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This is what a picture book should be. A perfect pairing of beautiful text and beautiful illustrations.

I love haiku and Jack Prelutsky's verses are beautiful examples of the form. I love poems that linger, that take up residence in your heart and resonate long after the book is closed. The title poem has made a nest in my ear and sings to me while I'm doing the dishes:

If not for the cat,
And the scarcity of cheese,
I could be content.

It has something of the simplicity and weight that I find so pleasing in William Carlos Williams. And several others are beginning to work their way in as well. Like this one about the kangaroo:

Safe inside my pouch
Sleeps the future of my kind--
Delicate and frail.

Nor am I the only one. After only two or three readings my three-year old remembers and recites quite a few lines herself. I have found her picking up the book on her own, flipping through the pages, and reciting what she remembers.

Each poem is in the voice of a different animal and Prelutsky's genius is in the personality of the different voices, hard to convey in a so short a form as haiku. I love the way he captures the slow sloth, the hive mind of the ants, (humorously followed immediately by the ant eater), and the threatening presence of the snake and the skunk.

Especially memorable are the rounded polysyllables of the jellyfish:

Boneless, translucent,
We undulate, undulate,
Gelatinously.

Ted Rand's paintings are a lovely match, each one has a very different tone, well suited to the paired poem. My favorite is definitely the dark, moody one of the moth drawing close to a candle. Though the bright hummingbird hovering near festive orange nasturtiums is also right up there.

"Long ago in a far distant land there lived a boy called Offero." So opens the story of St. Christopher, one of fourteen saint stories in In God's Garden. Written in a friendly story teller format, the book's primary audience is younger children, approximately preschool-age to 3rd grade.

Usually starting with the saint's birth and childhood, the story introduces children to legends and famous stories about that saint. Because of the fantastic quality of some of the stories, the parent may want to mention that some of the legends may not be true, like St. George killing a dragon, but we do know that the person was holy. In fact, the author does admit this in a few places when she comments, "Whether all this really happened we do not know; but one thing we are certain of . . . ."

Similar in style to Once Upon a Time Saints by Ethel Pochocki, the stories hold the reader's attention to the last word. Although the stories include facts from the saint's life, the stories are not biographies. They are stories written to introduce children to the saints and inspire them on to imitate their lives of holiness.

In the center of the book are color reproductions of paintings of the Saints by famous Italian artists such as Titian, Fra Angelico, Giotto, and others. The artwork is not dazzling compared to the bold, vibrant colors of some of today's picture books. They are, however, a way to introduce your children to some of the outstanding artists of the past.

A Catholic parenting humor book? Yes, it is possible. Tim Bete has the timing, the subtle humor and the Erma Bombeck training to take the early years as a new parent, and tell it like it is: from the 672 rules every parent must have in the average home to the bribing of children into toilet training, Bete, a father of three young children, never misses a beat.

One thing I liked about this book was that although I'm a mom, I had just as much fun reading it as any dad. In fact, there were times I thought, "Yep, I've been there, I'll bet Tim's wife told him about that," whatever that was (after all, how many dads are really directly involved in toilet training? How many get up in the middle of the night to the sound of a crying baby, other than to say, "Honey, I think the baby needs you," I mean?)

Fathers and mothers are going to have a great time laughing at the way Bete teaches his children about food, ("What do you think about chocolate french fries?" he asks his daughter. "Great! Can I have some?" she says. "How do you feel about green ketchup?" he asks. "Yuck," she says, then adds, "but could I try it on the chocolate fries?") or about playing by themselves (the way to get kids interested in their toys, Bete explains, is having more kids. "As soon as a sibling is playing with their toys, the child is suddenly intensely interested in them.")

Bete is pro-life, pro-children, pro-family and positively Catholic. And the fact that Barbie, Thomas the Tank Engine and the shepherds can all play together under the Christmas Nativity set is proof that he has real children.

The chapters are short, the stories are sweet, humorous and even touching. I found this book to be a great reminder of the fun and laughter of childhood, and a good reminder not to take parenting too seriously. The life-lesson reminders are good, as well: take time to talk with your children, hold them, read to them, and give them lots of love. Before you know it, you'll be taking your sixteen-year-old out for driving lessons, and remembering how you once had to put green ketchup on the chocolate french fries. Then suddenly--botta bing, botta boom--you become your grandparents, saying, "How fast they grow!" Excellent gift idea for a young or soon-to-be dad, as well as your own husband (Christmas, or Father's Day).

“This extraordinarily sensitive and insightful portrait of religious life centers on Philippa Talbot, a highly successful professional woman who leaves her life among the London elite to join a cloistered Benedictine community. In this gripping narrative of the crises surrounding the ancient Brede Abbey, Rumer Godden penetrates to the mysterious, inner heart of a religious community – a place of complexity and conflict, as well as joy and love. It is a place where Philippa, to her own surprise and her friends’ astonishment, finds her life by losing it.” – from the back cover

The Loyola edition includes an introduction by Phyllis Tickle and a few study questions. I found the introduction helpful and interesting; among other points, she said that Godden had lived "at the gate" of a Benedictine Abbey for three years while working on the novel, and converted to Roman Catholicism in 1968 (shortly before it was published). The study questions are rather meager for a volume of this size, but they could make a starting point for discussion.

Although on one level, In This House of Brede is simply an interesting novel, on another level it offers profound truths about the journey of a soul along its vocational path. Rumer Godden succeeds in giving the reader tremendous insight into the communal religious life through the various situations and conflicts involving the nuns at the fictitious Brede Abbey. Among other things, we learn about the process of formation: the postulancy and the novitiate, the real everyday life of the nuns, and the depth of the spiritual life of a contemplative community and how this impacts the world around it. The nuns are extremely well-characterized and very believable both in their human frailties and in their ability to serve as a channel of God’s grace.

Besides the enormous size of the book, it contains several themes that are not suitable for young readers, hence my recommendation that it be reserved for adults and mature teens. Among these themes are:

(1) the tragic story of the death of Philippa’s son – I found this a very difficult read myself

(2) a former employee (Penny) who has an abortion

(3) references to Philippa’s love life (prior to her conversion)

Other themes that may concern some readers include the financial crisis that the Abbess gets her community into and the discussions among the nuns regarding the election of Pope John XXIII and the second Vatican Council.

One quibble I have is with the wording when Philippa is counseling Penny to choose life for her baby. After Penny says that she wondered if she could “stop it” but her doctor wouldn’t do anything, Philippa responds, “Of course he wouldn’t. Doctors don’t like doing it even when there are strong reasons.” (p 404) Given that she makes several statements along the lines of “Babies … are people from the very beginning,” I don’t think she is implying that abortion is OK sometimes, i.e. for “strong reasons.” But it still bothers me.

Overall, I found this to be an excellent novel and I love the way that Godden portrays the action of Divine Providence in the lives of her characters.