A review by thebookbin
Stories of the Saints: Bold and Inspiring Tales of Adventure, Grace, and Courage by Carey Wallace

3.0

Beautiful book, but doesn't balance it's heavy nature with the storybook format. Picked it up because I think the Catholic flavor of religion is interesting and the idea of saints novel. But the prose is childish (the book is for children) yet at the same time every story ends with the saint's brutal murder. Sometimes they get beheaded or cut open or set on fire. All described in a level of detail that is a bit surprising, but at the same time dances around topics like rape and slavery. I think if it had just embraced the violent history of Christianity and taken its readers a bit more seriously, even if they intended those readers to be children, the book would have been more successful. Very pretty, though.