Wednesday, April 02, 2008

I want to do what God wants

The best reading material I have bought my little ones has been the Treasure Box series edited by the Maryknoll Sisters. The series was originally mailed monthly to subscribers and the first 20 have been reprinted by TAN publishers. Whenever we went to the local Catholic bookstore and the children were good I would pick up the next #. The stories of Saint Therese make my children try harder to be obedient, and the adventures of Sunny John and Wupsy the Guardian Angel in Africa are just plain exciting.

However, the series originally continued to volume 40 and I wanted to know "what happened" to John and his fellow villages in Mantongu, as well as reading the hilarious rhymes on the back cover about naughty children like Thankless Theodore and Licking Lilly. Luckily for us, a friend in Maine found a box containing the original #21-37 at a yard sale and allowed me to xerox the whole stack. It took several hours to copy and collate the issues, all the while trying carefully not to damage further the delicate paperbacks.

Every 6 months or so we reread the entire series, giggling at the crafts made from such obscure items like bottle caps, plastic fruit baskets, cigarette boxes, and toothpaste tins, as well as repeating the prayer of St Therese, "I want to do what God wants." I really do see an increase in virtue among us all after reading these wonderful books and encourage mothers of little ones to buy a set to read aloud.

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