Web Reads: Cardboard, creative parents, and photo magic

Photo baby. CardboardBoxOffice.com, which sets a sky-high standard for creative moms and dads, features delightful photographs of a baby and her parents in recreated movie scenes made with common household objects. View it only if you can appreciate cleverness without feeling pressure to compete.

Russian hobbit. OpenCulture.com highlights illustrations for The Hobbit as they appeared in a 1976 Soviet edition of Tolkien’s tale—very different from the images with which we’re familiar.

Good intentions. Short-term missions trips to orphanages are increasingly popular, but are they helpful to the children they are meant to serve? In Leadership Journal, Samuel Ikua Gachagua and Claire Diaz-Ortiz highlight “five things I have learned about being a good missionary from being on the other side, the side of the beneficiary, the one being helped.”

Pick up a pen. Handwriting matters more than many modern educators believe. That’s according to research by psychologist Karin James from Indiana University. She’s done brain scans that show that forming the letters increases brain activity much more than typing or watching someone else form letters.

Sixteen and pregnant. Feminists for Life website posted a short article by the late Maya Angelou in which she describes her decision to bear and raise the son she conceived out of wedlock. It ends with this kicker: “Having my son brought out the best in me and enlarged my life. … Years later, when I was married, I wanted to have more children, but I couldn’t conceive. Isn’t it wonderful that I had a child at 16? Praise God!”