Mature Teens
here.now. a catholic guide to the good life
The world claims to have the answers, but what are they? Please yourself, answer to no one, claim your truth, reject any close-minded or intolerant positions, be tolerant and diverse and accepting of other truths, whatever they are, except if they are intolerant.
If these are the answers, what are the questions?
When young people ask themselves:
Angels in Iron
Angels in Iron is the absorbing tale of the siege of Malta in 1564 between the Knights of St. John of the Hospital (a military religious order) and Suleiman's forces. Suleiman, the most famous sultan of the Turkish Ottoman Empire (who has at this point significantly expanded his empire) has grand plans to conquer the world - and that includes Malta, the new home of the Knights of St. John of the Hospital. The Grand Master of this order witnessed their surrender at Rhodes (their former home) when he was a young knight. Now he is determined to hold on to Malta to the bitter end.
Fahrenheit 451
Fahrenheit 451 is on the reading list of almost every high school in America, and with good reason. It is thought provoking and hip. There are reasons to love this book and reasons to worry about it. It is Bradbury's reaction against censorship and the blossoming of television. Some of the things he writes about have come true in our time, which makes his story all the more intriguing.
First the story: it is in the future, but not too far off, with global war looming. The protagonist, Guy Montag, is a fireman.
The Passion of the Christ
This is a powerful film; it made me weep, and turn away, and flinch. During much of the movie I was thinking, "I'm sorry, Lord, I'm sorry". My husband and I walked out of the theater barely able to speak, feeling raw and emotionally exhausted. It was absolutely the most intense movie I've ever seen, and every time I began to think, "It's only a movie", I also heard, "He really went through this."
Life is Beautiful
This serves as a tamer, but every-bit-as-powerful, version of Schindler's List (at least in-so-far as it portrays the reality of the Nazi concentration camps and the hopelessness and unfairness suffered by its prisoners). Perhaps because this is a "fable" rather than biography, it manages to portray the awfulness of war in a more subtle way - without all the gore and through the eyes of a child. It's still quite intense, though, and would only be suitable for teens and adults.
Dawn of All
This book, together with its counterpart Lord of the World, is an early venture into the "speculative" genre of fiction. Written in 1911, it could be considered early science fiction with its descriptions of future technology, but it is really much more a religious and philosophical exploration of the effects of belief systems on society.
Lord of the World
Lord of the World, written in the early part of the 20th century, is an intelligent and Catholic fictional extrapolation on the trend towards Modernism described and condemned by Pope Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis and Lamentabili Sane
To Kill a Mockingbird
This modern classic, set in the segregated South of the 1930s, is the story of two young children who learn about life and the great character of their father, Atticus Finch, as he struggles with a difficult case in which he must defend a black man wrongfully accused of raping a white woman.
The story is told through the eyes of the younger child, a nine year old girl. This charming perspective, related in an authentic Southern dialect, makes for a surprisingly innocent way of tackling some rather tough topics.