My children have always loved picture cards for learning about subjects - animals, art, flags, etc. I love it when the cards are fastened together in some way so that they don't get lost and thus rendered useless. Catholic Cardlinks: Patron Saints is just the sort of resource that makes everyone happy!

Children will love (I speak from experience with my own brood) to befriend the saints with this charming resource that they can so easily hold in their little hands. Each elongated cardstock sheet has a colorful sketch of a saint (48 saints in all) with a short biography. The pages fan out so that you can see all of the faces at once. Or open to one at a time and spend a little time reading about your favorites. When I leave this sort of book laying in reach of my little ones (especially the pre-readers), they will become acquainted with the pictures over time and find their favorites that they ask me to read about over and over. What a nice way to help young children develop a devotion to a favorite saint!

I'm also delighted to see such colorful and creative resources being published for young children.

This set of colorful books for ages 3-8 are reprints of a Catholic magazine from the 1950s. They are filled with stories, games, picture puzzles, poems, crafts, etc. The pictures are beautiful and I like the very simple moral lessons many of the stories teach. (For example, when my daughter was three, she was very impressed by a story called "Peter the Picky Eater". Her eating habits changed and she honestly admitted that she wished I hadn't read it to her.) There are currently 20 volumes in print out of more than 60 that were originally published (unfortunately it may take quite awhile to find out what happens to Wupsy in the end!).

We have especially enjoyed the St. Therese stories from the first few volumes. These have been a favorite mostly among the preschool set in our family. While many Catholic homeschool parents treasure these books, there are two complaints that I've heard from a number of parents. First, some parents have bought the set thinking they would be nice for early grade school and found them to be more appropriate for preschool (as read-alouds). Second, the pedagogy at times doesn't hold up to serious scrutiny. Complaints include the sappy way in which the devil is presented in the Wupsy stories and the "self-righteous" expressions on some of the faces in the illustrations.

These two volumes of the Treasure Box Books contain a very simple story of Mary's life, appropriate for very young children. The full-color illustrations are quite charming. Please note that this story has the marriage of Mary and Joseph come before the Annunciation, which is not in accordance with the actual Bible account. Perhaps the authors felt that very young children weren't ready to understand this part of the story.

Update from webmaster, March 2024: Bible scholars tell us that what is often translated as "betrothal" was really the first part of a two-part Jewish wedding rather than an engagement; in the time of Christ, these two parts were celebrated on separate dates separated by as much as a year. However, the couple was legally married after this first ceremony although they would not live together until after the second. This is why Matthew 1:18-19 reports that when St. Joseph discovers that Mary (his "betrothed") is with child, "her husband Joseph" resolves to divorce her (or send her away) quietly — husband and divorce, because they are legally married. See this article for more details and some profound implications for familiar Gospel passages: No, Mary Was Not an "Unwed Mother." Thus, the Treasure Box account is (perhaps unintentionally!) rather accurate on this point.