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There is a whole lot be liked in this book, beginning with the title! The author has researched numerous interesting anecdotes about the lives of these two holy men so dear in the heart of many Catholics and non-Catholics alike, and the result is a fresh, easy to read and captivating double-biography.

An attractive format, crisp, clean layout, this will be a good resource for any homeschooler needing an overview of the life of our beloved John Paul the Great and a glimpse into the contemporary pope Benedict XVI as well. Susan Provost Beller does a fine job telling of their childhoods, the world they grew up in, their family sorrows and of their personal temperaments.

This is a compact, readable story of the life of Pope Benedict. It focuses mainly on his young life and early manhood and moves quickly through his 24 years as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The most interesting parts are the descriptions of Pope Benedict’s life as young Joseph Ratzinger, a youth in Germany during Hitler’s reign. It’s obvious God had special plans for Joseph as he and his family were spared the more rigorous persecution others endured. Joseph’s father was able to see emerging evil in the events of the times and prepared and protected his family from them by moving out to the country when the children were young. They were able to continue to practice their faith and Joseph and his brother were able to begin their seminary studies.

I picked up Phonics Pathway because the Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer recommended it in the first edition of The Well-Trained Mind. When I mentioned to a friend that I had bought this book, she wrinkled her nose and said, “Let me know what you think,” implying, of course, that I probably wouldn’t think much of it. Nothing could be further from the truth. I love Phonics Pathways.

It’s not every day that a picture book is written about a Pope, especially from the point of view of a cat.

Joseph and Chico is the delightful story of Pope Benedict XVI’s life as told from the viewpoint of Chico, a cat who lives at his residence in Bavaria. With a lively conversational tone, he relates the life of Pope Benedict XVI, beginning with his birth and touching on the important events in his life.

While the story is longer and more complex than an ordinary children's picture book, the author’s gift for storytelling and humorous comments kept my two daughters’ attention the whole way through. The illustrations are not spectacular, but they do offer a nice, bright, colorful complement to the text.

This is a fantastic reference book for a wide variety of reasons - especially for those who don't have Internet access or who don't want their children to do searches on the Internet.

Our Sunday Visitor has been publishing an annual Catholic Almanac for over one hundred years. Teachers, educators, parents and many others will find a great deal of useful and well-organized information at their finger-tips.

The text is divided into four main sections with numerous sub categories beneath each one. Here's a quick overview:

Part One: News and Events:

This is a friendly little introduction for children to the small ways that they can show love to God. It's a combination of a book of manners (since there are explanations of how to behave at Church - and why) with a simple devotional theme that is accessible to young children. What a great idea!

We discovered this little gem years ago, after falling in love with two of the authors' other books: The Good Master and The Singing Tree. I was thrilled to recently discover that Bethlehem Books is bringing it back into print.

The story begins in a small village near Prague. In this village, young girls are expected to leave home and work as servants in the big city during their early teen years; returning home at the age of sixteen, with experience in all manner of household service and ready to start their own families.

The sequel to Surprised by Truth provides even more stories of how the grace of God, the witness of others and important conversations about the truth, brought these men and women back to the fullness of the Cahtolic faith.

These are relatively short (usually about 20 or 30 pages each) autobiographical essays from Catholic converts. The stories cover a numer of converts who are becoming well-known for their vibrant Catholic ministries of various sorts, and so you may have heard the names Marcus Grodi, James Akin, Steve Wood, Tim Staples and Dave Armstrong before). Because of the variety of authors, the reading levels and vocabulary used vary greatly - some are simple and succinct and others more complex - but all are compelling in their own way; all help to shed more light on what it means to be a Catholic and why the Catholic Church is so different from other beliefs.

This is the Study Guide for Beginning Apologetics 1, reviewed above. It can be used in a discussion group setting or by families or individuals, and contains questions which can be answered by references to the Catechism or to Scripture (the specific passages are cited so students can research them).