Acquired Book By: I am a regular tour hostess for blog tours via Cedar Fort whereupon I am thankful to have such a diverse amount of novels and non-fiction titles to choose amongst to host. I received a complimentary copy of “Blessing the Nephite Children” and “The Holy Ghost” direct from the publisher CFI (imprint of Cedar Fort, Inc) in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.
Why I love Catherine Christensen Children’s Books:
The illustrations are bright and vivid, a true eclipse of childhood – painting together a young girl and her family, as they find time to pray amongst the hours they are living. It’s wonderful to see how varied a young girl’s prayers can be and how prayer by definition can be for a multitude of things; both seen and unseen. The illustrator matches keenly to the writer’s ability to offer a guide of possibilities to children; to take the guesswork out of what constitutes a prayer and where you need to be whilst you pray.
It’s a lively conversation waiting to be spoken between a child and their parents, where an open dialogue about sharing how parents approach their prayer life and how their child can approach theirs will be easily obtained after reading this beautiful picture book together! I love how the story is a celebration of what we can share within our prayers as much as how grounded our lives become through prayer.
I love learning books – always have – even when I was a child, because they help expand your world as much as they help re-define the world as well. You get to grow through the knowledge your internalising and in this particular case, I liked how the lesson was breaking down how prayer can become an active habit without complications, because prayer is portable and as convenient as remaining mindful about your thoughts and your emotions.
-quoted from my review of I Can Pray Everyday
Blessing the Nephite Children
by Catherine Christensen
Illustrator/Cover Designer: Jane Delve
Source: Direct from Publisher
Snuggle up with your kids and learn about Jesus’s visit to the Nephites. This colorful board book is perfectly designed for little fingers and small attention spans. Experience the beauty of Christ’s personal love in the Book of Mormon with your little ones and come to see the ways the Savior reaches out to them today.
Places to find the book:
ISBN: 9781462118755
Also by this author: I Can Pray Everyday
Published by CFI (imprint) Cedar Fort Inc
on 1st August, 2016
Format: Hardcover Edition
Published By: CFI (imprint) of Cedar Fort Inc (@CedarFortBooks),
an imprint of Cedar Fort, Inc (@CedarFortBooks)
Available Formats: Hardback, Ebook
Converse via: #picturebook, #KidsLit
I was blessed when Ms Christensen approached me about her upcoming new Children’s Books releases – as her new picture book included a story about Christ I had not heard of previously whereas the workbook The Holy Ghost was quite a delight to discover how to carry forward a conversation with your children, nephews or nieces about how to have a living relationship with the Holy Spirit. What moved me the most is how this story about Christ’s visit to the Nephites reminded me of the rhyming song I grew up with in Sunday School called “Jesus Loves Me (this I know)”. I always find it interesting how stories are passed down and how even through different denominations of Protestant Christianity, we can each have different pieces of the whole story. For although I’m a non-LDS Protestant, I find these new stories to be treasures as there are still so many aspects of Christ’s life before and after His resurrection that is yet unknown. Perhaps this is another one of those chapters, left out of the stories passed down through my growing years as we were not as privy to knowing it as the Mormons.
The little board book is brilliantly illustrated to reflect the love Christ had for life and for children – bringing His essence to the forefront of the story. He’s likeness is reflective of His kind heart and the way in which He was welcoming towards all people and children. The children are shown happily close to Christ as He visits with them and what was so very striking is that this was taking place after the resurrection. You can clearly see the marks on Christ’s hands and the children are not entirely affected by this but are caught inside the warmth of love Christ is emitting out as He speaks directly with them.
From what I am getting to know of Ms Christensen’s style for picture books is that she makes parenthood a bit easier when broaching the harder topics by using encouraging colours, vibrant illustrations and words that resonate the message of the hour to children who have inquisitive minds and open hearts. You can easily see yourself sitting down with your child and sharing this new story about Christ, whilst mindful of the questions or comments that might come out of reading the story together. One thing I love is when picture books (truly any book!) offer the chance to have open conversations and in some ways, encourage children to talk openly on topics they might feel more introspective or quiet about sharing aloud.
