Category: Summer

Summer Reads for Catholic Kids and Teens

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Summer is a great time to read new books! As a child, whenever I packed for summer vacation, the books were always the first things in my travel bag.

Introduce your children to a new author or a genre this summer with these books your family can enjoy together.

Nonfiction Picks for Summer

If I still had kids in elementary school, I’d hand them a copy of God Made That! Catholic Nature Field Guide by Kathleen M. Hoenke and William A. Jacobs (Pauline Books & Media) and send them out to the backyard. This book helps kids and families explore and learn about the world around them, with discussions of different environments such as deciduous forests, rainforests, grasslands, and deserts and what we can learn from creation. Seamlessly woven in are mini-biographies of saints who made an impact on scientific study and set an example in caring for creation. Readers will learn about the animals, birds, insects, trees, and plants found in various regions and environments, and they’re encouraged to take notes in a nature journal, share what they learn with others, and thank God for the world around them.

 

Children interested in the saints will enjoy Virtues of the Saints: 15 Heavenly Habits for Children by Father Donald Calloway, MIC and Patrick Hearn, illustrated by Adalee Hude (Marian Press). This book boasts beautiful art and introduces young readers to saints including Saint Joseph, Saint Peter, Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, and Saint Joan of Arc — and the Blessed Mother as well. Each saint’s story ends with a prayer. This is not a picture book for toddlers; there’s a lot of text on these pages. I’d recommend it for children in grades 2 through 4 for independent reading, or kindergarten and up for read-alouds.

 

Families with small children will enjoy reading The Gospel of Luke for Little Ones, written by Sarah Beth Meyer and illustrated by Allison Hsu (Marian Press). Selected episodes from each chapter of Luke’s Gospel are retold in simple rhymes and illustrated with gentle watercolor depictions. A bonus page shows how Jesus prayed the psalms and offers a few verses to memorize.

 

Another cute picture book for the little ones is Donna-Marie Cooper O’Boyle’s I Can Pray Anywhere, illustrated by Jim Starr (OSV Kids). Two young children and their family are shown praying in many ways, including crossing the street on the way to church, before a meal, and even standing on their head! This sweet book encourages children to talk to God throughout their day, in thanksgiving, petition, and expressions of delight.

 

New Summer Fiction for All Ages

Planning a road trip? Leslea Wahl’s latest novel from Perpetual Light Publishing, A Summer to Treasure, tells the story of a three-generation family road trip, complete with a mystery for the three teens to solve! The last thing Luke, Celia, and Austin want is to be cooped up in an RV, far away from friends, fun, and reliable Wi-Fi … but when Grandma drops enough clues for them to believe she’s dying, they agree to re-create the national parks tour Grandma had taken with her own parents when she was young. Along the way, the teens get into some tight spots, but they learn a lot about friendship, helping each other, and staying true to yourself.

 

For middle-schoolers and teenagers, The Saint I Knew: Exciting “Encounters” with Holiness by Kevin Wilson (Marian Press) offers ten short stories in which the narrator meets a saint-to-be at a young age. Get to know saints like Mother Teresa, Padre Pio, Maximilian Kolbe, André Bessette, Carlo Acutis, and five others in a new and interesting way! Bonus information at the end of the book includes brief stories of the miracles that helped to elevate these individuals to canonization. This book would make a great gift for a teen preparing for Confirmation next year.

 

Lindsay Schlegel has taken my very favorite Saint Thérèse quote and built an entire picture book, God’s Little Flowers, around it! This picture book (OSV Kids), with its simple and cheerful illustrations by Joy Laforme, shines a light on the truth we need to share with all the children in our lives: each of us is uniquely gifted by God and has something special to share with the world — and all our gifts are important! Lindsay also stresses that not all gifts are as obvious as skill at a particular sport, art, or music. Share this book with a young girl you know, and help her identify her own gifts and those of the people special to her!

 

 

 

Copyright 2025 Barb Szyszkiewicz

Images created in Canva

This article contains Amazon affiliate links, which provide a small compensation to me when purchases are made through the links, at no cost to you. Thank you for your support.

7QT: Summer of the Street Urchins

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The 7 Quick Takes today are hosted at an alternate site while the usual hostess is on vacation, so THANK YOU to Kathryn at Team Whitaker for stepping in as a substitute!

