Catholic Readers

Grandpa Karm's First Catholic Australian Reader

Book cover: 'Grandpa Karm's First Catholic Australian Reader'
Author(s): 
Karmenu Attard
"Grandpa Karm" has written a 20-page first level reader, illustrated with black and white clip art and holy card reproductions. The typeface is large and clear and easy for a new reader to follow. Self-published and bound with staples and binding tape, the book may not hold up well to repeated readings by boisterous young readers.

The story describes farm life in Australia, and the children have a kangaroo and a possum for pets. At the end of the story, the children learn the most simple truths of the Catholic faith.

A Book of Sanctity

Book cover: 'A Book of Sanctity'
A Book of Sanctity is a newly printed collection of stories gathered from numerous out-of-print Catholic reading books. These 27 selections center around the theme of sanctity and include Bible stories, stories of the saints, and stories of families. Most pages include a simple black-and-white illustration that enhances the interest of the story without distracting a young reader's attention.

This book is used as a reading text in Seton's 2nd grade program, but is available for sale apart from the curriculum.

This is Our Town

Book cover: 'This is Our Town'

This reading text is the first of three used in the third grade at Seton Home Study school. In the tradition of the Faith and Freedom readers, this book offers family stories centering around a parish Church and school, stories of saints, fairy tales, folk tales and some just plain silly stories designed for reading practice and pleasure.

Catholic National Readers: New Primer and Book One

I found this volume very useful for early reading practice with my first-grade daughter. We were able to move into this after she finished the Bob Books. The advantage I saw to this particular primer in contrast with the later series (Cardinal or Faith and Freedom) was that it was much harder for her to guess the words because of either the pictures or the heavy repetition so common in other early readers. The passages are very short, although not particularly story like. Some of the phraseology was rather archaic, such as "Has a boy the jug? A boy has not the jug." (p.

Catholic National Readers

Book cover: 'Catholic National Readers'

The Catholic National Readers were originally published in the 1890s by Benziger Brothers Publishing. They have been reprinted by Savio Books and Neumann Press in 1997 in hardcover editions. They are frequently compared to the McGuffey's Readers and are illustrated with charming pictures of the sort you'd expect to see in "antique" books.

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