Two Days and One Suitcase
A story for ages 6-12
Imagine you learn that there are kids your age living in a prison with their families. None of them have done anything wrong. It is racial prejudice and fear that has put these people there. Then imagine that your family volunteers to live in one of these places to help the people who are imprisoned. That is what twelve-year-old Helen Hannan experiences in 1945. She hears about these prisons before most other Americans do. Traveling to a place called Camp Amache with her brother, sister and parents, she quickly discovers this is no summer camp. The families at Amache are living in crowded, cold barracks, behind barbed wire fences, with armed guards watching them from towers. Helen learns to cope with this. She experiences the cost of racial prejudice. She struggles to understand how some people can hurt others so badly. But she also makes many friends, and learns that everyone loves French fries! Most importantly, Helen sees first hand how vital it is to act on your beliefs. It is quite a year for Helen.
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Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, Lily of the Mohawks
Illustrated by Kevin Davidson
Catholic Book Award, 2012
A picture book to share with children ages 3-9
How did a little Mohawk child born in the 1600’s in North America, weakened, scarred and orphaned by small pox, growing up in an wilderness away from any formal education, become a great mystic and holy woman? This book tells the curious and touching story of Kateri Tekakwitha, who was canonized in October 2012
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That Baby in the Manger
Illustrated by Chloe E. Pitkoff
A picture book for ages 3-9
It is just a few days before Christmas and the first-graders are gathered around the manger scene. They gaze at the waiting statues and the manger—each child wants to identify with Jesus, but he doesn’t look like any of them! An inspired solution comes just in time for Christmas, and shows how Jesus and his love came down for all of us.
Click here for the study guide!