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Have you ever considered motherhood to be your vocation? Have you prayerfully considered the various daily duties and burdens of your state in life? Do you think that prayer time will have to wait until your children are older? until the dishes are done? until the entire house is decluttered? Do you long for the peace of the monastery? A nap? A clean house? A day in which all he schoolwork is completed? This is the book that will help you learn how to "do it all" without losing your mind or spending a fortune, while you and your family grow in holiness and peace.

For those of us who are "schedule-resistant", a rule of life is not a schedule; it is much, much more. Mrs. Pierlot defines a mother's rule of life as "an organization of everything that has to do with your vocation based on a hierarchy of the priorities that define the vocation and done with the intent to please God." She describes these priorities as the "5 P's": Prayer (basic spiritual needs), Person (basic physical needs), Partner (being available to one's spouse), Parent (being available to one's child(ren) ), and Provider (through work outside or inside the home). Thorough descriptions and real-life examples show you how to think through your own situation to analyze how each of these essential responsibilities fits into your rule. The final chapters on the heart and spirit of the mother's rule tie the entire process together and encourage the reader in implementing her rule without scrupulosity. .

A Mother's Rule of Life is not a book that you will read from cover to cover in one sitting and suddenly say "A-ha!" You will need to read this book several times: at least once to understand the major ideas and get excited about beginning the process of developing a rule; a second time to appreciate both the enormity yet the simplicity of the task at hand; and, a third time to absorb the details of the process in an effort to apply them to your own unique situation. Writing and living by a rule will not be an overnight process for most women; it will require periodic changes and updating within an overall framework. Even so, the time and effort spent will yield tremendous dividends as you live out your vocation every single day. Reading this book may also lead you to reading and studying more about the saints and Catholic teaching through many quotations from Catholic sources that the Catholic mother may wish to learn more from. As an aside, Mrs. Pierlot relates an unusual step in her path towards God regarding her need for prayers of deliverance. Any reader wishing to understand this issue better may wish to read An Exorcist Tells His Story and An Exorcist: More Stories by Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the chief exorcist of the Catholic Church.

A Mother's Rule of Life is one of the two books that I have been recommending recently to anyone interested in Catholic motherhood. (The other is How to Raise Good Catholic Children by Mary Reed Newland.) The ideas are not especially new or earth-shattering, but they are imbued with a Catholic focus and organized so that you can get right to work, step by step, without becoming anxious or overwhelmed. This book provides a good healthy dose of hope for every Catholic mother.

There are only a few books that I know I'll love even before I see them - and this was definitely one. Picture book afficionado Cay Gibson serves up a delicious array of picture books of all sorts to discover and savor for yourself from your local library (and hopefully start a collection of your own as well).

I'm a big fan of picture books - especially the beautifully illustrated ones that are wonderfully in fashion at present (my habits run along the lines of prominently displaying them in our house to inspire reading, purchasing picture books to coordinate with our homeschool studies - particular in history and science, and even, occasionally, reading picture books aloud to unsuspecting dinner guests) and I'm delighted to have this great place to start to discover many new titles.

The substance of this book is comprised of essays on the value of picture books and how to incorporate them into your lives along with numerous creative and inspiring book lists. Here is a sampling of the booklists you'll find:

List for Teenaged Readers and Reluctant Readers

Children's Hour (A Twelve Month Historical Timeline along with supplementary reading in subjects like science, art, music and language arts)

The Never-Ending List of Children's Authors and Illustrators

Teaching Virtues Through Books

Spanning the Globe

Read Across America

Let's Get Cooking with Literature (Picture Books about Cooking and Recipes)

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Black History Month

Around the World and Beyond with Cinderella

Gardening Treasures

Immigration Booklist

Pioneers and Westward Movement

World War II

Christmas Booklist

This is the sort of book (further enhanced by spacious margins and room for additional notes) that I can readily imagine dragging to the library and to book sales and keeping track of which favorites we've read and which ones we own. A very welcome addition to our home library and one that also looks to be useful in making purchasing recommendations to our public library. I've only read a small portion of the recommended books so far, but I eagerly await discovering many new favorites.

