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Showing posts with the label Children's literature

Introducing Your Kids to Two Francises -- the Pope and the Saint

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"Don't forget the poor," whispered Cardinal Gomez of Brazil to Cardinal Bergoglio of Argentina at the moment of Bergoglio's election to the papacy. These words inspired the new pope to take the name Francis in honor of the saint who loved Lady Poverty. As St. Francis of Assissi's feast day approaches on October 4, now would be a wonderful time to introduce your children to the two Francises through some great new releases from Paraclete Press. 1.   St. Francis and Brother Duck , by Jay Stoeckl, is a charming presentation of the story of St. Francis of Assissi in a graphic novel format. Francis' constant companion is the fictional Brother Duck.  Read more...

Yertle in Babylon

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This post is part of an occasional series called Finding God in Children's Liter ature , in which I look at children's books in light of the Bible and Sacred Tradition. All correlations between these books and the Christian faith are my own insights, unless otherwise noted. You may quote me or link to these posts, but please do not re-blog them or use these ideas as though they were your own. Thank you. Yertle the Turtle by Dr. Seuss is the story of a proud and power-hungry reptile. He starts out as king of a pond of turtles. Unsatisfied with that, he commands his subjects to stand on one another's' shells in a stack, while he climbs to the top. The stack of turtles keeps growing, despite the protests of the turtle on the bottom, named Mack. Yertle believes he is king of all he can see, so the higher his throne of turtles goes, the more powerful he becomes. Eventually, he over steps and the stack of turtles collapses. At last, Yertle is only King of t