Catholic Book Review - A Treasure Chest of Traditions for Catholic Families

As a child, church and God were mostly something I thought about on Sundays and holidays (unless I was at Grandma’s house). When I got pregnant for the first time, I started looking for resources to make the Catholic faith something that we LIVED, not just an appointment we kept on Sundays. Recently, I found a book called, “A Treasure Chest of Traditions for Catholic Families” (2^nd Ed.) by Monica McConkey (ISBN: 0-9689159-4-9).

The book is spiral-bound, making it easy to keep it open to the pages you want, and is about the size of a trade paperback. I mention this because for some reason, I expected it to be larger. This book goes through the liturgical year beginning with Advent and includes crafts, recipes and other celebration ideas for many saint and feast days. Each month has a saints’ day/feast calendar and the pages are liberally sprinkled with prayers, finger plays, and side notes.

This is not a book you just sit down and read in one sitting, rather, it is broken up into small bite sized bits by month and season: Advent, Ordinary Time, Lent, etc., making it more of a reference manual of Catholic traditions. This makes A Treasure Chest of Traditions for Catholic Families easy to scan quickly. You can easily find something to do this week or even today for your kids to do, especially on that rainy day. The book includes activities for all ages, starting with pre-school.

I didn’t find any activities in this book that were not loyal the Catholic Church, and really the only bad thing I can say about the book is that the pages are a little busy for me, however, the activities are of such high quality that the graphic images are well worth looking past. The ArmaDei Publishing Company also has a blog with even more activities - http://equippingcatholicfamilies.blogspot.com/.

Overall, I would recommend this book to almost any Catholic family. Even if you don’t have kids of your own, it would be fabulous for use with nieces, nephews, God-children, grandchildren, or any other children in your life. It would also be a great resource for Faith Formation teachers and homeschoolers.

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