This is a meditative book, divided into a six week program of daily readings and meditation ideas, based on the Passion of Christ. Ideally, and Dubruiel suggests this, this book would fit in perfectly with a Lenten reading plan. However, the book can really be started any time. In addition to individual use, the book is well suited for a small group, as it contains discussion questions at the end of each section. These questions could be used individually, to help you get as much out of the reading and meditation as possible, or in a group.

As a busy mother, I really like books that I can read a little bit at one sitting and then put it down. I tend to get snatches of time, rather than long bits, and so the length of these chapters and the amount of material covered was just right for me.

If you are looking for a book to help you meditate on the cross, if you need something to help you work on some particular suffering you are dealing with, or if you just simply want to enter into the passion more deeply with Christ, than I think this would be an excellent book for you.

The book covers:

• God's unique purpose and mission for you.
• How to overcome the evil that you have suffered at the hands of others.
• To find God's presence in difficult times.
• The keys to unleashing the power of the cross in your life.

Click here to download a free study guide on the publisher's website.

Three Other Reasons to See Prince of Egypt: racially truthful, stealthily pro-life, realistic portrayal of sin
I admit, our family went to see The Prince of Egypt because of William Donahoe's recommendation. The Catholic League plugged the newly-released animated picture on the story of Moses in its newsletter as well as in an Internet message. So we joined my family at Christmas in a rare trip to the theater, along with my dad (who was going to see it because Chuck Colson had recommended it).

When we emerged from the theater, all of us agreed that there was more reason to like this film than the facts that a.) it was completely clean b.) and it was not by Disney.

I had been told of the technical perfection of the animation and special effects. This is true - the film is stylistically executed by DreamWorks with the perfection of any Disney movie. The parting of the Red Sea is spectacular. It has its share of chases, escapes, and comic moments, with strong female characters and funny animals. The story is simple to follow - so clear that my toddler son burst into tears when baby Moses had to leave his mommy to be adopted by a strange lady. I had expected all these things.

But I wasn't expecting any more than an exercise in clean filming of a token Biblical story to please the Christian market. Prince was more than that. Here's three reasons to go see the film that have nothing to do with the political battle over children's movies.

First, Prince is racially truthful. This is the first Biblical movie I have seen in which none of the characters - none - were Caucasian. Personally I am tired of depictions of our Biblical fathers and mothers that insist on giving them fair skin and sometimes blue eyes. Both the Hebrews and the Egyptians in Prince have the bone structure and skin color of their races, which I found refreshingly (not politically) correct. Aren't the Jews and Africans sometimes right when they accuse American Christians of making the Gospel into "a white man's story?" Certainly these are the images we usually give our children. Prince was a definite step in the right direction.

The filmmaker's choice to tap the heritage of the black community in using a music style inspired by Gospel spirituals was wise and effective. For its audience of children, it provided a further link between the Biblical characters and the African heritage. The Hebrew songs - particularly the children's hymn which heralds the day of Israel's freedom - were wonderful touches. My personal favorite was "Through Heaven's Eyes," the song of Jethro, Moses' future father-in-law, done in Arabian style.

Second, there was the undercurrent of a pro-life message. The catalyst of Moses' transformation from a selfish prince of Egypt who never looks twice at his servants to the deliverer of Israel is when he discovers that his "father," the Pharaoh, commanded the slaughter of the infant Hebrew boys. His father justifies this as population control: "the Hebrews were too numerous." Moses, who can't imagine being related to slaves, begins to feel compassion first for these countless baby victims, whom he narrowly escaped joining. A sense of the enormity of the crime is overwhelming in different parts of the film. While not explicit, a pro-life message comes through. The last line of the film "Deliver us!" became for me a personal prayer for an end to our nation's holocaust.

Third, the movie shows clearly the effects of the most deadly of sins - pride. This film underscores the fact that the bulk of the plagues upon Egypt were the result of one man's selfishness and unwillingness to change - the Pharaoh Rameses. What makes this moral tale so believable is that the film explores the character of the hard-hearted Pharaoh in his boyhood friendship with Moses. "Don't be the weak link in the chain," Rameses' father tells him, unfairly punishing him for things he didn't do. The fact that Moses truly loves his foster brother and has compassion for his internal struggle even as the two face off as adults raises the caliber of the storyline. Moses begs Pharaoh to yield for the sake of the Egyptians suffering from the plagues, but Rameses, tormented by the sores and pests of the plagues himself, remains bitter and unyielding. He has lost the ability to feel compassion for anyone else. When he announces that the slaughter of Hebrew children will begin again, he brings down the plague of the death of the first-born upon himself. Faced with unwittingly causing the death of his young son, he temporarily agrees to let the Hebrews go. The stark portrayal of the effects of mortal sin has probably never been rendered to this depth in cartoon form before.

Having seen the movie, I would nominate it for an Academy Award. And along with William Donahoe and other Christian leaders, I can now say that I certainly hope that the movie industry makes more movies like Prince of Egypt (how about a sequel?). If you go to see Prince of Egypt, you'll "send a message to Hollywood," but you and your family will enjoy yourself as well.

