is also an experienced homeschool mom who’s had two of her six children graduate high school and move on to college.
Rachel Kovac is a speaker, educator, and the author of the new book, Their Future is Shining Bright: A Guide to Homeschooling High School. I invited her to talk with me about the nitty gritty details of getting your kids through high school, as well as to share some big-picture encouragement as you face the challenges of the high school years.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- Why the high school years feel so intimidating and what you can do to support a growth mindset for your teen
- How your role shifts as your kids enter high school (and why it’s something to look forward to!)
- Balancing doing less in your homeschool with keeping doors and paths open for your kids
Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:
Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/rachel-kovac
RAR #280: Books Take Us Places
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨One of the very best ways to travel …
Show notes
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨
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 Creator
- How books can give us deeper connections to the places we do travel
- How reading–and especially reading aloud!–cultivates curiosity and wonder
Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:
Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/books-take-us-places
Best of RAR: Becoming Your Child’s Mentor
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨ What would happen if you decided …
Show notes
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨
What would happen if you decided to be your child's mentor rather than their teacher?
What if you awakened their wonder and curiosity so that they became the kind of people who thirst for knowledge and understanding?
Today, I’m revisiting a conversation about those very questions that I had a few years ago with Sally Clarkson. I’m lucky to count Sally as a dear friend and I know that her work has been transformational for me and for so many of you.
In this episode, Sally shares how we can inspire our kids to become lifelong readers and learners right in our own homes.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- How to make your homeschool a place of resources for your unique children
- What is different about being your child’s mentor, rather than their teacher
- Why modeling curiosity and excitement about learning in your homeschool matters more than any curriculum
Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:
Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/becoming-your-childs-mentor
RAR #279: Baptizing the Imagination with Malcolm Guite
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨What is your calling in life? For …
Show notes
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨
What is your calling in life?
For poet, songwriter, and academic, Malcolm Guite, it’s unequivocally clear–to be a storyteller.
Today on the podcast Audrey and I chat with Malcolm about the first volume in his new retelling of the classic King Arthur stories, Galahad and the Grail, illustrated by the incredible Stephen Crotts and published by our friends over at Rabbit Room Press.
Not only is Malcolm adapting the legends of King Arthur, he’s doing it in poetic ballad form, which means they are basically designed to be read aloud.
In our conversation, he tells us about the epic journey he and his publisher and illustrator undertook to visit sites connected to the Arthurian legends, how a childhood surrounded by books and stories led him to his lifelong love and study of literature and poetry, and the impact his own mother had on his journey to becoming a poet and storyteller.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- Why Malcolm chose to write this story in ballad form
- How woodland walks inspire Malcolm’s writing and why he knew it was time to “take up the tale”
- What elements and parallels of Biblical stories Malcolm wanted to restore that have often been left out of modern Arthurian retellings
Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:
Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/malcolm-guite
Best of RAR: When Your Developing Reader Resists Reading
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨Learning to read can be hard. And …
Show notes
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨
Learning to read can be hard. And when our kids are still learning to read fluently and well, helping them fall in love with books can feel impossible.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Today on the show, I’m sharing some strategies to help hook your developing reader. And of course, I have some suggestions for books that they won’t be able to resist.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- Why helping your kids fall in love with story is the the key to helping them fall in love with reading
- The way short, frequent phonics and reading sessions propel budding readers toward fluency and ease
- How to become a book-matchmaker for your child
Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:
Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/child-resists-reading
RAR #278: How to Actually Connect with Our Kids, Dr. Matthew Breuninger
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨We all want to build those …
Show notes
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨
We all want to build those meaningful and lasting connections with our kids.
Around here, we’re usually talking about doing that through books and reading aloud. But how do we extend these connections into our everyday, ordinary parenting moments?
Today, I’m talking to one of my favorite people to listen to when it comes to relationships. Dr Matthew Breuninger is a clinical psychologist and author of Finding Freedom in Christ: Healing Life’s Hurts and in this episode he shares how safe, secure attachment forms the foundation of close relationships with our kids and how to repair them when we inevitably mess up.
