We go to the public library at least twice a week and check out armloads -actually a crate full - of books. I ocassionally post here about good ones I've found - not the classics, necessarily, but newer titles. Just because we like to.
Last time, I pulled two new St. Francis books off the "new arrivals" shelf -
(Oh, did I not mention we're talking children's books here? Yes. My browsings have been mainly in 914.56 and thereabouts. It's like an addiction. It is an addiction. But I think I'm just about satiated for now.)
First was this one: The Song of Francis and the Animals. Nice illustrations, of course, touches on various points - sort of - in Francis' life.
But damn if he doesn't say "Happy Holidays" in Greccio!
Not really. But it was all very pleasant and vague and not one single time was God mentioned. Even the Canticle was mangled (as it sometimes is) so that Francis is singing praises to Brother Sun, etc, rather than to God for creation through them.
The next one was much better.
Richard Egieleski is one of my favorite chidlren's illustrators, especiall for the books he's done with Richard Yorinks, delightful rich yet minimalist absurdist fantasies, with Yorkinks' prose also slightly reminiscent of Yiddish-tinged English. Hey Al and Bravo, Minski are two of the many good ones. Hard to believe I read them to my big boys. Again with the time flying!
Anyway, St. Francis and the Wolf is good - tells the story of Gubbio straightforwardly, God is actually mentioned, and the illustrations have plenty to look at, including, surprisingly for this day and age, a satisfyingly gruesome scene of the wolf surrounded by the bones of one of his human victims, picking his teeth with the poor knight's lance. The wolf is very big and mean, until the end, when he is old and dying - and snowy white from snout to tail.
Off topic, slightly - not a St. Francis book, but this was another recent find that I didn't mind reading every night for a few days:
It's nothing earth-shaking, but a very pleasant story of a family trekking off to a park to celebrate, well, obviously. What I liked was that the family was very casually sort of bohemian/interracial, not-quite punked out mom, dad and two little children, living in a very lived-in home, finding a lovely, simple way to celebrate the half-birthday with, as it turns out, a park full of friends. Nice.
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