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Rather than take a morning vitamin, our family reads Saints for Young Readers for Every Day every morning! It is a two volume set, with a saint story for every day (sometimes two). The first volume contains saints for January to June, the second volume covers the rest of the year. This hardcover set is a little expensive, but worth the money. We leave it on the kitchen counter, and do a daily reading with breakfast each day. The stories are well-written, engaging, and always one or two pages in length. There are black and white line drawings that accompany some stories. Both volumes are fully indexed. The whole family enjoys the readings, from toddler to teenager. Highly recommended.

This is a detailed (and rather intense) history of the eight French Jesuit martyrs who worked among the Huron Indians in North America in the 1600s: St. Isaac Jogues (1607-1646), St. René Goupil (1608-1642), St. Jean de Lalande (died. 1646), St. Jean de Brébeuf (1593-1649), St. Gabriel Lalemant (1610-1650), St. Antoine Daniel (1601-1648), St. Charles Garnier (1605-1649), and St. Noël Chabanel (1613-1649).

This is an important piece of American History that is often ignored in textbooks or twisted to some degree (in part, I think, because of the animosity between the English and French early on in American History). The book is carefully detailed with an extensive bibliography and source citations throughout the text. A number of these Saints personally wrote detailed accounts of their work in North America; writings which still survive and which were extremely helpful in compiling a definitive, but accessible book. Readers will gain significant insight into the Huron and Iroquois Nations and the history of the French in Eastern Canada.

Everyone should give themselves an opportunity to be inspired by these missionaries, however. If these men were, by the grace of God, able to endure horrible living conditions, travels on foot through bitter cold, and death around every corner to bring love and hope to the peoples of North America four centuries ago, should we not be willing to do a small part in bringing Christ to the 21st century? Should we not consider that someone needs to bring love and hope to nations that are besieged by war, violence and hate; and to America's inner cities?

Read and be inspired. The stories of these heroic men might actually make the tasks and challenges of our own day seem easy!

Here is a brief portion that highlights some of their challenges and successes:

The Hurons, Brébeuf reported, "acknowledged the Commandments to be very just and very reasonable. They thought these were matters of great importance, worthy of being discussed at the councils." They admitted the logic of his conclusions about God and His attributes. But, alas, "They know the beauty of the truth," he commented sadly; "they approve of it, but they do not embrace it... They condemn their wicked customs, but when will they abandon them?" The step from belief to action was a long step, and they hesitated to pass from acknowledgement of God's existence to conformity with His laws.

Among the young, progress was more marked. Three little girls had mastered the catechism so thoroughly and gave such clear evidence of interior piety that Brébeuf and Daniel judged them ready for Baptism. Inviting the whole village to attend the ceremony, which took place on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8, they performed the ritual with all possible solemnity. The chapel was thronged with Hurons when the three girls, beautifully appareled and ornamented with strings of wampum and porcelain, renounced Satan and all his works and received the waters of regeneration.

The Jesuit community that morning dedicated the Huron mission to the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin. They promised to offer twelve Masses in the ensuing year toward accomplishing in Huronia the erection of a permanent church named after the Immaculate Conception. "We believe," wrote Brébeuf, "that the Blessed Virgin has accepted our humble devotions. Before the end of December we baptized twenty-eight."

This book is suitable for adults and possibly older teens. Some of the accounts of torture, death and living conditions might be too disturbing for younger teens.

Cast: Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, et al.

Saving Private Ryan is the story of a band of soldiers in World War II who are assigned to find and send home Private James Ryan who is missing and whose three brothers were all killed in action within a short period of time (at or around the time of the Invasion of Normandy). The men struggle with what they see as a wasteful public relations assignment - particularly hard to deal with after their horrific and bloody experiences on D-Day. In the midst of this task, the movie portrays a number of the very difficult kinds of situations that soldiers were forced to deal with - simple danger, dealing with civilians, feelings of vengeance for a fallen "brother", and other ethical and moral difficulties.

In many senses, this is a great movie. Unlike most World War II movies (which seem to either glorify war or have an anti-war theme), this movie attempts to portray accurately what it was like to be a soldier during World War II. There is a great deal of truth portrayed in the movie about the difficulties ordinary men faced amidst the evils and horrors of war. I thought it interesting that Deal Hudson, editor of Crisis magazine, has credited this movie with a revival of patriotism, interest in World War II and general appreciation of the World War II generation among young people of today. However, this is a very difficult movie to make any kind of general recommendation about because the violence (particularly the storming of the beaches of Normandy) is very intense and bloody, however accurate . There are also questions of language and a few mild-to-moderately risque stories told by the soldiers. Overall, I would recommend this only to adults with a fairly strong stomach (although some of the scenes could be edited with the fast-forward button for the more sensitive types) and suggest that parents should decide for themselves whether or not to permit their older teens to watch it.

Saxon 2 covers the arithmetic topics of addition and subtraction of one and two digit numbers and simple multiplication and division as well as the related topics of patterns, graphing, time, measurement, money, geometry and estimating. Although it uses manipulatives it is not a "manipulatives-based" program.

Each day's lesson begins with oral exercises called "The Meeting" during which use of a calendar, counting, time, money, and patterns are practiced. The actual lessons follow and are completely scripted in the teachers edition. They are designed for four days of new material and one day of review. Math facts are practiced every day as well, using flash cards provided with the kit and fact sheet drills in the workbook.

The beauty of Saxon is repetition. Concepts are introduced and then reinforced over and over again. In Saxon 2 there are games, art projects and physical activites as part of the lessons which provide a break from strict pencil and paper work. My children had been doing a strictly manipulative based math program previously so I thought they wouldn't like Saxon, but they love it. I believe it is because of the variety of activities.

One drawback to Saxon is the price which is close to $100.00 for the homestudy kit. The kit includes a teacher's manual, workbook, meeting book and cardboard manipulatives and flash cards. It can be found in discount catalogs or used from fellow homeschoolers. It requires a set of manipulatives which can be purchased separately at teacher supply stores or as a kit from the source given by Saxon and various homeschool catalogs.