Picture Books for All Saints
by Melanie Bettinelli on November 01, 2011
Some time ago someone asked me for a list of some of our favorite saints books and I keep remembering and feeling bad that I’ve never got around to writing it up. I was thinking of that request again today both because of today’s feast and because I checked a lovely saints book out from the library last week that I’d love to add to our personal collection. (Not by design that picking it up from the library. A happy coincidence—or shall we say a nudge by an angel?—led me to spot the book on the shelf and to remember I’d enjoyed it the last time I checked it out. I didn’t remember at the time that All Saints was fast approaching.)
But as it turns out I’m too tired to even attempt anything like an exhaustive list.
So I’ll just mention the library book and give you a rain check on other saints books:
The book was More Saints: Lives and Illuminations
The main reason to get this book is that it has beautiful pictures. Really lovely artwork wins my heart every time and will almost lead me to overlook slightly less beautiful text. Fortunately in this case that is not an issue. There is a nice solid page of text for each saint, not just a few sentences, and it manages to do what almost all children’s compendium saints books like this fail to do: it tells interesting, engaging stories that make these saints into real people not just cardboard cutouts. There’s a really nice selection of saints who are old favorites and some that are new to us.
These are books I really should add to the Christmas gift list because even though it’s available from the library, we won’t check it out every time and this is a volume worth having at my finger tips.
Well, there you go. I’m trying very hard not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I wanted to give you a nice fat list of all the saints books we have; but Anthony needed me more this evening. So instead I’ve given you just two that we don’t have. Still, it’s more than you maybe had before.
Now tell me, what are your favorite saints picture books?
Comments
This looks beautiful, Melanie! I agree on illustrations. Sometimes the artwork in saint biographies can be a little off putting?
Posted by Jennifer on 11/2/11 at 08:01 AM
Melanie I was going to say that I liked the Little Books of Saints by Pauline. Even though they are very ordinary, they included Teresa of Avila and Blessed Mother Teresa for my youngest daughter. I checked the link for the book you reviewed those saints are listed in that book as well. I think I have yet another book to add to my wish list. The Little Book of Saints Books are nice that they are inexpensive and small so easier to take along and better if you have children who are rougher with books.
Posted by Becky D. on 11/2/11 at 08:07 AM
Well, David’s favorite is Tomie de Paola’s The Song of Francis, because he likes all the birds. It’s one of the few books from the library he requests by name.
But my favorite is The Holy Twins by Kathleen Norris (and illustrated by de Paola) because while the story is primarily about Saint Benedict, Saint Scholastica is still in every illustration. And the portrayal of their sibling relationship is just delightful. It is wordier than other picture books though. I’m amazed David sits through it so nicely when he just loses interest in Cars and Trucks and Things that Go at 1/3 of the way through.
Posted by GeekLady on 11/2/11 at 11:43 AM
Jennifer, I will qualify my rave by saying that some of the illustrations are better than others. St Therese still looks kind of sweet and nondescript. (Why do they always do that to her? It’s not even like we don’t know what she looked like. We’ve got photos for crying out loud!) But in general this one is head and shoulders above other saints books.
Becky,
We do have several of the Little Books of Saints by Pauline. Like you say, they are great for shoving into a bag to bring along to Mass and I don’t mind if they get a bit beat up. I don’t think they’re terrible but they don’t get high praise from me either. I think the art is kind of holy card generic and the biographies are kind of generic too. They’re good enough for what they are; but my general impression of them and of most saints biographies in children’s compilations of that kind is that by themselves they don’t make the saint feel like a real person and they won’t inspire children to love a saint. They are biographical notes but not stories and little children really need a story with a beginning, middle, end and conflict in order to feel like the person is real.
The stories in Lives and Illuminations books are about twice as long. They have more colorful anecdotes and more personal details and do include some conflict. For example, the biography of Therese of Lisieux mentions her illness and vision of the smiling statue, her failed petition to enter the Carmel early, her boldly speaking to the Pope while in Rome, etc. Enough details to tease out a sense of her personality and perhaps entice a child to find out more.
GeekLady,
We’ve enjoyed all of the Tomie de Paola biographies that we’ve read. We don’t own The Song of Francis but we’ve checked it out from the library a few times. We have two copies of the Holy Twins and I agree that it’s one of my favorites. (With a son named Benedict, people are bound to make sure we have it.) Like you say, it’s wordy but Ben has sat through the whole thing too.
We also have the one on St Patrick and the one about Our Lady of Guadalupe, which of course tells the story of St Juan Diego. We may have more, somehow I can never remember all of the ones we’ve got.
Posted by Melanie Bettinelli on 11/2/11 at 02:24 PM
It always makes me sad to walk into the Catholic bookstores here and see really rubbishy kids books with creepy artwork and not a bit of de Paola’s work to be seen!
Posted by GeekLady on 11/2/11 at 05:27 PM
I just wrote new copy for the first Lives and Illuminations book for the new Catholic Child catalog. I LOVED IT! It was absolutely gorgeous. So glad you feel the same way
Posted by Dwija on 11/2/11 at 07:29 PM