Little Brother, age 12, has a pack of friends whom I have nicknamed The Street Urchins. Middle Sister thinks that’s mean, but I just call ’em like I see ’em. There are four Street Urchins on this block. Three of them live in divided households (one lives with his grandparents, so he splits things three ways). The fourth’s parents own a restaurant, so he seems to be left to his own devices as often as the others, who could be here for several hours, spanning two mealtimes, without any adult looking for them.

I don’t mind if the Street Urchins play at my house or swim in my pool, but I do insist on some house rules, and yesterday things got pretty rocky in that department, and I told them all to go outside or go home. I might have raised my voice. (Sorry, not sorry.)

I don’t put up with their nonsense because I don’t want these guys, in 4 years, to be the ones binge-drinking at someone’s house party and destroying property/mistreating others. Looking into those faces yesterday, I could see where this could happen. I’m not their parent, but if they’re at my house, they’re playing by my rules.

Without further ado, here are the 7 things I expect from visiting Street Urchins.

-1-

RESPECT THE ADULTS. Say hello when you arrive and goodbye when you leave. I deserve to know who is in my house/yard/pool. If I provided a snack or a meal, thank me for that. Don’t rant because the pizza isn’t from your preferred source.

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RESPECT THE OTHER KIDS. You are too old to tattle-tale over nothing, and that’s not a nice way to treat your friends.

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RESPECT MY HOME. Don’t throw things in the house. (That goes double for the pieces of the remote control that you tossed behind the couch.) Put away what you take out. My pantry is not your pantry.

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RESPECT MY TIME. You live on this block. If you want to swim in my pool, bring your own towel. I am not your laundress.

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RESPECT MY HOSPITALITY. If you want a snack, ask. If you have a snack, clean up your mess.

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RESPECT YOUR OWN GROWNUPS. If they call here or show up here and tell you it’s time to leave, do not make them wait until you play one more round of a video game.

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RESPECT MY POOL. Have fun but swim safely. Don’t climb on the sides. Check in with me before you swim and before you leave.

Sometimes it does take a village to raise a child, when that child’s own personal adults don’t take responsibility. These children are in my village, and when they play here, they’ll play by the same rules my own kids must follow.

Finding Some Silence

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Being an introvert, I need some quiet time on a regular basis to recharge my batteries.  My kids don’t know from quiet.  My younger two are so extroverted that they practically have others orbiting them on a regular basis.  Little Brother, in particular, needs near-constant company.  And when his friends are here and it’s quiet, that’s usually not a good thing either.

Between the radio (loud enough to be heard throughout the house), the TV (at a competing decibel level) and the general kid chatter–or bickering–I feel like I’m being assaulted by noise constantly.

I’m not getting to daily Mass like I’d like to (and like I do on average of 4 days a week during the school year), and that doesn’t help.  It’s hard to listen to my favorite radio show, The Catholics Next Door, because I don’t want to add one more sound source to the sensory overload I’m experiencing.  It’s like the lyrics from that Harry Nilsson song, “Everybody’s Talkin’ at Me.”

And when everyone’s outside, I relish the silence for as long as I can get it.

At Catholicmom.com, Sarah Reinhard brought up the topic of summer parenting.  I mentioned in the comments that with my desk in the middle of the house, in the living room, I run into a lot of sound overload (and a lot of interruptions.)  I’ve been contemplating a way to find some space elsewhere in the house where I can work in quiet.

This afternoon, I got it all figured out and Middle Sister did the heavy moving.  I’ve got a bookcase full of books emptied out all over the bed, so I have to get those put away, but there’s a small desk in my room near a window that has a backyard view.  It’s not going to be my primary work space.  But when things get Just Too Loud here in the heart of my home, it’s good to know that I’ve got a spot where I can (temporarily) retreat.

I can run, but I can’t hide.  I can’t stay up there all day, tempting though it may be.  That won’t do my family any good.  Besides, I’m not so sure I want to be working in the same room where I sleep.  We’ll see how it goes.  If nothing else, I’ll have sorted through all these books–and that’s not a bad thing either.

Letter Perfect

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The kids are on notice.

That stack below the sign contains 6 towels that have been left here over the course of the summer.  I don’t launder them anymore–I just hang them on the line, fold them, and pile them next to the Lost & Found basket that contains someone’s bug spray, someone’s swim goggles, someone’s sunglasses.  When kids come over here I interrogate them about whose towels these are.  No one knows–but the teenagers use them anyway (ewwwwwwwww).

I wonder if any of these towels will miraculously find a home in the days to come, or if the ManageMOM will get to dispose of them as she sees fit?

