The Lady of Guadalupe and Stories to Learn By

The Lady of Guadalupe by Tomie dePaola is another title in my Christmas collection. Perfect for today's feast, the story is accurate and the pictures give a feel for the Aztec life that Juan Diego lived five centuries ago. Tomie dePaola has lots of Catholic picture books, including the Holy Twins: Benedict and Scholastica, Mary: the Mother of Jesus, Christopher: the Holy Giant, and Patrick: Patron Saint of Ireland.


We have a few other picture books biographies of saints. I guess that's somewhat of an understatement, because we own the entire Fr. Lovasik collection.

I find the one page biographies "text heavy" and too wordy for children. I do love the romantic portraits though.

My kids would much rather sit and listen to a Tomie dePaola book (though long for one sitting, I admit) or listen to this gem that my mother gave my son a few years ago.One last book for today. I finally completed my two year online search for the original 1971 edition of Stories to Learn By John Koenig published by the Daughters of St. Paul. I grew up with the 1971 edition, reprinted in 1978 and my local Catholic bookstore carries the newer 1996 version. Why did they change the illustrations? And the names? No more Jack and Jinny, but now there are Kyle and Brittany. Let me show you.

The 1996 cover:And here is the 1971 cover:I apologize for the dark pictures I took with my phone. Photography is on my list of Skills to Acquire. Here are some examples of the beautiful illustrations of the original.


The top one, the Christmas pictures, is from one of my favorite stories in the book. "Christmas Looking" is about a boy, Johnny, his sister, his mother, and the day they spend "Christmas looking" in a fabulous department store. Johnny's mother explains to them before they leave that they cannot buy anything. They are poor. But the whole day, Johnny thanks God for his eyes to see, his legs to climb the stairs, etc. And while checking out the Nativity scenes at the store, Johnny realizes that the Holy Family was poor too.

The stories in the new edition are the same, with different pictures and character names. We read our 1996 copy until it fell apart, but I am so happy to have the original back again!

To be completely honest, some of the stories in the original have pretty bizarre artwork, so I can see why Daughters of St. Paul wanted to change it up.
Happy Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe!