These are relatively short (usually about 20 or 30 pages each) autobiographical essays from Catholic converts. The stories cover a number of converts who are becoming well-known for their vibrant Catholic ministries of various sorts, and so you may have heard the names Marcus Grodi, James Akin, Steve Wood, Tim Staples and Dave Armstrong before).

I was introduced to the series as a high school freshman. I enjoyed the text very much at that time (even though I was working with a photocopy). I was equally impressed with the Sophomore text when I taught with it nearly ten years later.

The first book, Our Goal and Our Guides, focuses on understanding our goal in life – attaining Heaven – and spiritual and doctrinal issues that are related to that goal (such as the roles of faith and reason, the liturgical year, the Blessed Trinity, the Fall, and Salvation through Christ).

This is the intriguing and classic story of Artaban, the "other" wise man who searches for Jesus his whole life while "foolishly" spending his treasures - which had been intended as a gift for the newborn king - on the poor and needy. A beautiful and touching story, it is quite short, but the vocabulary is challenging enough to be appropriate for upper grade school or high school.

A surprisingly interesting (and fairly in-depth) picture book that introduces children to minerals – which include metals and gems. Many full color photos highlight and enhance the text, which covers topics such as Mohs' Scale of Mineral Hardness, ice crystals, cleavage planes (the way minerals break when cut) of various minerals, metals in their natural state, special metals like gold, silver and platinum, how various minerals form and what they look like in their natural state. My children and I found this to be quite an interesting book.