In the second book, she’s taken the conversation forward into realising how to have a living relationship with the Holy Spirit, wherein there are point-by-point examples of how children (or adults!) can start to be mindful in their everyday hours of how the Holy Spirit can effectively become a living embodiment of their guidance and their awareness of the spirit filling their hours. It’s a guiding workbook where each lesson – prompted by questions, puzzles, or fill-in-the-blanks – is helping the child understand how their faith can be lived by a living representation of their beliefs. It takes it one step forward by showing how the Holy Spirit can be nurturing and guiding towards helping them better understand themselves and the individual gifts they have to bring to their communities.
I like pro-positive books like these that encourage young readers to become more active in their thinking towards their faith and how they can reflect their faith through their everyday routines. Sometimes I think children overthink their faith lives and do not always see how they can directly apply what they feel and know to their everyday world. This workbook is one that I can see children would be happy to work inside as it’s set at a self-directed pace and allows the children to pause, reflect or even bring their parents into the conversation if they want to carry it forward from the pages. It also inspires parent-child interactions as there are places to add photographs or have the children self-illustrate one of the prompts they are being asked about to illustrate for themselves.
It’s both a keepsake journal for young readers during this growing part of their youth and a testament of how faith can be living and breathing with encouragement and nurturing advice throughout our lives. It’s a stepping stone towards children understanding more about how their faith is centering in their lives and who wouldn’t want to find a book that encourages that?! Although told from an LDS perspective, and there are a few differences between my own non-LDS Protestant background, I can attest, that even I was happily cheerful to see how lovely this book was laid out, arranged and encouraging children to truly think about their faith and find ways to talk about it openly inside the workbook!
Overall, I am thankful I was on this blog tour, as the books Ms Christensen is putting out for children continue to be heart-centred and filled with an uplift joy of finding faith in our lives during the tender years where understanding your faith and how it applies to the world can be confusing. I cannot wait to have my own children to share these inspiring books with as I know it will lead to interesting conversations and hopefully, the joy the vibrancy of the book’s illustrations will be one that is twicefold enjoyed by them as well! I do recommend everyone seeking to find religious books for children to give Ms Christensen’s books a consideration, because of how much light and love she puts into her releases! She truly has been blessed by the illustrators who are championing her words and making these books such a wonderful reads for young readers!
The Holy Ghost
Subtitle: Discovering Your Extraordinary New Gift
Illustrator/Cover Designer: Jay Fontano
Get to know the Holy Ghost, from baptism on! This engaging book provides fill-in-the-blank stories, coloring pages, and other fun activities for your kids to help get them ready to receive the Holy Ghost and rely on Him for the rest of their lives. Come to understand and feel the Spirit, one of the greatest gifts from God.
Places to find the book:
ISBN: 9781462118687
on 1st September, 2016
Format: Paperback Edition
About Catherine Christensen
Catherine loves books. She reads books, writes books, edits books, collects books, and even shelved books at the library for her first job. She also loves to travel and explore the world with her husband, Jon, and her daughter, Juliette. Catherine earned her BA from Brigham Young University. She grew up in England and now lives in Springville, Utah.
This Blog Tour Stop is courtesy of Cedar Fort, Inc.:
Visit the Virtual Road Map of the Catherine Christensen Blog Tour:
I am putting together a conversation with the author Ms Christensen as I wanted to talk to her about this story (and the Nephites) but also, I wanted to help highlight her inspiration for her picture book series. Be sure to come back later in the week to see what we discussed!
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{SOURCES: Author photograph, Author Biography, Book Synopsises and Book Cover of “Blessing the Nephite Children” & “The Holy Ghost”, Blog Tour Badge and Cedar Fort badge were provided by Cedar Fort Publishing & Media and used with permission. Post dividers and My Thoughts badge by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. Tweets embedded due to the codes provided by Twitter. Blog graphics created by Jorie via Canva: Illustrated Stories Banner and the Comment Box Banner.}
Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2016.
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