Customer Reviews

Saint Nicholas

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I purchased this book to help explain the real Saint Nicholas (as opposed to Santa Claus) to my son. I vascilated quite a bit on whether to return the book or keep it.

The author's choice of content is a bit unusual for my needs. The book starts by explaining that Nicholas was born to older parents who were wealthy and charitable. Next it mentions the parents' death (with an illustration I'd rather have been skipped, more on that below) and Nicholas' continuation of his parents' charity. The book continues with some events of Saint Nicholas' life with nice detail: saving the three daughters from slavery, his entry into the priesthood, his intervention during the stormy voyage, his appointment as bishop, the legend of the schoolboys, and his suffering in Roman prison for his convictions. His adoption as patron saint of various groups is mentioned in context. In the Author's Note, written more for parents than children, the author mentions the connection between Saint Nicholas and our present day Santa Claus.

The style of the illustrations is very nice. A "pieced" stained glass effect, it suits the material very well. Most of the illustrations represent the text nicely. The one exception is the page where the death of Nicholas' parents from the plague is mentioned. Here we see a large black cloud filled with scary-looking skeletons that appear to lurch in the direction of the boy Nicholas. Nicholas looks frightened even though his uncle's arm is around him. Before it's next use, I will glue the pages together and just skip it entirely. The dealth of Nicholas' parents can easily be incorporated into the next page where the book speaks of Nicholas' being his parents' heir and continuing their charity.

The book does a nice job of covering the life of Saint Nicholas, but it's nothing special.

This story discusses the similarities between the real Saint Nicholas, bishop of Myra, now Turkey, in the early 300's and "St. Nick" or Santa Claus. It focuses on telling about Saint Nicholas. It starts with his years as a child and the fact that his parents die from a plague, and that he is adopted by his uncle and receives a large sum of money from the estate of his parents. It tells of how he gave his money away to the poor, including to three daughters of a poor man who could not afford dowries for them so that the eldest had decided to sell herself into slavery and how St. Nicholas gives them three bags of gold. (Which begins the idea of Santa Claus going around giving gifts at night.) St. Nicholas then becomes a priest and sets sail as a passenger in a boat caught in a storm from which all safely survive. He lands at Myra and goes to the Cathedral to thank God for the rescue and is informed that he is now the Bishop of Myra. He rescues three kidnapped boys. He is then imprisoned by emperor Diocletian for being a Christian. When Diocletian dies and Constantine takes over and becomes a Christian St. Nicholas is freed. The book starts and end with the connection between St. Nicholas and Santa Claus.
There are several different views of the fact that there are ghost life spirits looking like they are after him, with his uncle protectively leading him away from them. But I think that if I was Saint Nicholas at a time when people didn't understand the plagues and so didn't know who would be felled by it next and my parents having already died from it, I would be pretty scared of the plague and very much feel like there was a ghost of death haunting me, too. I think that the picture is very realistic in depicting how St. Nicholas would have felt.

We found the book beautifully written and illustrated. It is legendary as well as factual, but his life is presented in a most touching and informative way.

This book was one of several ordered for preparing to share the story of St Nicholas with Sunday School children of approx 8rs old. While the others were useful for information, this one excelled and was used in the class. Why? The pictures are of a classic style, as if mosaics. The text was very clear and the stories of this Saint were economically told with a good ratio of pitures to text. The winning feature was that the pictures did not cheapen the story by making it look too contemporary but nor did it distance it by making it look too old fashioned. The pictures were also pleasant to view. An excellent resource and a pleasure for a wide range of age-groups. Me too!