He also unpacks the very common tendency a lot of us have to view our children’s behavior as a reflection on us, and offers a beautiful reminder of where our deepest identity as parents comes from (spoiler alert: it’s not your performance. ❤️)
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- What foundational perspective parents can offer to shape our kids relationships with us and others
- Why ruptures are inevitable in all our relationships, and how we can approach repair
- How our kids become mirrors for the wounds and self-protection strategies we need to work on in ourselves
Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:
Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/connecting-with-your-kids/
Best of RAR: How a “Best Moments” List Can Help You Love Your Homeschool featuring Jon Acuff
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨Today, we’re revisiting a …
Show notes
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨
Today, we’re revisiting a listener-favorite episode that has some advice and an activity that I think are perfect for this time of year in our homeschools.
Jon Acuff, author of All It Takes Is a Goal, joined me a while back for a perspective-shifting conversation about setting and achieving goals for our homeschools, and how looking back at our best moments, from major milestones to pockets of joy, helps us envision the kind of future we really want.
Jon also shares some practical tips for reframing the urge to compare ourselves to others, especially on social media, giving ourselves credit for what we’re already doing–because it’s definitely more than you think–and approaching goals with a “some is better than none” mindset.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- How taking stock of your past best moments helps you be more grateful and present for the moments happening right now
- Why having dreams and goals bigger than your calendar is actually a gift
- A simple key to finding goals that work for you and your family
Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:
Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/jon-acuff
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RAR #277: Inspiring Heroic Virtue in Our Kids
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨We talk a lot around here about the …
Show notes
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨
We talk a lot around here about the incredible impact stories have on our kids. They build empathy and connection, letting us walk a mile in another’s shoes. And some stories also help us see what it looks like to be brave and courageous, even in the face of fear or daunting challenges.
Today, Audrey is back to talk with me about how stories inspire courage in our kids and ourselves and can connect us to profound truths, no matter how fantastical the setting.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- How stories become companions to us through challenging seasons
- Which stories have shaped Sarah and Audrey’s own lives
- The ways myths can echo profound truths to us that feed our hearts and minds and inspire heroic virtue
Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:
Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/inspiring-heroic-virtue
Best of RAR: Why Read Aloud to Kids Who Can Read Themselves
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨Why do we read aloud to our kids? …
Show notes
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨
Why do we read aloud to our kids? Especially those who can read to themselves?
This is a topic that comes up all the time at Read-Aloud Revival and it’s one I’m super passionate about. It’s foundational to what we do around here and I firmly believe it’s vital to our kids becoming lifelong readers.
In this episode, we’re talking about the impact reading aloud has on our children, regardless of their independent reading level. Research shows that there are many benefits to reading aloud to your kids, and today, we’re going to focus on five of the most important ones.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- How books educate the heart as well as the mind, growing perspective and empathy
- The incredible impact of reading aloud on academic performance, language development, information processing, expression (the list goes on!)
- How reading aloud builds community, strengthens family bonds, reduces stress and anxiety, and enriches time spent together
Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:
Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/why
RAR #276: Learning to Ask Good Questions (Audrey’s Back!)
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨Today’s episode is a special treat …
Show notes
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨
Today’s episode is a special treat featuring the return of a listener-favorite guest who happens to be one of my favorite people, too. 😉
Back on episode 209, my eldest daughter, Audrey joined me to share her perspective on what it was like growing up in our bustling homeschool family. Ever since that episode aired, listeners have asked for updates on what she’s up to and how she’s doing. Suffice it to say, she’s had a few more adventures since we recorded that episode!
So I’m delighted to welcome Audrey back to the podcast to talk through some of your frequent questions about what has shaped her as a writer, the importance of boredom and wonder, and how simple conversations lay the foundation for imaginative language and writing.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- How read-alouds, audiobooks, and poetry shaped Audrey’s love of language
- Why having experiences out in the world (even in your own backyard!) is essential for budding creatives
- Our favorite way to help kids make connections and ask better questions and become better writers
Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:
Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/catch-up
RAR #275: Could We Have Tranquility by Tuesday? Laura Vanderkam
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨If I were to ask you if your life …
Show notes
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨
If I were to ask you if your life ever felt tranquil, you would probably do one of two things: bust out laughing or look at me like I was from another planet.
I get it, I really do.
