About

About Me

Updated 2/24/22

Hi, my name is Sarah. I’m 39 and have lived in Indiana my whole life. I’m married to my favorite person in the entire world. We have two kids: one boy (age 8) and one girl (age 6).  We started our homeschool journey in May 2017 — I used a simple preschool curriculum and my own efforts to work through a gentle early-learning stage with my then 3 1/2 year old son. We then homeschooled through 2nd grade for my oldest and decided to transition to public school in January 2022. My son entered 2nd grade and my daughter entered 1st grade.

I’m incredibly grateful for all the time I got to spend at home with my children during the early years. It was truly a privilege and I am equally grateful to now be in the position that we can gladly choose to public school and have that work well for our whole family. My journey with homeschooling is interesting since I really did not know much about it before I began, and honestly had a some negative connotations come up in my mind about it. Once I realized that I could honor our commitment to our family’s educational philosophy and not worry about what everyone else was doing or not doing, that gave me so much freedom to enjoy the whole process. And what’s lovely is that we can still honor all our family values and priorities while our kids attend public school. Again, this is a privilege.

I have a Bachelors degree in Environmental Science and a Masters of Public Affairs (with a focus on Sustainability) — both degrees are from Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana which is where we live now (go Hoosiers!). I’ve always had a passion for the natural world and a love of learning. Before I had kids I used to joke that if it could be a full-time job to get paid to go to school and learn all day, I would want that job!

And so it makes sense that I LOVE BOOKS! Books are an amazing gateway to rich learning and imaginative worlds. They can open our minds and hearts to a wide world that is deeper and richer and more challenging than we could ever imagine. It truly is a privilege that I get to partner with so many amazing publishing companies to share children’s books with you. I especially focus in on nature-based books (both fiction and nonfiction), but of course am interested in so many types of picture books.

I enjoy having time to be creative with my Etsy small business and thank all of you for supporting me in that! Beyond painting peg dolls and nature journaling, I enjoy dabbling in a few other creative projects when I have the time. But, I also love simple things like ice cream, snuggling with my dog, playing board games with my kids, and anything related to JRR Tolkien.

And speaking of Tolkien…

Why “The Silvan Reverie”?

silvan. adj. pertaining to woods, woody

reverie. noun. a state of dreamy meditation or fanciful musing

(And by the way it’s silvan not sylvan because both Tolkien and C.S. Lewis spell it that way!)

I originally choose The Silvan Reverie to honor the woodland camp property where our family lived for 10 years (and raised our babies through ages 7 and 5). It was an incredible experience to have 2,500 acres of woods with a lake as our backyard. So many of my children’s memories revolve around outdoor adventures and it is certainly a priority for our family, even now in 2022 as we live in a residential neighborhood in a large town.

I love the woods with all its wildness and mystery. I love tapping maple trees for syrup, foraging for morels, going on spring ephemeral wildflower hunts, hiking through a creek bed in the middle of summer, and discovering all sorts of off-trail oddities like animal tracks and bones. It’s just the best!