Feast of the Great Martyr Katherine! . . . and a Saints' book review

Happy Nameday to all Katherines today (or yesterday) . . . and this includes my sister! This is a funny feast because it is November 24 on some calendars and November 25 on others. We have Tsaritsa Catherine the Great to thank for that craziness, but that's a story for another day. What a wonderful story St. Katherine's life is! We read it this morning and my boys loved hearing how St. Katherine showed the philosophers to be fools and even converted the Emperor's wife (who was then herself martyred).

I wanted to take a moment to use this feast to plug another book I really like. It is Saints: Lives and Illuminations published by Eerdman's. It's not specifically an Orthodox book, but it is a collection of brief lives of many pre-schism saints, so all are saints of our Orthodox tradition. The lives are quite short: just a paragraph or so. And each is illustrated with a lovely colorful depiction of the saint. They are not iconographic. They are much more Western and realistic, but are still respectful and quite lovely. I was pleasantly surprised to find this book in a children's bookstore about six years ago. We've been enjoying (and giving it as gifts and buying it for our church bookstore) ever since. I really like that these stories are quick and easy to read, but beautifully tell the lives of our major saints. This morning instead of reading the life of the saint from the Prologue, we used this instead. Anytime we can read a life with an illustration, my kids are even happier. Some of the other saints included in this book are John Chrysostom, Nicholas of Myra, Great Martyr Barbara, Scholastica and Benedict, Columba, Mary of Egypt, Moses the Ethiopian, Brigid, Nina, Constantine and Helen, Patrick of Ireland, Monica and Augustine, Great Martyr George, Spyridon, Ephraim the Syrian and many others.

Nativity Book #11 - Grandpa Bear's Christmas

This is the eleventh of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.

Today's book proves why it's good for us to do this tradition. It's a Christmas book which has been on our shelf for years . . . and we've never read until today. I honestly can't remember where or how we got it. Maybe one of my reader's gave it to us a while back?

Grandpa Bear's Christmas is a set of four Christmas stories about a bear family. It's not really my favorite book and a little too wordy, but as is usually the case with such books, my kids were transfixed. Why do they often love the books which I find to be a tedious? Anyway, not a bad book, just not my favorite. Two of the stories are about Santa Claus, so if you like to avoid such stories, avoid this book. It's not really at all about the Nativity, but is a nice look at a family and a good relationship between a Grandfather and his grandchildren.

When little brother learns from big brother . . .

. . . sometimes it's disastrous (like light saber fights and mean language), but other times its delightful and funny. Today, is one such example of the latter. I've realized that 3yo has been learning Ancient Roman History. Seems he's pretty clear on the date of the fall of the Roman Empire. All day he's been walking around reciting:

"476, Rome was in a fix, Little Romulus bid farewell, and powerful Rome fell."

Nativity Book # 10 - The Shepherd's Christmas

This is the tenth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.

Wow! It's already day 10 of the Nativity Fast! We're already one quarter of the way to the Feast of the Nativity (at least for those of us on the New Calendar)! This fast always passes too quickly.

Today's book is a nice Christmas book from the Archbooks collection available from Concordia Press. I wrote about this collection here. The Shepherd's Christmas is one of the better books in this series. The illustrations are a little too cartoonish for my taste, but the story is nice. It's short (good for wiggly three year olds) and is a retelling of the Christmas story from the perspective of the shepherds. It is specifically about a little boy shepherd who witnesses the Birth of Christ (and the coming of the angels) on his first night to watch over the sheep with the other shepherds. The message in the end is that though the boy is afraid, he finds comfort in Christ. Today it provided a nice opportunity to stop and talk to the kids about this idea when we're already otherwise distracted by preparations for Thanksgiving!

Nativity Book #9 - The First Christmas, A pop-up Nativity book

This is the ninth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.
Our book for yesterday was The First Christmas, A pop-up Nativity book from DK Publishers. My boys got this as an Advent gift from my parents several years ago. It was really fun that year because it comes with a little pop-up Nativity set made from card stock. It was quite fun to play with these that first year. After that, the clutter got the better of me and the little paper figures went to the trash. But the book is still fun because it has some great pop-up scenes on the pages.

Nativity Book #8 - The Little Boy's Christmas Gift

This is the eighth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.