Though this book was written by a Catholic homeschool mom (and includes a number of fine, specifically Catholic titles), its scope is quite broad and would be of interest to many parents, teachers and librarians.

Available from the author's website.

I really enjoyed this quick and easy-to-understand guide to St. Paul and his writings. Well, perhaps "easy-to-understand" isn't fair, because the topics covered here on the writings of St. Paul are not easy ones. Yet this is a reasonably accessible place to start and might even be usable, with some guidance, for a teen Bible study group.

I've always been a fan of good writing in small packages (in this case approx. 4 x 6 inches) because not only can I get to the heart of the matter fairly quickly, but also conveniently as the book can be stashed in my purse.

This book opens with a fairly detailed biography of the great saint with subtitled sections to make it easier to follow (great for moms who get interrupted a lot from their reading!) Even though I've read (and watched) biographies of St. Paul before, it's hard to keep the details straight in my head. This overview was a very helpful refresher - and also one that can be turned to again and again.

The largest chaptert of the book is on "St. Paul's Thought". This is perhaps the most unique aspect of this book and a particularly welcome read in this year of St. Paul. It provides an extremely helpful overview of what St. Paul has given to Catholic theology. A quick read-through of the sub-section titles is helpful: "Why a Pharisee? Why Saul?", "The Word of the Cross", "The Good News of Salvation", "Salvation and Sonship", "The Importance of Covenant", "The Scandal of God's Fatherhood", "We Are 'In Christ'", "The Church at the Center", "Faith and Works", "The Problem of Pain", "Glory in the Cross".

I found the chapter on "St. Paul's Letters" to be particularly helpful because, even though I've read all of his letters before, and some numerous times, there's always so much more to learn. Also, I don't tend to have a ready grasp of which letter was significant for which reason. This includes a paragraph or three overviewing and explaining each of St. Paul's Epistles.

The book is rounded out with some reflections on "St. Paul and Us", a "Quick Reference for Catholic Doctrines and Practices in St. Paul's Life and Work", "The Quotable St. Paul" and "Prayers to St. Paul."

Highly recommended!

I recently came across a program entitled A Reading Program for Overcoming Dyslexia by Cheryl Orlassino. My eight year old falls under the generic term of dyslexia. We've been struggling the last two and half years with reading. We have not completed the book yet as I only ordered it a month ago. So far so good---he does not clam up and cry every time we start our reading/phonics lesson and is beginning to decode on his own without just memorizing the words. In fact, he's writing words from his lessons all over his art work. (My son is an avid little "illustrator".)

The book contains 55 well laid out lessons (you know, open the book and teach without prior preparation). I have found that the first two lessons can be done in one sitting but from lesson three on dividing the lessons into two sessions seems less overwhelming. The difference between this program and others we've tried unsuccessfully is the following:

1. Consistent repetition
2. Giving the reluctant reader more consonant/vowel blends to practice---not just the basic phonograms
3. Taking the consonant/vowel blends and presenting them in different orders so the brain can learn and reinforce the visual input
4. A nice balance between oral and written drills and dictation.
5. Teaches and drills high frequency words

This is not a beginning reading program. The author notes that a student needs to know the alphabet, basic sounds, and how to write before beginning her "reading boot camp". Consistency and repetition are the key to this program. Hence, it is a big lesson in self-discipline for both student and parent. It is imperative to drill from the lessons and read to the child everyday--- as in seven days a week.

The book cost about $28--$30. It is spiral bound softcover and printed in black & white.

For more information: www.yourkidcanread.com
Reviewed by: Christine Hamel

Available from: www.yourkidcanread.com

Christine Hamel is a Catholic homeschooling mom of 4.