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This beginning reader set provides young students with small activity booklet/readers that can be read at a very primary level. The author combines simple words that can be read phonetically with one or two sight words in each booklet that the child will learn to recognize (words like: "look", "go" and "the"). I thought the illustrations were more appealing than those found in the Bob Books.

A number of the stories include a blank to insert the reader's name and a few family names into the story. I thought this was a clever idea since many children to learn to write and recognize their own name even before they are reading. There are also little puzzles, word-and-picture matching and writing practice.

The "Ready for Reading" booklets are very appealing to little children (who always seem to love little books, especially when they come in a neat package), and I'm sure there are many four and five year olds who would delight in having these little workbook sets for their special schooltime. Even as I write, my almost-five-year-old has been asking and asking for me to finish reviewing these books so that she can use them and color them in.

Using "Angela" as an example of the reader's name (that the reader or parent can fill in), these are the titles of the booklets - "The Angela Book", "Angela Can", "Angela's Family Book", "The Pig is in the Mud", "The Big Hat", "Little Christina" (younger sibling name to be filled in), "Is it a Cat?", "Yes-No Workbook", "Go to Bed", "Treasure Hunt", "Dog is Fed", "Angela can Bat".

The booklets have glossy, color covers and black and white illustrations that could be colored in by the child. The text includes teaching suggestions in small print right alongside the student work! These include helps for common problems that children run into.

Elizabeth Foss, mother of seven homeschooled children (ranging in age from 16 down to toddler), has done a great job synthesizing her approach to "educating a child in the heart of the family given to that child by his Creator" in her book, Real Learning: Education in the Heart of the Home.

The book mixes Charlotte Mason's educational philosophy (lots of living books, short lessons and "masterly inactivity") with pithy quotes from Edith Stein, Pope John Paul II and other Catholic thinkers and educators. She points out that although Charlotte Mason and Edith Stein never met or read each other's writings both emphasize the "absolute necessity of engaging the whole child - heart, soul and mind - in order to educate him".

For the first third of her book, Foss explains her philosophy of educating in the home. It is a different way of looking at how to homeschool. She explains that no subject should be an entity unto itself but instead, all courses should feed off each other. Learning becomes then such a part of the student's world that learning is a "24/7" activity. I especially like that teaching the Catholic faith to our children is not taught in a vacuum. Liturgical celebrations - the cycle of feasts and famines - enliven the school year. The Catholic Church's actions and her many heroes illustrate different periods of history. Liturgical music (classical, chant or contemporary) defines different music styles. Art takes off by incorporating the study of various forms of religious art - iconography, renaissance, church architecture and others. Religion passes from textbook memorization into the heart and soul of the student, to carry them through to adulthood. The Catholic faith is lived in the heart of the home.

Mrs. Foss points out this is not a "how-to" book, but rather a "fly on the wall" perspective of real learning in the Foss (and other) household. Each home will develop its own curriculum. She has detailed quotes from other homeschooling veterans who also use their own form of Charlotte Mason education.

Suggestions for reading books, a sample unit study for Advent, and quotes from other "real learning" homeschoolers make Real Learning a very usable, practical guide to develop your own "real learning" curriculum. I read it at the beginning of my journey with my little ones and again about halfway through. Each time I took away so much more. I'll read it again this summer to refresh my teaching "in the heart of the home".

When I first read aloud Mary Daly's First Timeline to the children, it was the first time I had ever heard of the story of the young Chinese Princess and the cup of tea where the silk strands first unravel revealing themselves... such a captivating story.

Then Mary asked me to illustrate it for wider publication... and I just loved doing the Chinese teacup!

Well, last week at the library, browsing as I always do through the new picture books, I found a Chinese princess and the tale of the discovery of silk! I knew it as soon as I glanced at the cover.

Red Butterfly: How a Princess Smuggled the Secret of Silk out of China doesn't quite tell the same story as Mary's First Timeline-- but Mary's story, an old Chinese legend, is included in the Author's Note at the of the beautifully illustrated hardcover.

The story of the book, also based on an old Chinese legend, happens later--when silk was part of Chinese life and had yet to be known to the rest of the world. The Princess, about to leave her homeland to be married to a foreign prince, decides to secretly take with her something that will always remind her of home.

A darling picture book, to be enjoyed by kids of all ages, and bringing forth life in a different culture, a long time ago, and how materials things such as silk are easily taken for granted today.

Father Mateo was the pen name of a Catholic priest who was also a professor at a prominent university. From 1987 until his death in 1996, he hosted the “Ask Father” forum on Catholic Information Network.

“In 1987, Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical Mother of the Redeemer (Redemptoris Mater), asked all Christians, ‘Why should we not all together look to Mary as our common Mother, who prays for the unity of God’s family?’ Stung somehow by the Pope’s friendly words and bothered by ‘a campaign to revive Marian devotion in the Church,’ CRI [the Christian Research Institute] goes on the attack. ‘The time has come for a Protestant response. Just as surely as a man cannot ‘take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned’ (Prov. 6:27), Catholics cannot renew their emphasis on Mary without injuring ecumenism.’” (from the Introduction)

This 101 page book is a detailed response to a two-part article from the Christian Research Institute, but also an excellent, engaging introduction to Marian apologetics and a beautiful confirmation of Church teaching – even using Protestant sources to help refute CRI and to back up his arguments!