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Bezalel Books has published a 2014 second edition of All Things Girl, Truth for Teens (the first edition came out in 2009).  This fabulous book, written by Cheryl Dickow, Peggy Bowes, Heather Renshaw, and Kayla Brandon, contains a wealth of information and practical advice for teenaged girls who are navigating the treacherous minefield known as adolescence.  For the next four days, the Kindle version, originally priced at $5.99, is on sale for $0.99.   If you are currently raising, or will one day raise, a daughter, you should really get your hands on a copy of this book.  Written in a conversational style that makes material that might otherwise seem too dry very entertaining and compelling, this book covers a variety of important topics. All Things Girl, Truth for Teens includes chapters on Relationships, Fashion, and Skin, Hair, and Make-Up, among a number of others.  It discusses practicing virtues, imitating the saints, and dating the right types of boys.  But most of all, t

This is my family (plus two friends) on June 10, 1974. I’m the one with the braids in the front. Terri is behind me next to our mom. Here is how our car looked thirty minutes later. Today is the fortieth anniversary of one of the saddest events in my life so far. On June 10, 1974, our family was driving to the annual Catholic Charismatic Conference at the University of Notre Dame. We began our journey in Spokane, Washington, where we had spent a weekend on retreat. Just outside Missoula, Montana, the car rolled over three times, landing in the median of the freeway. I was in the back with the seat down and no seat belt. So were two of my siblings and two friends. I ended up with stitches in my leg and a bump on my head. My sister Terri, who had been sitting next to me, was thrown from the car and died. She was ten years old. Why did God let this happen? Didn’t He know where we had come from and where we were going? Hadn’t He heard Terri’s voice, when

Ready to celebrate the rest of Lent as a family? Here are several activities you can do together, whether or not you homeschool. p=suitable for grades 1-3 m=suitable for grades 4-6 j=suitable for grades 7-9 s=suitable for grades 10-12  Books Besides reading the Gospel accounts of Holy Week, try reading and discussing the following books that deal with sacrifice, martyrdom, or resurrection: The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams (p). The Tale of Three Trees by Angela Elwell Hunt (p+). The Queen and the Cross: The Story of St. Helen by Cornelia Mary Bilinsky (p, m) The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis (p+ for reading aloud; m+ for independent reading). Continue reading at Contemplative Homeschool.

The tomb of St. Therese in the basilica dedicated to her in Lisieux, France. This week I began bribing my kids to help me finish my book. They each start with $1, and lose 5¢ each time they interrupt me with discipline problems or goofing around during school hours. We’re doing lots of worksheets right now! I wrote my final chapter of Trusting God with St. Therese on Tuesday. Now I’m doing some final rewriting and editing. I hope to send it out to a few Beta readers in about two weeks. Then there will be one more round of editing and final formatting before I make it available to select book reviewers. If you have sent me an email lately and haven’t heard back right away, please know that I am not ignoring you. I am just really  focused on my book until this stage is complete. I will try to reply to as soon as I can. In the meantime, here are some links related to Trusting God with St. Therese that you might have missed. I have 4 Pinterest Boards related t

Writing Trusting God with St. Therese , I have purchased or checked out from the library several book about the saint that I had not read before. I have also revisited some old favorites. There are countless books about Therese, but not all are of the same quality or focus. Here are some of my favorites, in brief. Throughout this year, I hope to give you more detailed critiques of them and others. I Believe in Love I Believe in Love: A Personal Retreat Based on the Teaching of St. Therese of Lisieux by Fr. Jean C. J. d’Elbee is by far my favorite book on Therese. In fact, it’s one of my favorite books of all time. I have given this book away twice before. I just received it for Christmas for the third time and am rereading it. The point that struck me most on my last reading was that we shouldn’t say, “I’m striving to love God.” Instead, we should simply say, “I love God.” Love is a matter of the will. If we truly will to love, we achieve love. Read the rest of

[part of the SmallSuccess link-up on CatholicMom.com] The pedicurist recoiled in horror when she beheld the extent of my callouses. "Callous cream," she sternly recommended, and then proceeded to chatter excitedly in Korean to the pedicurist next to her, presumably describing my icky feet in gory detail. After rubbing the magic callous removal cream into my feet and scraping, scraping, scraping, the pedicurist triumphantly raised the scraper with the incontrovertible evidence of my appallingly negligent foot care. She must have thought I had been herding yak barefoot over the Russian steppes all last summer. But, with six kids, I don't have time for weekly or even monthly visits to the nail salon. And I made a bargain with myself not to get that annual mani-pedi until my husband and I revised the proposal on our marriage advice book and sent it off to the publisher. As soon as I pressed the send button on the proposal, I hustled down to the local NAILS NAILS NAILS!

