Book Review: Pope Francis: I Believe in Mercy

Pope Francis: I Believe in Mercy

by Regina Doman

Art by Sean Lam

Dexter, MI: Manga Hero, 2013

Known for their work on the Manga Hero edition of Habemus Papem which told of Pope Benedict XVI, the creative team of Regina Doman as writer and Sean Lam as artist has once again joined to tell a pope’s life story. This time the attention is on Pope Francis. Intended for teens and young adults, Pope Francis: I Believe in Mercy hits all the crucial points of Pope Francis’ life to date. 

It begins with Jorge Bergoglio as a twelve-year-old who thought he was in love with a young lady. When her father told him to leave her alone, he jokingly told her he would become a priest instead. But his true call wouldn’t come until years later. The manga tells of Bergoglio’s lung disease which resulted in the removal of part of his lung and a difficult recovery. It also shows his joining the Jesuits and his efforts to help priests during the political turmoil of Argentina. Pope Francis follows the future pope as he ministered to the people of Buenos Aires, reaching out to the poor and marginalized. In 1992, he became a bishop and as the Archbishop instructed him, the Diocese of Buenos Aires became his bride. When the Archbishop died in 1998, Bishop Bergoglio took over the role but eschewed all of the trappings that came with the office. The manga emphasizes his desire to live simply and minister to all. It concludes with his election to the papacy and the continuation of his simple way of life.

The story of Pope Francis is interwoven with scenes of Jesus from Scripture. There are also passages from Pope Francis’ writings and homilies. 

Because of the subject matter included, especially in the dark days of Argentina, Pope Francis: I Believe in Mercy is definitely intended for teens and young adults rather than children. It may be helpful to have a previous acquaintance with the life story of Pope Francis as well – it is possible one might become confused in some parts without it (either that or one might read this, then go on to read more about him to learn more). Overall, however, Pope Francis: I Believe in Mercy is extremely well done and is a way to inspire young people to follow Jesus as Pope Francis has striven to do in his own life.

TG provides an alternative magazine for young Catholic women

When I was a young woman in the 80’s, picking up a copy of “Glamour” meant nothing more than a chance to read up on fashion trends and make-up tips. Now such magazines push an agenda which is increasingly hostile to the faith. What can a young Catholic woman read? Must she settle for reading their mother’s housekeeping magazines?

That is what inspired TG editor Heather Gaffney, the magazine’s editor and mother of two. She has a Master’s in Education and a heart for evangelization through the media. She bought the rights to “True Girl” magazine, which many of you may have subscribed to until it stopped publishing a while ago, bringing a good idea back to life; a magazine for the young Catholic woman who wants a good read on a wide range of subjects of interest to her. Heather believes that a magazine can offer topics of interest to the whole woman, body, mind and soul, without offending Our Lady, who graces the cover of the first, sample copy of the magazine. Her philosophy is, “TG magazine strives to encourage and support young women. Using fashion, fun and the Gospel message of the Catholic Church, TG will educate and motivate ladies in friendship and the love of Jesus Christ.” TG is dedicated to St. John Bosco, patron of youth whose motto was, “Enjoy yourself as much as you like- if only you keep from sin”.

TG offers a wide variety of articles, ranging from media reviews, recipes, new product suggestions, make-up and fashion tips, advice from a priest, and articles on the Catholic faith. The August/September issue features a World Youth Day theme which includes some facts on tourist attractions in Australia, an article on the history of World Youth Day, and reflections from a young woman who attended the Holy Father’s Youth Rally in New York last April. There is a review of the inspirational book, “The Ultimate Gift”, instructions for making a beautiful decoupage cross with plenty of pictures, recipes for fruit smoothies, tips on how to keep make-up fresh, and a review of the singer Feist. Calendars which mention everything from the sublime (feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary) to the trivial (National Aviation Day) and a biography of St. Claire, whose feast falls on August 11, complete the assortment of articles. The articles are well written and informative without being tedious.
TG has a fresh, contemporary look with a real life cover girl, Michelle Herman, a home-schooled junior, whose lovely smile just happens to show her braces. She is fashionably yet modestly dressed, and has the wholesome good looks of the girl next door.

If your life includes a beautiful girl next door, you would do well to give her a gift subscription to this bi-monthly magazine.

Renewal subscriptions for former subscribers of “True Girl” magazine is $18.95; new subscriptions are only $1 more.

To order, visit the magazine’s website.

