Christianity in The Books Store

Brace yourself for a thrilling high-seas adventure and dare to set sail for the Isle of Fire.

"A great explosion rocked the crowded harbor. Flaming debris screamed into the sky and then rained down into the burning water below. The ferocious blaze engulfed ship after ship expanding the circle of destruction in mere heartbeats. The fire rain had been unleashed."

As Cat's memory returns, he realizes that he has lived two very different lives: One as the son of the ruthless Bartholomew Thorne; the other as the recipient of friendship and kindness from Declan Ross and the crew of the Robert Bruce. Now Cat must choose whether to return to the ways of his notorious father and join the evil Merchant, or defy the Merchant and risk his life to save his friends.

The best-selling Isle of Swords adventure continues in Isle of Fire as ancient mariners rise from legend and cut an all-too-real swath of destruction across the Atlantic. The newly formed Wolf Fleet scours the Caribbean, hunting the pirates they once called comrades. And in the pitiless winds of a monstrous hurricane, whole fleets will be blasted apart and devoured.

· purity

· peer pressure

· insecurity

· body/self-image

· friendships

Each segment of the book concludes with a prayer teens can follow or use as a model for their own prayers. Easy-to-access chapters focus on what it means to be maturing in all areas of life, including talking to God in prayer.

What can steer a parent toward insanity faster than the phrase “Are we there yet?”...the words “Knock, Knock,” of course.

Bob Phillips, comic genius, has mastered a gathering of knock, knock jokes that will have kids laughing hysterically—and parents just plain hysterical—but a family that knock, knocks together, grows together.

Knock, Knock

Who’s There?

Olive.

Olive who?

Olive to tell knock-knock jokes.

Hours of entertainment in one simple resource is the best deal in town.

Frank McCourt's first Christmas book is by turns tender and heartwarming, and wholly unforgettable. Angela is six years old and worries for the Baby Jesus on the altar of St. Joseph's Church near School House Lane in Limerick, Ireland, where she lives. December nights are damp and cold, and the church is dark. The Baby Jesus' mother doesn't even have a blanket to cover him. The Baby is sure to need Angela's help, even if she is not allowed to step near the altar, especially by herself.

Filled with the character and incident that have made Pulitzer Prize recipient Frank McCourt internationally renowned and beloved, Angela and the Baby Jesus is a timeless story of family--and all of its joy, tradition, love, and incongruity--and a book for the generations to cherish.

In this particular scene the family sits around the fire to chat after tea. Angela's little brother is giving up the secret that the "Baby Jesus" is in the bed upstairs. Angela shows a bit of worry in her face, since she quietly snuck the "baby" into the house. Surely she'll be in trouble now.

Throughout the story I hardly show any of the adult faces, focusing mainly on the children's world. Hence, Mother's back is turned toward us. I also cut off the little brother's face by having Mother's turn-of-the-century hairdo get in the way (A little thing I learned from the great artist Degas.) It gives the scene intimacy, as if the viewer is there taking a snapshot with his camera. All in all a fun and rewarding book to illustrate. It was an honor to turn McCourt's words into actual pictures. --Raul Colon









Loren Long on the Fireside Scene from Angela and the Baby Jesus:
Usually little Angela would want to be right in the middle of the action as the family sits by the fire and talks. But not this time--she has a secret upstairs.

At this point in the story, I'm giving the reader a seat behind the family in the shadows away from the fire. At the same time we, the readers, know about Angela's secret in the bedroom upstairs and we see her hanging back from the others, sneaking peeks up the staircase. We can see that she has something more important on her mind than her family's chattering.

In my visual interpretation of Angela and the Baby Jesus, I wanted to tap into Frank McCourt's sophisticated blend of gritty realism and subtle humor. For this reason, I specifically chose a limited color palette. I worked with acrylics on canvas and tried to keep the paintings a bit edgy and raw.

Choosing images came naturally when working on this story. I was taken with the balance of reverence, innocence, and humor in Frank’s text and I simply tried to come up with creative ways to portray these elements in a subtle but hopefully profound way. --Loren Long

"An imaginative arrangement, preserving the on-going interest of a serial . . . The illustrations are excellent . . . and will hold the listener's eye if the book is being read aloud . . . This selection provides a built-in continuity which other collections lack."—Church Times

"Written in a lively, eaily understood style which still retains the dignity of the original . . . The luminous artwork is realistic, expressive and well-researched in detail."—School Library Journal

"Many children's books retell Bible stories. This is one of the best for its factual, sensitive and imaginative approach. The stories are allowed to speak for themselves in a panorama of scripture from Genesis to Revelation, and each is beautifully and imaginatively illustrated. [Here is] storytelling par excellence, clear, uncomplicated, concise, superlative."—Churchman

"The selections are just the right length . . . After using this book for several months, I can enthusiastically recommend it for families with young children."—Christian Home and School