(photo courtesy of http://www.vosizneias.com) It's a measure of my attachment to this six-and-a-half-hour-long audiobook that would listen to it in my driveway when coming home from my commute, and I felt sad this morning when I finished listening it on my drive to my high-school teaching job. This book is for anyone interested in issues of faith, of history and culture and on a friendship that shapes the life of the current Holy Father. Indeed, I found echoes of one of my friendships in theirs. Keep Reading...

  I’m going to start critiquing some of the homeschool methodology/philosophy books I’ve read. Oliver Van DeMille (along with his wife Rachel) created the Leadership Education method, also know by the title of Oliver’s first book on the subject A Thomas Jefferson Education . I have garnered much from this philosophy. However, there are several points that I question from my perspective of a Contemplative Homeschool. I will discuss one such issue here: whether we should “push” our children to learn or wait “until they are ready.” The DeMilles take up the question on pages 20-23 of Leadership Education: The Phases of Learning. They are criticizing the work of Lev Vygotsky. Vygotsky “taught that teachers should observe students playing and intervene at a sign of interest to push them beyond their comfort level.” The Demilles argue that this works with adults, but not small children. They say that pushing kids teaches these lessons, among others: “Learning is wha

Finding good books for boys as they get older is always a challenge. Lat fall I put together a list of good books for boys aged 10-14 . You will see that the scope of it is limited.  On my blog, I want to introduce you to some of my favorites in more detail. Not all of these are on the list. A novel-length fairytale The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis are undoubtedly already on your radar screen. The Horse and His Boy is my favorite, and one of my favorite children’s books of any genre. It is the story of Shasta, who has been raised by a Calormene fisherman, but is light haired like the people of the north. When he overhears the fisherman negotiating to sell him as a slave to a lord, he runs away, taking the lord’s horse with him. The horse, Bree, is a talking horse from Narnia, eager to escape back to his homeland. Soon Shasta and Bree meet up with a young Calormene lady named Aravis, who is also running away with her Narnian horse. The foursome eventually get c

Continuing my reflections on the Minnesota Catholic Home Education Conference, I want to share with you some new resources I discovered. They might not all be new to you, but they were to me. God’s Covenant with You: The Bible Tells a Story by Scott Hahn and Stratford Caldecott, with illustrations by David Clayton, was published in 2009, but this is the first time I’ve come across it.  You are no doubt familiar with Bible scholar and convert from Presbyterianism Scott Hahn. This book presents his perspective on the Bible as the story of God’s familial covenants with man in language children can understand. David Clayton is an artist in residence at Thomas More College. He has filled the book with outline drawings that evoke icons and master painters. Your children can color the pictures or, as I prefer, try to copy them. As a fan of both Hahn and Clayton, I snatched this book up. I plan to use it to review the Bible after we finish the New Testament next year.

CatholicFamilyGifts.com offered me a free first-Communion gift to review and give away to one of my readers. Since my boys are currently interested in hidden picture books, I chose C an You Find Saints? : Introducing Your Child to Holy Men and Women. After the review, I will tell you how can enter to win this book. Can You Find Saints? is one in a series of four  books by Philip D. Gallery. The series also includes Can You Find Jesus?, Can You Find the Followers of Jesus?, and Can You Find Bible Heroes? Janet L. Harlow illustrated all four books. They combine hide-and-seek fun with learning about the faith. Given the cover and the genre, I was prepared for cartoon illustrations similar to the Where's Waldo? series. Harlow provides more than that. The inside front and back covers contain a parchment-like timeline of saints, beginning with Abraham. "Search 1: Mary Lives a Life of Perfect Virtue" delighted me with its depiction of the mysteries of the R

Last night - Good Friday -  felt like the right time to download on my brand new Kindle a book - really more like a 50-plus page essay, by L.A.-based writer Heather King called "Poor Baby," a raw meditation on her three abortions. No matter one's personal history, or one's political views on whether abortion should be legal, or one's moral belief as to whether abortion ever can be an ethical choice, this book is worth reading. In fact, I would say anyone with strong views about abortion should read this book with clear eyes and an open heart. We need King's voice in the conversation. Keep Reading....

