Books and Advent books -- Part 1

Books we love right now:

A huge favorite right now, Flower asks for this book at bedtime every night. This book tells the story of a wolf who terrorized a little city because of his fiercesomeness. The city sent a knight in shining armor to slay the wolf, to no avail. Then the city sent an army of soldiers to slay the wolf, to no avail. Finally, the city agreed to send St. Franics, and he quickly made peace with the wolf, and taught him that as God's creatures, we should love everyone. St. Francis brought the wolf to the city so the wolf could apologize to everyone for scaring them, and the wolf lived happily ever after with the city folk.

 

You will fall in love with these owl babies ( we have !) who worry and fret because their owl mommy left them in the middle of the night.  Of course, the mommy comes back.  She had been out hunting for food for them.  This books show the stability and love of family and mothers, and that fear is an acceptable emotion.

Books we'll be reading during Advent:

This book describes the tradition, believed by some sources to have been started in Guatemala by Saint Hermano Pedro de Jose Betancourt, the first Saint who lived and worked in Guatemela, of reanacting Joseph and Mary's plight in Bethlehem to find lodging on that holy night that the Christ Child was born.   (Some sources point to St. Ignatius of Loyola as the originator of Las Posadas.)

Las Posadas (the inns): This Mexican custom is really a Christmas novena, begun on Dec. 16, which is acted out. Nine homes or families in the neighborhood are selected in advance to represent the posadas or inns. Each night of the novena the families taking part form a procession and make a pilgrimage to one of the inns. They carry candles and sing hymns depicting the story of Mary and Joseph traveling to Bethlehem. Songs are sung at the door of the "inn". On each of the first eight nights the family of the "inn" sings a little song which indicates that there is no lodging for the Holy Family, and Mary and Joseph are sent away. But before they go, the whole procession, singing, passes through the rooms of the home. On the last night the procession is admitted to the house in which a Christmas crib with a manger has been set up. In many places refreshments have been made a part of the evening's ceremonies in all nine houses. This practice of Las Posadas makes the preparation for Christmas more real.

Saint Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe have feast days on December 9 and 12, and we'll be learning more about them with this book:

Jesus, of course.  Beautiful illustrations!

A Mexican tale is told in this next book of how the Pointsettia came to be associated with Christmas.

OK, so I love Tomie de Paola.

There's a wake up angel, a bath time angel, a kitchen angel.  This Angels Angels Everywhere book explains to the child that our guardian angel is present to help us in our every day life activities.

   St. Nicholas helps three of the youngest angels in heaven play a big part in the Christmas celebration this year in heaven !  I love that this story feastures St. Nicholas instead of Santa.

Almost all of the above books I bought second hand (or third hand) from Amazon and saved quite a bit of money that way.  There's something special about a book that looks and feels as though it has had a long life -- the worn edges and sometimes dog-eared pages mean it has been loved.  So when I get a used book in the mail, I love to see if I can tell who might have been its previous or original owner.  One of the above books came from Queens Library in New York, and another from the Reading Library in Reading PA.  The Reading Library marked the book "DISCARD."  How can anyone discard a book !

And one for myself (because Tiffany and Patty both recommended it).  I think I'm going to love this book:

I'm finishing the last pages of this book:

Therese, The Saint Who Loved Us, is a very easy read, flows very nicely, and has separate chapters on the different time periods of St. Therese's life.  The end of the book has a chapter on two poignant sections of her original writings. 

Advent Books Part 2 is HERE.