What Teenage Girls Read

A very insightful blogpost from the Mirror of Justice site examines the problems with the literature marketed to young women and lists some good alternatives to the paperback novel mire.

Crossposted on www.catholicbookreview.com .

The Dangerous Days of Daniel X

James Patterson's new hit novel calls itself, "Spider-Man meets Men in Black" on the jacket, and the novel lives up to this claim. Seemingly written for the big screen, this fast-paced adventure story is a perfectly fine piece of fiction for summer reading. I like Daniel, the 15 year old human-yet-alien-orphan with superpowers who is hunting down the evil aliens who inhabit Earth and try to destroy us.

Also on the jacket, you will find the following statement:

"In the spirit of the most enduring hit movies and books, James Patterson has written this story for readers from ten to a hundred and ten. Special care has been taken with the language and content of The Dangerous Days of Daniel X."

Hoorah! Of course, now my curiosity is piqued. What is the language and content of James Patterson's other books like?

And now, I solemnly resolve to read Stephenie Meyer's "No.1 bestselling teen vampire Twilight saga."

Gregor Overlander or Tunnels?

Going underground is a popular frontier for adventure today. Two best selling juvenile novels paint very different landscapes of the world beneath us.
First, Tunnels, "soon to be a major motion picture" according to the back cover, by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams is two and a half novels in one. In Part One The Groundbreaking, Will and his father, Dr. Burrows, share a love of digging and collecting the archaeological remnants they uncover. Dr. Burrows is especially keen on finding old subway tunnels and sewer lines that have been closed off for decades. Will introduces schoolmate Chester to their excavations and soon, he too is avidly digging with Will after school. To make a very long story short, Dr. Burrows disappears. Will figures out that his father had a secret tunnel in the basement of their house which has mysteriously closed up from the inside out! Will and Chester re-dig the tunnel and enter an underground world. Thus begins Part Two The Colony.
Will and Chester are taken by the police to prison. There they are each tortured and interrogated by a race of sinister men known as the "Styx," who are described as "avaricious priests." After several days of this, Will is release to a Mr. Jerome, who claims to be Will's father, but Chester is still kept in dark and solitary confinement. It turns out that Will is a native of this underground world, and his birth mother escaped to the "Topsoil," taking her young son, Seth, with her, but leaving her infant, Caleb, behind. Somehow he was adopted into the Burrows family. Will realizes he really is Seth, and finds his place in the Macauly home with Grandma, Uncle Tam, and Caleb. Caleb takes him to a bizarre type of mandatory religious service, presided over by the Styx.
Apparently, the Styx require daily attendance at an Anglican type service, three times a day. The founder of the underground colony, Martineau, is worshipped as a saint, complete with portrait in the church, called the "Breaking of the Ground." The other item of note in the "church" is a large, iron crucifix. The colonists came below nearly 200 years ago, because of Martineau's belief that the topsoil world was corrupted beyond conversion. In the Colony, anyone who comes from Topsoil is enslaved or banished to the dark unknown abyss of the earth, and anyone who escapes to the Topsoil is hunted down and executed. The Styx keep the colonists below by preaching the following,
"The surface of the earth is beset by creatures in a constant state of war with one another. Millions perish on either side, and there is no limit to the brutality of their malice. Their nations fall and rise, only to fall and rise again. The vast forests have been laid low by them, and the pastures defiled with their poison...Their gluttony is matched only by their appetites for death, affliction, terror, and banishment of every living thing. And, despite their iniquities, they aspire to rise to the firmament..but, mark this, the excessive weight of their very sins will weigh them down."
The Styx enforce the belief that "when the judgment comes...they will be hurled into the abyss and forever lost to the Lord...and on that day...we...will once again return to...build the new Jerusalem."
This disturbed vision of faith and what it does to people is why I have decided that Tunnels is Not Recommended .
Will convinces Caleb to doubt his lifelong religious training and escape with him Topsoil. They succeed with the help of Uncle Tam, but discover that above ground, they will be forever hunted by the Styx. Will realizes that he can't leave Chester to a long, slow death, and that he would also like to find his father, so they return to the colony with a plan to free Chester and take off for the Deeps.
In Part 3 The Eternal City, there are some battle sequences and chases, but Will, Caleb, and Chester hop a train headed for the Deeps in search of Will's father. Depressing, but I can see how it would be fascinating for a twelve year old boy. I have allowed my son to read it, but am pointing out to him the skewed images of faith along the way.
On the other hand, in Gregor Overlander, the first of the Underlander Chronicles by Suzann Collins, Gregor and his toddler sister, Boots fall into a world of giant insects, bats, rats, and ordinary sized people. Like Will in Tunnels, Gregor's father is also missing. Gregor and Boots are not exactly imprisoned, they are kept in a luxurious castle suite, but they are guarded nonetheless. Gregor discerns that the water must come from above and attempts an escape with Boots, but is attacked by giant, vicious rats. The Underlanders rescue him and tell him that he must stay to fulfill the Prophecy of Gray. The Prophecy of Gray tells of an Overlander who will come to save the Underlanders from destruction and to find a long-lost prisoner of the rats.
Making unlikely allies, and discovering treachery in the ranks, Gregor succeeds in fulfilling the prophecy, while always putting Boots' safety and well-being first and foremost. And guess who the long-lost prisoner is? Gregor, Boots and his father return to the Overland and his dear mother. Before they go, Gregor's return to the Underland is predicted, thus setting up the cause for a sequel.With heroism, family, and love as the central themes of this book, it is Highly Recommended. Even though most of the novel takes place underground, the admirable characters and hopeful plot make Gregor Overlander feel light and airy, unlike the suffocating and grim Tunnels.
Cross-posted on A Catholic Mom's Guide to Good Books

