Shoebox Sam

Shoebox Sam Mary Brigid Barrett & Frank Morrison Zonderkidz, 2011 Let’s get to straight to the point: I love this book.  Really, really love it.  It has everything that Sarah and I look for in great theological children’s literature and is easily in my top 10 favorite books that we’ve reviewed here on the blog. [...]

Let the Whole Earth Sing Praise

Let the Whole Earth Sing Praise Tomie DePaola Putnam Juvenile, 2011 This Christmas my daughter was given a copy of one of Tomie DePaola’s most recent books, called Let the Whole Earth Sing Praise, and after a single reading I knew I wanted to review it here.  It’s a wonder that we haven’t reviewed more [...]

Liturgy and literature

Being a disciple of Jesus is not primarily a matter of getting the right ideas and doctrines and beliefs into your head in order to guarantee proper behavior; rather, it is a matter of being the kind of person who loves rightly – who loves God and neighbor and is oriented to the world by the [...]

We Three Kings

We Three Kings Gennady Spirin Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2007 As Sarah wrote last week, Epiphany is the season between Christmas and Lent in which Christians through the ages have traditionally pondered Christ’s identity and mission.  So, while I did intend to review this particular book two weeks ago (oops), I gave myself permission to go [...]

Embodying Epiphany

I grew up in the Christian church, but my first conscious encounter with the word epiphany was in AP English my senior year, after reading James Joyce’s short story “The Dead.” I wrote a paper about the function of epiphany in the story, turned it in with fear and trembling (this was a teacher who was [...]

Brother Sun, Sister Moon

Brother Sun, Sister Moon Katherine Paterson and Pamela Dalton Handprint Books, 2011 According to tradition, Francis of Assisi composed The Canticle of the Sun (or Laudes Creaturarum, “praise of the creatures”) toward the end of his life, around 1224. Written in the Umbrian dialect – rather than church Latin – it is a beautiful song praise [...]

Books for the New Year

Happy 2012!  We’ll be back into the swing of things here on the blog next Monday, so please stop by then.  In the meantime I wanted to pass on the link for the CYBILS 2011 finalists.  If you haven’t discovered the CYBILS children’s book awards yet, you’re truly missing out!  This is their sixth year [...]