Customer Reviews

The Year & Our Children: Catholic Family Celebrations for Every Season

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I have enjoyed adding this newly released edition of Mary Reed Newland's work to my family library. The book walks readers through the liturgical calendar, suggesting activities, projects, devotional practices, and prayers to accompany Catholic families as they celebrate the course of the Catholic year from Advent through Thanksgiving. The book contains many wonderful ideas and traditions for celebrating the faith as a family.

I recently had the opportunity to read Mary Reed Newland's The Year & Our Children. The book walks you through the liturgical year, starting with Advent and progresses chronologically through the major and popular feast days and seasons. The book offers a litany of suggestions for how you can help your child celebrate the Church year at home. The book was written in 1956 (pre-Vatican II) so some of the suggestions in this book seem a little dated, but there are still plenty of suggestions that are relevant for today's Catholic family. There are a few areas in the book where you can see how some Church traditions seem to have disappeared as a result of the changes brought about by Vatican II. I found those areas to be rather interesting.

For every season or feast day, the author offers many suggestions for introducing prayer into your daily family life. Some of it seems a little over the top, but much of it seems totally feasible. What you chose to incorporate into your own family's spiritual life will depend on what your family is up to trying. She also offers ideas for craft projects and treats. Some of the craft projects seemed a little difficult to visualize since there are no pictures or diagrams to accompany the suggestions. For that reason, I would not classify this book as a craft book. Many of the food suggestions have the recipes, but there were a few that simply suggested a treat. For the cooking challenged, like myself, I found the instances where a food was suggested but no recipe provided to be a little disappointing.

The book reads much like a modern day Catholic blog. The author walks us through how she and her family live out the liturgical year. She beautifully shows by example how using manipulatives like story telling, crafts and foods help children to understand their faith better. From personal, experience, I can say that I find this to be true for my own children as well. When the children have ways of connecting the celebrations of the Church in their own homes through a variety of activities and objects that help them to learn and live their faith, the results are amazing.

I really enjoyed reading this book. The tone was very pleasant, and I loved seeing how so many problems and concerns that many mothers have today with regards to raising their children in the faith were also concerns of mothers back in the 50's.

If you are looking for a book that will help you understand the liturgical year better so that you can be better armed to impart the faith in your children, then this would be a great book to consider reading.

I received a complimentary copy of The Year & Our Children from Sophia Institute Press in exchange for my honest review of the book.

I bought this book online, used; in its original printing about 10 years ago. It must have been in demand then because it was not cheap, but I really wanted a copy so I bought it. It was worth every penny to me. This book is not about FUN it is about the Christian religion in the home. It is about living the faith at a child's level in the domestic realm. Many people celebrate holidays without even knowing the original meaning. This book helps the Catholic family celebrate Christian holidays and feast days with an informed point of view. It adds meaning by providing the history and true spirituality of the celebration. I am glad it is in print again. I feel the previous reviewer dinged the book unfairly.

I picked up "The Year & Our Children" by Mary Reed Newland thru Sophia Institute Press. This book is a great resource for any Catholic Family looking to celebrate their faith in all the important holidays of the Church calendar. Mary Reed Newland encourages families to celebrate secular holidays such as Christmas and Easter by putting the focus of Christ into the holiday. She outlines ways to celebrate important Church holidays such as Ash Wednesday, Lent, Holy Week, Immaculate Conception, Pentecost, All Saints and many more. She gives various ideas such as: food, prayers, activities for the children, various church traditions and so much more. One idea I particularly liked was a charade for the life and conversion of St. Paul. Mary Reed Newland also helps parents to encourage their children to have a deep love for Christ, their faith and helping them to live a life worth of Christ. This book helps parents to get to the heart of their child. I would strongly recommend the book for all Catholic families looking to celebrate their faith year round and not just at Christmas and Easter!

Sophia Institute Press sent me a complimentary copy of the book "The Year and Our Children" by Mary Reed Newland for me to review. I think this book makes a better resource than cover-to-cover read, but I would still highly recommend it. The Foreword to the book is fantastic, discussing why Newland's family decided to start celebrating the Church Year in their home as well as with the universal Church. She discusses the importance of making time for that which you feel important for you and your family, implying not so subtly that if we can find time to `waste', then surely we can find time to help ourselves and our families along the path of salvation. The book was written in the 1950's, so some of it is a bit dated, but honestly that just kind of makes it quirky and fun. It is foot-noted to an extent to bring things up to date (IE January 1 is now the feast of Mary, the Mother of God, not the Circumcision of the Lord). Its message definitely transcends the decades. After the fabulous Forward, it picks up with Advent, the beginning of the Church year, and goes through the rest of the year highlighting feasts, holy days, and seasons of the Church, and discussing traditions, crafts, prayers (there are many prayers to use in this book) and ceremonies that families can do together to celebrate the various aspects of the Church year in their homes. She readily admits that everything isn't for everyone, things may "flop" at times, and you've just got to see and do what works for your family. This was really nice to read, and made her and her family seem much more "human", rather than this perfect family where everything they touched turned to gold and everything they tried went off without a hitch. Families are made up of humans and will certainly behave as such. I would highly recommend this book as an addition to your library if you are looking to bring the life of the Church into your home. It does a great job at giving ideas to families of ways to bridge the gap between the Church and home and gets rid of that disconnect sometimes experienced when it comes to what we do at Church and what we do at home.

I bought this book a couple of years ago, and I am so glad I have it. The feasts and prayers are traditional, the stories are delightful, and the author has a simple way of incorporating the Catholic celebrations into everyday life. I admire how she used what they had (very little) to make the most of crafts and feasts. The explanations of the feasts and stories of the saints and history of the celebrations help me understand the liturgical year (and my faith!) better. This is not a simple book with craft and activities, but a spiritual guide to the year with the Church with practical and prayerful ways to incorporate our Faith into our homes.

This book is great for everyone, not just your children. It helped me to remember why we as catholics do some of the family rituals that we do. A great way for new catholics to learn and grow with their children too!

This book isn't at all what you think it would be - a book with activities around the Catholic Liturgical year. It is more of a study of Catholicism, and nothing it in fun for kids. It is as tho she recorded what her family does, and then throws in history with it - so dull and boring! A total waste of money and time.