Search Reviews

In the consistent style of the Vision Series of non-fiction Catholic stories for young people, the author presents a very engaging account of the important story of Our Lady's appearnces to Bernadette Soubirous - probably the poorest and simplest child in the small town of Lourdes, France. Bernadette's beautiful devotion is inspiring and her stubborn honesty is refreshing. More important, however, is Our Lady's message and her profound effect on those who come to her out of devotion and sometimes only curiosity. Many people who have visited the famous spring at Lourdes have experienced miraculous cures, but there are many more miracles that can be seen only within the human heart.

Upper Level Books Newly Reprinted!!!

I first read Betsy-Tacy to my eldest daughters when they were about five and eight years old. How I skipped over this charming book when I was a child I shall never know, but it was as new and delightful to me as it was to them.

As the book opens, Betsy Ray is almost five years old, and is longing for a friend.

“Well, for Pete’s sake!” said Betsy’s father. “Hill Street is so full of children now that Old Mag has to watch where she puts her feet down.”

“I know,” said Betsy’s mother. “There are plenty of children for Julia.” (Julia was Betsy’s sister, eight years old.) “And there are dozens of babies. But there isn’t one little girl just Betsy’s age.”

Enter Tacy Kelly, a new little girl in the neighborhood. After a rocky beginning (due to Tacy’s extreme shyness) the girls become the best of friends – so close, in fact, that Hill Street comes to think of them as one: "Betsy-Tacy."

The magic of the story is that while it is disarmingly simple, it's not simplistic, and, while sweet, not saccharine. It’s enchanting, honest and real. Everything from the way in which Betsy and Tacy play paper dolls:

The five-year-olds were the most important members of the large doll families. Everything pleasant happened to them. They had all the adventures.

The eight-year-olds lived very dull lives; and they were always given very plain names. They were Jane and Martha, usually, or Hannah and Jemima. Sometimes Betsy and Tacy forgot and called them Julia and Katie. But the five-year-olds had beautiful names. They were Lucille and Evelyn, or Madeline and Millicent.

… Both father dolls were sent quickly down to work; the mothers went shopping; the babies were taken out in their carriages by the pretty servant dolls; and the older children were shut in the magazines.

to the death of Tacy’s baby sister, Bee:

“And I’ll tell you what tickles Bee. She knows all about Heaven, and we don’t. She’s younger than we are, but she knows something we don’t know. Isn’t that funny? She’s just a baby, and she knows more than we do.”

“And more than Julia and Katie do,” said Tacy.

is handled with sensitivity that avoids being maudlin, and genuine, affectionate humor. Maud Hart Lovelace knew little girls: their feelings, their friendships and their families.

Betsy-Tacy is the first in a series of thirteen books. (I’ve read only the first four with my daughters: Betsy-Tacy, Betsy-Tacy and Tib, Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill, and Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown. We paused at that point, as a friend had cautioned me that “boys enter the picture” in later books, and my girls were still quite young.) We adore the first four books.

See The Betsy-Tacy Society for more details.

Set in Palestine in the days leading up to the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., this is a beautiful and powerful story of a Greek family living in the city of Philadelphia. On one of his business journeys, their father, who is a merchant/businessman, rescues a man whom Roman soldiers had left in the desert to die. The merchant's three sons have diverse reactions to this stranger who becomes part of the household, but when the Father is killed by bandits on a later journey, it seems that this stranger without a memory may have a providential role in their future.

The story illustrates the struggles of those caught up in the brutality of Roman rule, the horror of the fall of Jerusalem and touches upon the mysteries of suffering and death. While dealing with the different sorts of reactions that people have to the evils of Rome, the story does highlight - albeit in a subtle way (as good literature should) - the true paths that Christ showed us. An especially interesting contrast can be seen between the courage of the Christians before death (inspired by Christ and given his grace) with the Jews rebelling against Rome (whose motivations involved patriotism, but also hate).

The story is not overly intense, gory, or otherwise objectionable, but dwells upon serious and mature themes of death and suffering in a way suitable to teens and adults. Although the book is a sequel to The Ides of April (which is not apparent until well into the book), it could be read on its own as well.

This summer I had the supreme pleasure of reading Nancy Nicholson’s Bigger Stories for Little Folks to my two youngest girls, ages 5 & 7. After flipping through the first, more well-known volume of Devotional Stories for Little Folks, I was hesitant, thinking that perhaps the stories would seem a bit involved and preachy to my two precocious gals. I am happy to say that my fears were unfounded.

Each evening, after Beth and Mae were cozy in their pajamas and had brushed their teeth, they would bounce into my bed and Beth would hand over the book. They listened with rapt attention to the adventures of little Greg and his family, laughing at the mishaps and sobering at the lessons learned while enjoying an innocence that mirrors their own. The conflicts that arise in these stories are never breath-taking or heart thumping, yet they are real and easily understood.

Sweet, but not sappy, like a warm blanket and a cup of tea near a roaring fire, these stories draw children’s hearts close to home, keeping the wolves of the world at bay. There is no need to pit good up against an evil world filled with snares and pit falls that would only serve to frighten and fill a child’s heart with despair. Children instinctively know the good. They cheer when the Peterson children have righted a wrong or made the correct choice. Each tale ends on a happy note, with forgiveness and redemption and a loving embrace. Like our eternal hope of heaven, these stories firmly establish the good as attainable and fill our souls with peace and joy.