Shadows: Visible & Invisible is a collection of short stories by seven authors and is centered around the All Hallowtide Triduum of All Hallows’ Eve, All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day. These fictional stories are meant to help teens learn more about the history of these important days on the Church calendar through engaging tales.
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There are a handful of words most people will never misspell. They are the words they once misspelled when they got knocked out of a spelling bee. Mine are lunule, hexafoos, and hagiography. The last one is pertinent here:
Hagiography: (1) biography of saints or venerated persons. (2) idealizing or idolizing biography
Hagiography sounds like an arcane word, obscure and maybe old and stodgy. Maybe that has to do with “hag.” Unfortunately, that’s sometimes how the lives of the saints come across. Through misperception or stale storytelling, the lives of the saints may seem boring or irrelevant. They are quite the opposite!
Holiness is relevant in every time and place throughout human history, and achieving that holiness is the result of inherent struggles, often heroic ones. Sometimes the tension between good and evil is played out in dramatic fashion as in the lives of martyrs. Sometimes it is an internal struggle hidden behind a cloister wall. In both cases, there is tension ripe for a good story.
If you’re looking for lives of the saints (and blessed) stories that will highlight that struggle in ways that are relevant and relatable, told in compelling novels, I have five recommendations to get you started. Find these books and more saint novels at CatholicTeenBooks.com/saint-stories.
Continue readingCatholic Teen Books is sponsoring two HUGE giveaways for Catholic school libraries. Schools may enter to win either a Junior High or High School bundle of books – or, if a K-12 school, BOTH.
Then faculty, staff, families, and students can vote for their school, earning more chances to win!
Find all the details at Catholic Teen Books.
Contest is for brick-and-mortar Catholic schools in the continental United States only. Contest ends September, 30, 2023.
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Looking for a simple summer reading program for yourself or your teen? Catholic Teen Books has you covered. Read a book in each of three broad genre categories to get a bingo, then enter to win! (See the bingo card below.)
Choose from among the nearly 100 books listed at CatholicTeenBooks.com. Categories can be found under the menu tab “Books,” so you can easily see which categories a title might fulfill.
When you’ve got a bingo, enter online. At then end of summer, one winner will be chosen by random to win $50 in books! See all the details and find the entry form at CatholicTeenBooks.com.
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This sturdy board book with bright, simple illustrations is an ideal introduction for very young children. It accompanies Mary, Mother of Jesus and Jesus, Savior of the World, so that toddlers can meet each member of the Holy Family.
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Incorporating literature written from a Catholic worldview into the Catholic school classroom is easier than ever. The books featured below are representative of what is available from contemporary Catholic authors.
Each of the authors below are members of Catholic Teen Books, and this is a just a sample of what you’ll find there: well-written fiction in a variety of genres. For educators or those organizing book clubs, most books also provide either a discussion guide, study guide, teacher’s guide or curriculum guide.
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An attack by bandits in the middle of the night leaves a young boy with no memory of who he is or where he is from. Nursed back to health by the devoted monks in a Benedictine abbey, he takes the name Alexander, or Xan for short. Aided by the kindly Brother Andrew, Xan commits himself to finding out who he really is.
Does he have a family? Are they still alive? And who—or what—is the shadowy figure creeping around the abbey in the dead of night?
Embark on an adventure while reading Shadow in the Dark as young Alexander tries to recover his memory and, with his new friends, uncover the mystery of the shadowy figure in the dark.
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