Religion

Inspirational! Impressive! Instructional!

This picture book has a beautiful pro-life lesson for the very youngest among us to the oldest. It tells the story of a baby from conception through birth and into infancy without any details that will require further explanation to our little ones. Told in the first person, the text is brief and easy to read but contains far more depth than most picture books. Simple yet engaging artwork, with peaceful colors and a dreamlike quality, compliments the text. Even my 4-year-old noticed that at the baby's birth, the page backgrounds changed from dark to bright white; while I don't think that he recognizes the symbolism yet, it certainly captured his attention.

Without directly teaching, the author skillfully reminds us that life begins in the womb, with baby aware of sounds and light and warmth. The baby's guardian angel, depicted as a star rather than the traditional winged creature, is more spiritual than physical and accompanies baby from conception onward. The angel is intelligent and gentle while guiding and reassuring baby, hinting at eternal life beyond this earthly one.

My single regret is that this book is only available in a softcover binding. Destined to become a classic, it should be available bound in a durable hardcover.

If you, like me, had very little to no Thomistic Philosophy in high school or college, and would love to know more, this book is for you. What a pleasure for me it has been to read Aquinas 101 in preparation for this review. The book brings forth a surprisingly readable and sometimes funny Saint Thomas!

To begin, I quote from the publisher's site, Ave Maria Press:

A brief, engaging, and readable summary of the influential thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, one of the Catholic Church's greatest minds. In this clear, thoughtful and immensely readable book, Francis Selman offers summaries on some of the most complex topics in the writing of St. Thomas Aquinas. Selman deftly draws on the work of contemporary scholars while situating Aquinas in relation to the thinkers and schools of thought he was both confronting and drawing upon. The result provides an overview that places the thought of Aquinas both in his time and in our own.

The author succeeds indeed in both bringing the thought and philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas to students (or the interested reader) and in making it contemporary by referring to recent writings on St. Thomas.

The Prologue is a very nice biography of the saint's life, leaving the reader with admiration for him and interest for his thought. The language is light, down-to-earth, using quotidian anecdotes to shed clarity. Saint Thomas Aquinas comes through the book as a friendly, practical counselor. For instance, on page 114 we read:

For sorrow, St. Thomas Aquinas recommends four remedies: weeping, the company of friends, pleasure, and warm baths.

The paragraph that follows goes into the reasons St. Thomas believes these four remedies will help anyone in sorrow. So true, and so practical! Of course, the book also goes into more meaty philosophy, but it refrains from being too dense for the lay reader.

I also like the fact that Saint Thomas is referred to as Saint Thomas throughout the book.

In the Catholic homeschool, this book would make a very good choice for a High School introductory course on the philosophy of Saint Thomas.

This is a lovely gem of a book, covering about thirty saints, organized according to the calendar year, by their feast day. Like her previous publications from Bethlehem Books (Once Upon a Time Saints and More Once Upon a Time Saints), these stories are intended to capture the essence of holy men and women through the sometimes fantastical stories that are likely to capture the imagination of young children. Here is what the author wrote about her own stories:

Fairy tales clear the way for sanctity. They are the child's first morality play, clear-cut, no-nonsense black and white, good and evil, life and death - with a bit of fun thrown in to alleviate the pain. The lives of the saints, so filled with derring-do, gaiety, charm and courage, are all the more fantastic because the persons are real, even though they might seem right out of the pages of Hans Christian Andersen.

You will not find dates and statistics here, except where they seem necessary to explain how or why a saint got to his particular spot. And I have used the embroidery of legend because I feel that under its eye-catching trivia, there is the good homespun of fact. Sometimes it has been hard to discover which facts are the real facts. In reading six books about one saint, you may have as many versions of his or her death - he may have died on the battlefield, in the arms of a wife or son, pinned to a tree with seven arrows... or a combination of all three.

There was a little bit in the story of Juan Diego that bothered me (a little off on the Aztec story) and an aspect of the story of St. Nicholas that I thought pretty disturbing for young children. These little things make it probably better for a read-aloud with younger children (and really, it makes an excellent read-aloud!). A few spots made me furrow my brow or seemed just a little too silly, but these have been more than compensated for by some incredibly beautiful stories that are really well done.

One story that particular stood out for me was the one St. Paul Miki and St. Charles Lwanga. It has an absolutely stunning and incredibly appropriate explanation of the martyrs for children. Fabulous stuff and my children and I enjoyed the book very much.

Oh yes, and Ben Hatke's illustrations (he also illustrated Angel in the Waters by Regina Doman) are wonderful!

This is a lovely picture book about, naturally, beginnings. The simple but descriptive storyline, along with vibrant illustrations, take you through signs of new things - like a tomato plant, a tree and a thunderstorm. These capture the beauty of different aspects of God's creation, but only show the simple ways that we see what's coming next.

The story culminates in looking at the questions of where *we* come from and answers it in the simplest and most innocent way, focusing on the love of God who "chose the perfect place for you, inside the safe, warm shelter of your mother's womb..."

The author gives a nice balance in helping the child see himself as one part of God's beautiful creation, but one with a very unique role that exceeds that of the animals and plants around us and that was specially intended by God.