Which is why I’m so excited to have the author of one of my absolute tippy-top recommended books with me today. Laura Vanderkam is a time management expert, mother of five, and the author of Tranquility by Tuesday: 9 Ways to Calm the Chaos and Make Time for What Matters.
Laura suggests that to bring more tranquility to our abundant, unpredictable lives, we don’t need a perfect schedule, what we need is a resilient schedule. In the book, she outlines nine ways that will help us manage the chaos and live joyful, sustainable lives.
It sounds much more accessible, right? Today, we’re going to talk about how we can actually achieve tranquility in our lives, even in the busiest phases of our lives.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- How to reframe the way you think about how much time you have (hint: it might be more than you think!)
- Why doing something three times a week counts as a habit
- The rule that gets the most resistance, and why sticking to it is so essential
Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:
Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/laura-vanderkam
Best of RAR: Jolabokaflod
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨What if I told you there’s an …
Show notes
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨
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 Icelandic Yule Book Flood first began
- How Jolabokaflod is an invitation to slow down and connect with each other during the busy Christmas season
- The only three things you need for your Jolabokaflod, plus tips from RAR members on how they celebrate
Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:
Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/icelandic-christmas
RAR #274: Behind the Scenes of One of My Favorite Christmas Picture Books
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨We all know there is no shortage of …
Show notes
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨
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 of one of my all-time favorite Christmas picture books, Red and Lulu, with me.
You might recognize Matt Tavares from his beloved books Zachary's Ball, Becoming Babe Ruth, or Growing Up Pedro or from his delightful Christmas books in the Dasher series. He’s here to tell us all about his writing and illustrating process, why he loves writing Christmas picture books, and how he created the enchanting journey of Red and Lulu.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- How he sets the mood for creating snowy, winter scenes even in the middle of summer
- What Matt always keeps in mind about his audience when writing picture books
- The inspiration behind the tale of Red and Lulu and their journey to New York City
Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:
Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/matt-tavares
[Bonus] God Is Not Disappointed In You
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨Hey hey, it's Sarah Mackenzie!I am …
Show notes
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨
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.
Best of RAR: Education is for Love
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨Have you ever worried that you’re …
Show notes
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨
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 into what education is really for, because if we know what it’s for, we’re better able to answer if we’re meeting our children’s needs.
I hope this conversation helps you reimagine your kids’ education in a way that eases your worries and reminds you that education is about relationships, not checklists, and that is very good news.
Circle with Sarah is my homeschool mentoring program within RAR Premium. Every Monday, members get a quick five to ten minute podcast with just the encouragement they need to be the peace-filled, joyful homeschool mom they’re called to be. Learn more here.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- Why education is not about meeting all of your child’s potential needs, but about love and relationships
- The three pillars of connection that form the bedrock of our homeschools
- Simple, practical ways to weave those three pillars into your daily life
Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:
Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/education-is-for-love
RAR #273: Imagining the Childhood of C.S. Lewis, with Judith McQuoid
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨Many of you will already know that …
Show notes
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨
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 revisions
- The faith that carried Judith through the ups and downs of creating Giant
Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:
Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/judith-mcquoid
RAR #272: Giving Flora Her Voice with Astrid Sheckels
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨Astrid Sheckels continues the wit …
Show notes
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨
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 “sumptuously illustrated” in their starred review and I couldn’t agree more. This jazz-age Cinderella story starring a ferret named Flora and set in a 1920s New York hotel is going to blow you away, I just know it.
Astrid is a New Englander who loves to paint animals in clothes, so clearly she is a woman after my own heart, and I just know you’ll fall in love with her too.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- How childhood family read-alouds instilled a love for stories in Astrid
- The way one of Astrid’s earliest childhood drawings became the inspiration for Flora
- Why a sketchbook is an ideal tool for budding creatives
Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:
Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/astrid-sheckelsBest of RAR: What Do We Mean by Peace?
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨Peace. It sounds lovely, right? …
Show notes
✨ Christmas School is here! Get your simple plan for peaceful Christmas season and join us for a 3-week family book club looking at the Nativity with fresh eyes. Learn more! ✨
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 homeschoolers
- How our fears cause us to lose hold of peace
Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:
Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/peace
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