The Princess and the Goblin is a classic fantasy novel written in the late 1800s by George MacDonald. The story features all of the elements of a great fairy tale: a young princess, a brave hero on the verge of adulthood, subtle magic, and more goblins than can be counted. There is enough adventure to keep the story moving, but the plot is not overwhelming or difficult to follow. There is nothing to recommend a caution for: no rough language, no adult situations, and very little violence. The violent scenes were in the context of the battles between good and evil and avoided gory descriptions. We read this novel in a beautifully illustrated edition; it is worth looking for one that has the lovely full-color plates.

But more than that, the story is written on several levels and can be enjoyed by many different age groups. After reading The Mysteries of Life in Children's Literature, I was anxious to begin reading this book aloud to my children. I had hesitated, thinking that my mainly-male audience would protest a "fairy tale". Their reaction surprised me! All of the children looked forward to the next chapter of the book, although the 9- and 12-year-olds enjoyed it the most.

If you, like us, have voracious readers always eager for, sometimes demanding, new reading material, Margaret Whalen Turner’s Queen’s Thief series is definitely worth a try. Set in a fictionalized version of Greece in something like the sixteenth century, the series continually reveals Mrs. Turner’s love for Greece, its landscape, mythology, learning and even politics. The stories are set in three small adjoining countries, Sounis, Eddis and Attolia. Political relationships among these three kingdoms drive the macro-plots, with their internal struggles influenced by the encroachments of the powerful Medean Empire. The central characters present a wide variety of personality, each heavily formed by the political role they must play as leaders of their nations. The ambitious, not terribly clever but committed King of Sounis; his diplomatic advisor, the learned Magus, trying to serve his King while looking to the broader interest of an anti-Mede peace in the region; the down-to-earth, good-hearted, understanding Queen of Eddis who rules through her barons’ love and loyalty; the cold, beautiful Queen of Attolia, driven to ruthlessness by the need to assert her rule over barons who would use or destroy her. Mrs. Turner effortlessly develops what could be merely stock characters into unique individuals, rich, interesting, believable. Her masterpiece is Eugenides. His office is an ingenious creation of Mrs. Turner’s – the Queen’s Thief. Part spy, part saboteur, yet a hereditary office of nobility and no creation of the state ruler, its powers and responsibilities mold Eugenides’ character. In many ways immature, or liking the freedom of playing the immature role, Eugenides enjoys pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes, which his intelligence and wit allow him to do. Yet his commitment to his office and his queen leads him to greater and greater sacrifice as the stories unfold. Eugenides’ pain, more prominent in the second and third books than in the first, is intense and convincing. He grows into maturity through difficult choices and sufferings until, in the most recent installment, he becomes a model and guide for a young friend thrust into a kingship he did not want. Tremendously important to Eugenides’ development are the gods. Like other aspects of her stories, Mrs. Turner’s presentation of the gods reminds me in some ways of CS Lewis’s Till We Have Faces. First introduced through myths shared around the campfire by the Magus and Eugenides, the gods become real participants through their providential interaction with and on behalf of Eugenides. Mrs. Turner’s gods are providential yet not comforting, demanding not by commanding but by their stern, austere, simple superiority. Eugenides encounters the gods not as a child or a favorite. He is someone from a different world, out of step, unsure of what is expected or how he is to relate to them. I think of Oedipus at Colonus when I read Mrs. Turner’s account of her presentation:

What I wanted to create was a pantheon that might have inspired in my characters the same feelings that the ancient Greeks had for their gods....or would have had if a civilization like theirs had developed for another thousand years without the rise of monotheism.

Eugenides cannot manipulate the gods, or fool them, or cajole them. He simply has to obey them--not because of threats or rewards, but because they simply belong to another plane of being that must be obeyed. Nor is it that he doesn’t revolt, or at least drag his feet. His relationship with them is fascinating, and at times ruefully funny in a way that many Catholics can understand. In The King of Attolia, Eugenides gripes about the way they treat his many sacrifices:

"No 'Glory will be your reward for me’. Oh no, for me, it is, 'Stop Whining' and 'Go To Bed' …I should know better. Never call on them, Costis, if you don’t really want them to appear.”

Amazon considers the books appropriate for the 9-12 age group. This seems to indicate the vocabulary level, and perhaps reflects the light-heartedness of much of the first book in the series, The Thief, narrated by Eugenides himself. But the wit and fun of that book will certainly entertain older children, and themes, plots and characters of the rest of the series are satisfying to adults as well. Like Eugenides, Mrs. Turner likes to keep a light, self-deprecating tone in her storytelling and yet knows how to intensify the writing as appropriate. The series has become favorite read-aloud material for our family, who keep me going much past what I know should be the time to stop. Mrs. Turner excels at leaving little clues about the deeper layers of the plot in such a way that continually surprises us at its unmasking, and rewards our re-reading with a delightful sense of “I get it now” and “How clever!” I accidentally discovered The Queen's Thief series through reading an application essay for Thomas Aquinas College. I am grateful to that student for introducing me and my family to an excellent reading experience.