In past posts, I have written on Peter Rabbit and the Fall of Man, Benjamin Bunny and the narrow gate , and the Epiphany in My Side of the Mountain . I am making this into a series called Finding God in children's literature . Before posting more on fiction, I want to examine how to find Jesus in the Old Testament. Let's look at typology with the story of Joseph in Genesis. Typology finds the things, people, or events in the Bible that prefigure more significant things, people, or events in salvation history. Most types are in the Old Testament. Most anti-types (what the types prefigure) are in the New Testament. Fisheaters.com has a fuller explanation of typology . Learn more about Joseph and Jesus.

Te Martyrum candidatus laudat exercitus .~ from the Te Deum When I wrote to Dr. Moss requesting her latest work The Myth of Persecution , I received a prompt and gracious reply assuring me of a copy. Dr. Moss hoped that I would not see the book as an attack upon the Church. I responded that I did not see the book as an attack on the Church and even if it was, the Church has been through worse. We have nothing to fear from the truth of history. After reading the book my reply is not altered. It is a well-written book with clear explanations indicative of a skilled teacher. However, I recommend Myth to others with reservations, since in spite of the genuine scholarship which Dr. Moss shares with us, there is a contemporary political slant given to the narrative which clouds the objectivity of how the historical evidence is presented. For instance, my cognitive processes are strained to envision St. Justin Martyr (pp. 109-112) and Glenn Beck (p. 250) as conf

I'm going to go ahead and review Mary DeTourris Poust's latest book, Cravings: A Catholic Wrestles with Food, Self-Image and God, without having finished it. This is a wonderful book. This a book on the relationship of spirituality to food and the first, its publishers say, written from a Catholic perspective. Keep Reading...

    I restrict book reviews on Contemplative Homeschool to those dealing with the spiritual life or home education. However, I volunteer to review Catholic fiction at Catholicfiction.net. My first review, on Rumer Godden's Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy, is being featured today. Please click through to read it and support new Catholic publisher Tuscany Press. A cautionary note: Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy deals with adult themes. Even the review is inappropriate for children. I also write reviews at Goodreads . I will slowly be adding reviews (as time permits) on many living books we use for homeschool. Look for recommendations to pair with specific Bible stories, virtue studies, or historical periods. I also review literature and non-fiction books for adults. Please join my circle of friends and share your favorite books with me as well!

    1. The Bible is the Church's book. The Bible was written by men of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Catholic Church, by the same Spirit, determined which books to include in the official Canon . The Bible tells our family story, from Creation through the early Church, with some previews of what's to come. 2. The Church urges us to read the Bible. Really. The stereotype of the Catholic Church suppressing Bible reading is false, a misreading of history. Vatican II included an entire constitution, Dei Verbum , on the Bible. "The Church 'forcefully and specifically exhorts all the Christian faithful. . . to learn "the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ," by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures'" ( Catechism of the Catholic Church #133, quoting Dei Verbum and Philippians 3:8). Continue Reading

Do you need new ideas for immersing yourself in the culture of life? You and your family can enjoy fiction that promotes the value of every human being. Here are four books  I particularly recommend. Two focus on the beginning of life, two on the sick and disabled. All ages: Angel in the Waters by Regina Doman I used this book to announce my last 2 pregnancies to our boys. Beautiful illustrations by Ben Hatke accompany Doman's lyrical text about a baby in utero and his guardian angel. Echoes of the creation story and John's Gospel delight the ear. "In the beginning, I was," the story starts. And later, "Sometimes it was dark, and sometimes it was less dark." (See the parallel with Genesis 1?) The story details a conversation between the baby and the angel that continues into infancy. The baby complains that the world outside the womb is too big and cold. His angel replies, "It is very big, but you will grow big. It will feel better