Athanasius by Simonetta Carr
part of the Christian Biographies for Young Readers series
I first saw this book mentioned on Brandy's blog and was immediately intrigued because St. Athanasius is our family's patron saint and there are not many books available on him for young children. (Of course, there's St. Athanasius by Forbes, but that's not for young children and is not anything close to an objective biography. We'll read it a bit later anyway.)
The series is obviously written from a Protestant viewpoint (given the titles on John Calvin, for example), but that didn't mean this particular book would be inappropriate for Catholics. Not willing to spend money without seeing it first, I requested it from inter-library loan.
I thought it was a nice biography of Athanasius with a well-written description of the Arian heresy for young readers. I think First Son (who is in third grade now) could easily read this himself and, with some discussion, understand quite a bit of the controversy. It includes maps, icons, and photographs of busts of the Roman emperors, along with the artists illustrations.
The Nicene Creed at the end of the book is not the one we say at Mass, but overall the book is a good introduction to St. Athanasius (though it never calls him a saint, of course) for Catholics. I hope to purchase it for our homeschool.
