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“There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues… are created, strengthened and maintained.” ―Winston Churchill  ―

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“Nothing purchased can come close to the renewed sense of gratitude for having family and friends.” ― Courtland Milloy ―

Sitting Like a Saint

Title: Sitting Like a Saint

Author: Dr. Gregory & Barbara Bottaro

Illustrator: Michael Corsini

Rating: ★★★★☆

Age Category: Children's Literature

   A fun, accessible guide to mindfulness for children. Beautifully illustrated, Sitting Like a Saint introduces children to the great saints of the Catholic faith, while helping them to develop skills equally as important as learning to read and write: self-awareness, focus, problem solving, and resilience. 

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"I like best of all autumn, because its leaves are a little yellow, its tone mellower, its colors richer, and it is tinged a little with sorrow and a premonition of death. Its golden richness speaks not of the innocence of spring, nor of the power of summer, but of the mellowness and kindly wisdom of approaching age. It knows the limitations of life and is content. From a knowledge of those limitations and its richness of experience emerges a symphony of colors, richer than all, its green speaking of life and strength, its orange speaking of golden content and its purple of resignation and death." — Lin Yutang —

Ozymandias by Percy Busshe Shelley

Ozymandias

by Percy Busshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:

And on the pedestal these words appear:

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

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"Fall has always been my favorite season. The time when everything bursts with its last beauty, as if nature had been saving up all year for the grand finale." — Lauren DeStefano, Wither —

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"Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love—that makes life and nature harmonize." — George Eliot —

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"After the keen still days of September, the October sun filled the world with mellow warmth ... The maple tree in front of the doorstep burned like a gigantic red torch. The oaks along the roadway glowed yellow and bronze. The fields stretched like a carpet of jewels, emerald and topaz and garnet. Everywhere she walked the color shouted and sang around her ... In October any wonderful unexpected thing might be possible." — Elizabeth George Speare, The Witch of Blackbird Pond —

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"Autumn...the year's last, loveliest smile." — John Howard Bryant, Indian Summer —

The Tiny, Tiny Boy and the Big, Big Cow

Title: The Tiny, Tiny Boy and the Big, Big Cow

Author: Nancy Van Laan

Illustrator: Marjorie Priceman

Rating: ★★★★★

Age Category: Children's Literature

   All the tiny, tiny boy wants to do is milk the big, big Cow. But she has hard, hard heels, a long, long tail, and sharp, sharp horns - and she WON'T stand still! What's a tiny, tiny boy to do? Shake a fat, fat stick, find a sweet, sweet kitten, and try the perfect solution...

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"Some adventures require nothing more than a willing heart and the ability to trip over the cracks in the world." - Seanan McGuire -

Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats

Ode on a Grecian Urn

by John Keats

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,

       Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,

Sylvan historian, who canst thus express

       A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:

What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape

       Of deities or mortals, or of both,

               In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?

       What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?

               What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

       Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,

       Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:

Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave

       Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;

               Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,

Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;

       She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,

               For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed

         Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;

And, happy melodist, unwearied,

         For ever piping songs for ever new;

More happy love! more happy, happy love!

         For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,

                For ever panting, and for ever young;

All breathing human passion far above,

         That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,

                A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?

         To what green altar, O mysterious priest,

Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,

         And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?

What little town by river or sea shore,

         Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,

                Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?

And, little town, thy streets for evermore

         Will silent be; and not a soul to tell

                Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede

         Of marble men and maidens overwrought,

With forest branches and the trodden weed;

         Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought

As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!

         When old age shall this generation waste,

                Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,

         "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all

                Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

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"So many of our dreams seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable." - Christopher Reeves -

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"Autumn carries more gold in its pocket than all the other seasons." — Jim Bishop —

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"Giving up is the birth of regret." - Deshauna Barber -

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"Fall colors are funny. They’re so bright and intense and beautiful. It’s like nature is trying to fill you up with color, to saturate you so you can stockpile it before winter turns everything muted and dreary." — Siobhan Vivian, Same Difference —

Left to Tell

Title: Left to Tell

Author: Immaculee Ilibagiza with Steve Erwin

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Age Category: Adult Literature

   A heartbreaking and painfully truthful memoir about the Rwandan Holocaust, Immaculee tells a story about how forgiveness is more powerful than holding grudges and how love can overcome hatred.

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"Family is the most important thing in the world." — Princess Diana —

The Dying Christian to His Soul by Alexander Pope

The Dying Christian to His Soul

by Alexander Pope

Vital spark of heav’nly flame!

  Quit, O quit this mortal frame:

  Trembling, hoping, ling’ring, flying,

  O the pain, the bliss of dying!

Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife,

And let me languish into life.

  Hark! they whisper; angels say,

  Sister Spirit, come away!

  What is this absorbs me quite?

  Steals my senses, shuts my sight,

Drowns my spirits, draws my breath?

Tell me, my soul, can this be death?

The world recedes; it disappears!

Heav’n opens on my eyes! my ears

  With sounds seraphic ring!

Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!

O Grave! where is thy victory?

  O Death! where is thy sting?

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“Family: A social unit where the father is concerned with parking space, the children with outer space, and the mother with closet space.” – Evan Esar –