January Reads

I enjoyed and recommend The Misadventures of Maude March, by Audrey Couloumbis. Told by younger sister, Sallie, Maude's adventures are the result of misfortune and mistake. Sallie and Maude are orphans, raised by Aunt Ruth, who loses her life to a stray bullet in the first chapter. Their home is taken by the bank and they are forced to live with the preacher and his family. The never-ending chores and the loss of all their family possessions to their caretakers, does not deter the girls from making the best of a bad situation. When the preacher arranges a marriage for Maude to an elderly man and the girls are threatened with separation, they run away. They take the two broken-down horses, leaving their new dairy cow in exchange. Soon, they discover that the media can't be trusted. They find a newspaper article with Maude's name and description, claiming that she has lost her mind with grief and stolen the horses. Sallie is never mentioned.

The girls are headed for Independence, Missouri, hoping to find their long-lost uncle. Along the way, they meet Aunt Ruth's shooter, and star of "dimer" novellas, Joe Harden. Joe teaches the girls how to survive in the wilderness but Maude can't forgive Joe's unlucky shot and they part ways. Maude realizes her mistake and the girls set out to find Joe. They see his horse in front of a bank, and remembering his admonition, "Take your gun everywhere," they enter the bank with rifles. Of course they are mistaken for robbers, and the adventures continue to an eventual happy ending for all.

One scene in which Maude, who has been disguised as a boy for most of the book, decides to recover her feminine identity, visits a house of ill repute, is handled in a delicate and sensitive matter. The heavily made-up ladies of the house donate clothes and fix Maude's hair for no charge. The author does a masterful job of presenting the action without any information about the real occupations of the characters. Highly Recommended.

Robin McKinley's Dragonhaven is a young adult novel, written in a stream-of-consciousness style, over the span of about ten years. Fourteen year old Jake lives at a national wildlife preserve called Smokehill, one hundred miles from anywhere. Somewhere on the 500 million acre property, real, endangered, fire- breathing dragons live, but are rarely seen. Jake gets to go on his first overnight into the wilderness, and comes across the unthinkable. First, there is the dead body of a dragon poacher, next to a dying dragon. Lastly, Jake notices five dead baby dragonlets, and one still living. Jake takes the surviving dragonlet and puts it down his shirt. Dragons are like marsupials, in that their young spend at least one year in their mother's pouch. This single action changes Jake, the fate of Smokehill, and the world's treatment of dragons forever.

There are a few troubling points in the book. Jake's widowed father has a relationship with another researcher and the two decide to wed when it is discovered that they are expecting a baby. As a young adult, Jake falls in love with his childhood playmate, Martha, and they decide to get married. Before the wedding, Jake gives Martha's sister, Eleanor some thankful acknowledgment for letting he and Martha use their shared bedroom for a few hours here and there. Finally, there is the tacit acceptance of a character's homosexual identity, and the theme that this character is a kinder, better person because he has a gay lover.
Young adult novels are all too often merely juvenile fiction with adult themes thrown in. Dragonhaven is a fascinating story, and if the author would stick to Jake and the dragons, I could recommend it. As it stands, there are too many issues to overlook. Not Recommended.