Today's book was one of my favorite books by John Speirs: The Little Boy's Christmas Gift. It is a lovely tale about the journey of the Magi which is akin to the story of The Little Drummer Boy. It is illustrated with gorgeous illustrations inspired by the work of the Brueghels and old illuminated manuscripts. My boys love to find the little boy following at the back of the caravan in each illustration.

Nativity Book #7 - The Story of Mary the Mother of God

This is the seventh of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.
Yesterday's book was The Story of Mary the Mother of God written and illustrated by Dorrie Papademetriou. Since Nov. 21 is the Feast of the Entrance of the Mother of God into the Temple, we opened and read this book. I love this book mostly because I really love the bright illustrations. It tells the story of the life of the Mother of God in simple words for all ages, including her birth, her entrance into the temple, her and the Annunciation.

Nativity Book #6 - The Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple

This is the sixth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.
Today's book we opened and read as a preparation for tomorrow's feast: The Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple. It is part of the Feasts of the Church series by Sister Elayne which I described here. It is available from Archangel Books here. (By the way, Archangel books has a very nice online store, but their storefront is even better. If you are ever in the St. Louis area, it is really worth the trip. It's a lovely store with lots of Orthodox books, icons, unique gifts and many neat "finds" which I haven't seen in other Orthodox book stores.)

I love the story of the Entrance of the Mother of God: how she entered the Temple at the age of three led by virgins carrying lamps. This morning my boys were really surprised to realize that she went to live in the Temple at the age of three and was fed by the angels. What a beautiful history we have as Christians!

Nativity Book #5 - The Miraculous Child

This is the fifth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.
Today's book is The Miraculous Child which is a Christmas folktale from Russia, told by Aleksi Currier and illustrated by Nadezda Glazunova. This is a beautiful story about almsgiving and the miracle of the Christ's love for us. It is told in verse, which is a little long for smaller children, but my 7yo really enjoys it now. And in fact, my 3yo listened attentively to it this afternoon, when offered a snack to eat while listening. In some past years I have just paraphrased it because just enjoying the lovely illustrations was enough

Boys will be boys . . .

Why, oh why, do boys insist on beating each other up? I remember my brother and cousin doing it. I've heard stories about my uncles, my dad and my uncle, and my husband and his brothers, but it still continues to baffle me. Why does playing necessarily involve beating on each other? The fact is, it does. And it especially does around here now as the weather gets cooler and we're inside more and more. I had been intervening whenever I heard one of those bloodcurdling screams coming from another room. But now, I've resolved to take a more laissez-faire approach. They can come to me when they need me to work it out. Otherwise, I will intervene when there are serious injuries (and then with harsh punishment in most cases). We start out the day with a reminder to "go easy" on each other, and then often refresh that at lunch time when Daddy is home. But, if they are both doing it maybe they need to fight it out? I don't know.

Yesterday was one of those days. I told my husband that I think throughout the afternoon there was rarely a period of more than 10 minutes which was scream-free. Sure we had a nice poetry tea time and got some reading and other schoolwork done, but much of the afternoon was just hitting, pushing and screaming. At one point near the end of the day, I was in the kitchen making dinner. Both boys were in the living room playing. I heard an awful scream coming from 3yo. I started to run to the rescue, but then checked myself and decided to wait and listen. 3yo screamed for a few seconds, then I heard 7yo's voice:

"I'm sorry, I'm really sorry. Really I am. OK, now you can beat me. Beat me now. Do it! As hard as you can!"

I didn't hear any more noise, so I guess 3yo agreed and the problem was solved.

Five minutes later, more screaming. Then 7yo's voice again:

"Sorry. But you do it now. You toss me down, OK? Do it hard."

Whatever. I guess if it works and they still love each other . . . Boys!

Nativity Book #4 - The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey

This is the fourth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.

Today's book is my husband's absolute favorite: The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey by Susan Wojciechowski. The illustrations by P.J. Lynch are really beautiful and the story brings tears every time we read, well every time HE reads it because he is usually the one to read this story aloud. I think he likes it because it is about a woodcarver and he loves to carve wood. But, really this is a lovely story about love, death, family, children and a special set of Nativity figures. The text is beautifully written, but is a bit long for children under 4 or 5. I sometimes paraphrase it for my younger son, because the illustrations are beautiful and can still captivate him with my paraphrased text. My oldest son loves all of the text, and in fact, a few of the quotes from grumpy Mr. Toomey have become regular sayings around our house.

This book was made into a full-length movie last year, but we haven't see it yet.

