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Stories of the Saints
Whether used as a Reading Comprehension course, or made available for your children to read, these stories will inspire as they relate the striking, heroic, and challenging lives of the saints.There are many lives of the Saints, but we have not found an author who makes the Saints come alive as does Elaine Woodfield. She is a homeschooling mom and her goal in writing these stories is to bring children closer to the Saints. Children six years through adult will see the Saints in a different light - as their heavenly brothers and sisters. With these stories they can learn from the Saints that sanctity is within our reach . . . and how to get there.Each story is followed by Reading Comprehension Questions, a vocabulary section, projects and activities to reinforce the lessons, memorization, writing assignments, and reports. Many illustrations. Answer key included. Softcover. 8½"x11" 109 pages.This volume features actual photographs of Solanus Casey, Damien of Molokai, and Rose Lathrop. Volume II is appropriate for 4th through 7th grades.
Paperback
Published January 1, 2009
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January 12, 2026
I bought this book as a reading comprehension resource for my children, but we didn't use it that way very much. What I loved about this reading workbook was the beautiful stories of the saints, and we would use them as a resource when celebrating a saint's feast day. For today I have just reread the story of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, as I am reading her story in all the saint books that I own. However, I remember liking all the stories and especially appreciated that this volume and the previous one contained saints for which I didn't have much information. Note: I am reviewing the edition of this workbook published 1998.
List of stories:
Secretary of the Divine Mercy: Blessed Faustina Kowalska
A Picture from Heaven: Blessed Juan Diego
First Saint of the New World: St. Rose of Lima
Following in the Footsteps of Christ: St. Francis, Part One
Following in the Footsteps of Christ: St. Francis, Part Two
For God and the Poor: Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
The Love of God Is Everything: Venerable Fr. Solanus Casey
St. Helena: Empress and Finder of the True Cross
Greater Love than This: Blessed Fr. Damien of Molokai
St. Elizabeth of Hungary
An Unexpected Bishop: St. Ambrose
Blue Sky and Our Altars: Mother Seton
Using the story of St. Elizabeth of Hungary as an example, the story is 7 1/2 pages long with one half-page illustration to accompany it. The story elaborates on much that St. Elizabeth did to help the poor that I have never heard of, such as during a famine, she had the castle bake 900 loaves of bread every day, using up the supply of grain in the basement storehouse. When her husband Louis returned home after a trip, the indignant members of the family took him to see the empty grain bins. Miraculously, they found the grain bins refilled to overflowing. In this story we learn of St. Elizabeth's great love for St. Francis of Assisi which he had heard of. In kindness to her, St. Francis sent to her a cloak that he had worn. This was certainly a story that I had never heard. These two stories are my reason for giving only 4 stars instead of 5 for this volume. It's not that I think Mrs. Woodfield made these up, just that I realized that there are no credits given or resources cited for where she fount her material for the story. For me, that would have been a good addition, especially when adding details not usually included. Following each story is a list of vocabulary words, some comprehension questions, and a list of potential projects. The projects for this story include memorizing one or more quotes from St. Elizabeth, writing an essay with three possible topics given, or illustrate scenes from the life of St. Elizabeth.
This edition begins with a bit of information about the publisher, Catholic Heritage Curricula and has an introductory chapter, "How to use the Stories of the Saints." It ends with an answer key for the comprehension questions, a page of resources related to the saints included such as the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy in Massachusetts for Blessed Faustina Kowalska, and some pages of advertisements for other publications of Catholic Heritage Curricula which may not be available now, over 25 years later.
I recommend these books, both as comprehension workbooks and as good stories of the saints.
List of stories:
Secretary of the Divine Mercy: Blessed Faustina Kowalska
A Picture from Heaven: Blessed Juan Diego
First Saint of the New World: St. Rose of Lima
Following in the Footsteps of Christ: St. Francis, Part One
Following in the Footsteps of Christ: St. Francis, Part Two
For God and the Poor: Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
The Love of God Is Everything: Venerable Fr. Solanus Casey
St. Helena: Empress and Finder of the True Cross
Greater Love than This: Blessed Fr. Damien of Molokai
St. Elizabeth of Hungary
An Unexpected Bishop: St. Ambrose
Blue Sky and Our Altars: Mother Seton
Using the story of St. Elizabeth of Hungary as an example, the story is 7 1/2 pages long with one half-page illustration to accompany it. The story elaborates on much that St. Elizabeth did to help the poor that I have never heard of, such as during a famine, she had the castle bake 900 loaves of bread every day, using up the supply of grain in the basement storehouse. When her husband Louis returned home after a trip, the indignant members of the family took him to see the empty grain bins. Miraculously, they found the grain bins refilled to overflowing. In this story we learn of St. Elizabeth's great love for St. Francis of Assisi which he had heard of. In kindness to her, St. Francis sent to her a cloak that he had worn. This was certainly a story that I had never heard. These two stories are my reason for giving only 4 stars instead of 5 for this volume. It's not that I think Mrs. Woodfield made these up, just that I realized that there are no credits given or resources cited for where she fount her material for the story. For me, that would have been a good addition, especially when adding details not usually included. Following each story is a list of vocabulary words, some comprehension questions, and a list of potential projects. The projects for this story include memorizing one or more quotes from St. Elizabeth, writing an essay with three possible topics given, or illustrate scenes from the life of St. Elizabeth.
This edition begins with a bit of information about the publisher, Catholic Heritage Curricula and has an introductory chapter, "How to use the Stories of the Saints." It ends with an answer key for the comprehension questions, a page of resources related to the saints included such as the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy in Massachusetts for Blessed Faustina Kowalska, and some pages of advertisements for other publications of Catholic Heritage Curricula which may not be available now, over 25 years later.
I recommend these books, both as comprehension workbooks and as good stories of the saints.
Displaying 1 of 1 review