Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Book Review: The Young Life of St.Maria Faustina

Our Easter read aloud has been The Young Life of St.Maria Faustina by Claire Jordan Mohan. I'm afraid it has been a bit of a chore, though we did persevere to the end. In the past we have read and enjoyed other books in the same series (Padre Pio and Mother Teresa), but for some reason we just didn't click with St.Faustina. It is a perfectly good book about a perfectly good saint, but it just didn't capture anyone's imagination and I can't pin down why. Perhaps she was just a bit too good and naturally pious for Angel and Star to identify with? So I'm disappointed. I wanted to like it; I tried to like it; I wanted my daughters to like it. But it just didn't happen. Ah well, on to our next book ... if you are wondering, it is Our Lady's Book by Lauren Ford, in honour of Mary's month.

3 comments:

Mary G said...

Kathryn,

We read this too -- I think mine responded about the same as yours altho I did like it. I think one problem was that here was a very active and sure girl who persevered (I liked that part) but I don't think Mohan explained clearly and strongly enough WHY -- her absolute faith in her "chats" with Jesus.....

I could add a bit as we read the story because I had seen her convent and added the bits about JP2 going past her convent when he was young, etc. We also took about 3 weeks to read it!

Bottom line -- she's written better, but it wasn't too bad.

Anonymous said...

We read this book too. My kids liked it well enough. I was dissappointed that there was not more details about her aparitions and conversations with Jesus. So the kids didn't protest when we were reading it but they weren't claiming for it either.

Natalia

The Bookworm said...

I'm glad it wasn't just us!