Nativity Book #3 - Treasury of Christmas Tales

This is the third of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here. This morning we unwrapped a big collection of Christmas Tales.

For many years, we've enjoyed this collection of Christmas stories called Treasury of Christmas
Tales compiled by Susan Quattrocki and Susan Spellman. It includes some abbreviated classics like "A Christmas Carol" and "The Little Match Girl" as well as some other original stories. This afternoon we read "The Magic Toy Shop," "The Littlest Angel" and then sang along with "The Twelve Days of Christmas" with some fun illustrations. Just some light Christmas fun to help us start thinking about the feast we are already beginning to anticipate.

Nativity Book #2 - Elizabeth's Christmas Story

This is the second of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here. Today's book is Elizabeth's Christmas Story from the Arch Books series from Concordia Publishing House.

I love this book because it is about my patron saint, and there are not many children's books about the Righteous Elizabeth. It tells the story of the Conception of John the Baptist, the Meeting of Elizabeth and the Mother of God, the Nativity of John the Baptist and the Nativity of Christ. It is part of the Arch Books series, published by a Lutheran publishing house, Concordia. I read Arch Books with my parents as a child and loved them. Of course, they aren't Orthodox, but they are Bible stories and are (usually) pretty true to the Scripture, though sometimes with a little bit of story embellishment. They are all told in rhyming verse which is sometimes a little cutsey, but not all bad. New ones have been published every year since the 1960s. So, there is now a huge set of them and they vary in their quality (especially in the quality of illustrations: some are really cartoonish, others are nicer), but some are quite good. I think the older ones are better than the recently published ones. We have a whole set of around 200 that had been published as of 2004 (I told you we have a lot of books). My oldest son received them as a gift from his great grandmother and uncle a few years ago. I really like having them around because they are great for times when I want a quick rendition of a certain Bible story. There are LOTS of Christmas ones, so you'll see them reappearing as I post about our Christmas books. The other thing that is really nice about them is that they are very inexpensive. If you just want to buy one, it's only about $2.50 and can be purchased directly from Concordia.

Nativity Book #1 - The Annunciation

This is the first of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here. The Nativity book we opened on November 15 was The Annunciation by Sister Elayne, with beautiful illustrations by Bonnie Gillis, published by Conciliar Press. It's available from Archangel Books here. I really like this series of books about the feasts of our church. The watercolor illustrations are beautiful and combine icongraphic and folk elements. The text is lovely poetic verse which is filled with profound statements about the mystery of our faith. Sometimes the text is a little too much for little ones, but the illustrations provide good fuel for conversation about the feasts and I'm finding that my 7yo is starting to really enjoy the verses as he gets older. Of course, we started out with this story as it is the beginning of the Nativity story and also the beginning of our salvation as this is the Annunciation is the moment of the Incarnation!

Forty Books of Nativity

We're starting a new Advent tradition this year and I'm very excited about it. The fact is, we are book addicts at our house. Really, we have a problem. Books are everywhere, in every room, packed into every bookshelf and also stacked when there isn't enough shelf space. We have three full bookshelves of kids books alone. University teaching, dissertation writing, choir directing and homeschooling doesn't help the problem. Our collection just keeps growing.

But one of the things I always regret at the end of the Christmas season is that we never manage to read all of our wonderful Christmas books. Last year I posted about some of our favorite books here. This year, I found a great idea for reading our Christmas books on this blog (thanks Ashley!). In their house, they put up the Christmas tree by November 15 and they wrap up all their Christmas books and place them under the tree. Then the kids can unwrap and enjoy them throughout the Christmas season. Wonderful idea! And a great way to make sure we enjoy all of our Nativity books and prepare ourselves spiritually for the feast.

We put up our tree on St. Herman Day (December 13), but I thought we could still use this tradition. So, this past weekend, I gathered up all of our children's Christmas books. I had about 25. Then, with a little creativity (pulling in books about various saints and feasts during the fast period and also some Bible story books from which we can read the Nativity story) I managed to pull together 40 books! I wrapped them all (yes, I'm that excited and crazy) and put enough for the first two weeks in a basket by the fireplace. We'll be opening one book each day and reading it. Once it's opened, it goes in another basket to be enjoyed again through the Nativity season. The kids are so excited about this! And frankly, so am I. I'll be posting information about each book we read on a daily (or almost daily) basis here.

Happy Nativity Reading to all!