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"Music is a moral law. It gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life to everything. It is the essence of order, and leads to all that is good, just, and beautiful, of which it is the invisible, but nevertheless dazzling, passionate, and eternal form." - Plato, as quoted by Sir John Lubbock -

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"[Music] is the 'arithmetic of sound' just as optics is the 'geometry of light.'" - Claude Debussy -

Into the Land of the Unicorns

Title: Into the Land of the Unicorns

Author: Bruce Coville

Rating: ★★★★☆

Age Category: Middle Grade

    Back Cover Synopsis: 

      Eight!...Nine!...Ten!

    As each bell chime sounds, Cara pushes herself faster up the steep bell tower steps that lead to the roof. Eleven! She must be on the roof when the next bell tolls. As she races up the stairs, Cara can't believe everything that has happened. Wasn't it just a few minutes ago that she and Grandmother Morris were peacefully walking home from the library? When did that mysterious man start to follow them? What does he want? Where did he come from? Who is he? Twelve! The ringing bell brings Cara back to the moment. Gramma told her what she must do! With a deep breath, and only half believing she will be safe, Cara jumps off the church roof and into the adventure of her lifetime - into the Land of Luster, the world of the unicorns.

    In Luster, Cara meets the Dimblethum, the Squijum, and the most magnificent of all the inhabitants, Lightfoot, a rebellious young unicorn. Together the new friends set out on a quest - to reach the Unicorn Queen and prevent the destruction of all unicorns. 

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"Music is enough for a whole lifetime - but a lifetime is not enough for music." - Sergei Rachmaninoff -

Sonnet 24 by William Shakespeare

Sonnet 24

by William Shakespeare

Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd

Thy beauty's form in table of my heart;

My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,

And perspective it is the painter's art.

For through the painter must you see his skill,

To find where your true image pictured lies;

Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,

That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes.

Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done:

Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me

Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun

Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;

Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art;

They draw but what they see, know not the heart.

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"[Music] takes us out of the actual and whispers to us dim secrets that startle our wonder as to who we are and for what, whence, and whereto. All the great interrogatories like questioning Angels float in on its waves of sound." - Ralph Waldo Emerson -

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 "It is proportion that beautifies everything; this whole Universe consists of it, and Music is measured by it." - Orlando Gibbons -

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"Music is the art of the prophets; it is the only other art which, like theology, can calm the agitations of the soul, and put the devil to flight." - Martin Luther -

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 "He who sings well prays twice." - Attributed to St. Augustine of Hippo -

The Battle for Moriah

Title: The Battle for Moriah

Author: Peter van Kampen

Rating: ★★★⯪☆

Age Category: Young Adult/New Adult

    Back Cover Synopsis: 

      The kingdom of Moriah was peaceful under King Melchizedek. But it hadn't always been. Melchizedek had defeated the dragons and their allies, and banished them. Now, Moriah's old enemies have returned, and they've captured the king's daughter, Sarah. This forces Sarah to face hard questions - why had her father hidden the truth from her? Were the dragons the villains she'd been told they were, or should she listen to them?

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"I should be sorry if I only entertained them. I wish to make them better." - Georg Friedrich Handel -

Sonnet 17 by William Shakespeare

Sonnet 17

by William Shakespeare

Who will believe my verse in time to come,

If it were fill'd with your most high deserts?

Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb

Which hides your life and shows not half your parts.

If I could write the beauty of your eyes

And in fresh numbers number all your graces,

The age to come would say 'This poet lies:

Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.'

So should my papers yellow'd with their age

Be scorn'd like old men of less truth than tongue,

And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage

And stretched metre of an antique song:

But were some child of yours alive that time,

You should live twice; in it and in my rhyme.

"Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent." - Victor Hugo -

"See deep enough and you see musically; the heart of nature being everywhere music, if you can only reach it." - Thomas Carlyle -

"Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead." - Oscar Wilde -

“Freedom is never dear at any price. It is the breath of life.” – Mahatma Gandhi – 

Our Lady's Wardrobe

Title: Our Lady's Wardrobe

Author: Anthony DeStefano

Illustrator: Juliana Kolesova

Rating: ★★★★★

Age Category: Children's Books

    Back Cover Synopsis: 

    This delightful rhyming book introduces Catholic children to the Blessed Virgin Mary in a fun and simple way - through her clothes!

    When Our Lady lived in Nazareth two thousand years ago, she was very poor and probably didn't have many nice things to wear. But now that she's in Heaven, she has an enormous mansion. And in that mansion she has an incredibly beautiful wardrobe filled with a great variety of dresses, veils, slippers, sashes, robes, rings, and crowns. 

    Over the centuries, Our Lady has visited the people of Earth many times. On each of these occasions she has dressed very differently. Our Lady's Wardrobe tells us the story of some of her most famous apparitions, highlighting the clothes she wore and the things she did. 

    By reading this book, children will not only learn about the Mother of God, but will also learn the main purpose of her life - to love and serve her Son, Jesus Christ, and to lead others to do the same.

“Real freedom lies in wildness, not in civilization.” – Charles Lindbergh – 

Sonnet 39 by William Shakespeare

Sonnet 39

by William Shakespeare

O, how thy worth with manners may I sing,
When thou art all the better part of me?
What can mine own praise to mine own self bring?
And what is 't but mine own when I praise thee?
Even for this let us divided live,
And our dear love lose name of single one,
That by this separation I may give
That due to thee which thou deservest alone.
O absence, what a torment wouldst thou prove,
Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave
To entertain the time with thoughts of love,
Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive,
And that thou teachest how to make one twain,
By praising him here who doth hence remain!

“Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” – George Orwell – 

“You have freedom when you’re easy in your harness.” – Robert Frost – 

“I see my life in terms of music.” ―Albert Einstein―

“Most people die with their music still locked up inside them.” ― Benjamin Disraeli ―

Saint John the Baptist - A Voice Crying Out In the Desert

Title: Saint John the Baptist - A Voice Crying Out In the Desert

Author and Illustrator: Ezekiel Saucedo

Rating: ★★★★☆

Age Category: Children's Books

    Back Cover Synopsis: 

    Out of the desert God called a man to pave the way for the coming of Jesus - 

• a courageous man who would stand up to the leaders of his day;
• a humble man who recognized that he was not to be the star of salvation history;
• a wild man who ate . . . grasshoppers and honey!?

    Follow John as he escapes a massacre with his parents, brings God's message of repentance to the people, and pays the ultimate price for speaking God's truth. Read and discover the heroic holiness of Saint John the Baptist - a man Jesus himself described as one of the greatest men ever born.

“If music be the food of love, play on.” ― William Shakespeare ―

Sonnet 41 by William Shakespeare

Sonnet 41

by William Shakespeare

Those petty wrongs that liberty commits,
When I am sometime absent from thy heart,
Thy beauty and thy years full well befits,
For still temptation follows where thou art.
Gentle thou art and therefore to be won,
Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed;
And when a woman woos, what woman's son
Will sourly leave her till she have prevailed?
Ay me! but yet thou mightest my seat forbear,
And chide try beauty and thy straying youth,
Who lead thee in their riot even there
Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth,
Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,
Thine, by thy beauty being false to me.

 “Musical innovation is full of danger to the State, for when modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State always change with them.” ― Plato ―

“To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it’s about, but the music the words make.” ― Truman Capote ―