The Kool-Aid Mom Lays Down the Law

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Over the weekend, TheDad and the Big Kids opened the backyard pool for the summer. It’s not warm enough to swim, but the Street Urchins who hang around with Little Brother have already been showing up at the door in their swimsuits, towels in hand. (I’m guessing they remember my ironclad rule from last summer: no towel, no swim.)

That’s not the only rule I’m going to have to enforce, however. This mom is really tired of people leaving stuff around for me to pick up. They’re all old enough to clean up after themselves. And if they won’t bother to get their friends to clean up, then they can clean up after their friends as well.

And then there’s the whole “availability” issue. When people are in the pool, I have to supervise. Even if they know how to swim. Even though I really don’t swim well at all. Having a pool brings a huge amount of responsibility with it. I’m not a fan of the Street Urchins’ tactic of “arrive home from school, change into swimsuit, and show up at my house.” So…my red light/green light sign has gone back on the front door.

This sign has been around since Little Brother and Adventure Boy were preschoolers. I took one of those foam door hanger things and drew 3 circles on each side. On one side, I colored in the top circle red. In the other 2 circles I wrote “Play Later.” Then on the flip side, I colored the bottom circle green and wrote “Friends Welcome.” Even pre-readers get the idea. (Little Brother is not authorized to change the sign without my permission.)

I don’t want to be unwelcoming, but neither do I want to be the entire neighborhood’s maid, lifeguard, and free babysitter. A few limits are a good thing.

The Kool-Aid Mom and the Kid Magnet

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So here we are, 10 days into summer vacation for Little Brother, 17 for Middle Sister, and 6 business days into summer job for Big Brother.

Summer’s getting old already, I have to say.

TheDad is home from work this week and the big project has been the installation of an above-ground swimming pool, AKA Kid Magnet.

That makes me the Kool-Aid Mom.

The pool’s not quite up and running just yet; we need electricity for the filter and the ladder is not assembled completely. But already the neighborhood kids are looking to swim.

One of the eighth-grade Boy Scouts who hangs around here in the hopes that one of Middle Sister’s friends will visit has already threatened promised that he’d be here swimming often. Oh, joy. Between the pool, the fire pit, and the never-ending supply of eighth-grade girls, there’s plenty to attract those Boy Scouts.

And then there are the Three Musketeers who live down the street, whose number includes Adventure Boy. I imagine that once the pool opens, they’ll be here with nothing but a bathing suit (no shoes, no shirt, no towel) and expect to stay the day. Every day. If I let them swim on nice days, can I ask them to stay home when it rains?

Advice on a pool-rules policy would be most welcome. (I’ve already decided that if you live on this block and you show up without a towel, you can go home and get it.) Of course, invited nonswimmers need to bring their own parent and flotation devices.

I like that my kids are playing here and they want to invite their friends over. But the under-18 crowd needs to be supervised (the 14-year-olds even more so than the 8-year-olds, for different reasons) and that can be plenty exhausting.

How many more weeks until school starts?

Going Underground

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We got some new furniture for the living room last week. I’ve been getting used to it (translation: I’ve been falling asleep in the new love seat a lot). But what has taken even more getting used to is the fact that my desk no longer fits into the living room.

Middle Sister, you see, talked me into investing in a “chair and a half” which is about the size of the old love seat. Plus we got a love seat and a couch. There’s lots of seating in that room now, which is great. But there’s no room for my desk.

That’s OK, in a way…I like that the living room seems less cluttered without my desk. But putting it in the family room means that I am right in the middle of all the action–rather than close to the action, where I can see and hear it, but not in a spot where Nerf basketballs regularly rebound off my laptop screen (note to self: close laptop when not in use).

Summer’s coming–two kids are already out of school and Little Brother only has three half-days left. I’m not yet used to having kids at home during the day–and the combination of one child who leaves the radio on in one room and the TV on in another, which happens to be the room I’m in, and another child’s musical experimentation with a homemade didgeridoo is making me crazy. I can hardly wait to add an eight-year-old boy, who’s in motion so much that he’s blurry in nearly every picture he poses for, to the mix.

I’m jealous of Barb’s “teacher’s meetings” at Panera. I think I’m going to have to work in one of those every week or so. Middle Sister can babysit, since Big Brother starts work on Monday. (What are the odds that he’ll be taking that didgeridoo with him?)

We have an empty desk in the basement that my husband was going to use for his home business. He doesn’t use it–ever. So I may be taking my laptop downstairs, at least to get my work done (see “Blogging for Coupons” in the sidebar). I’ll see how that goes.