The Clown of God

I read a post over at Domestic Vocation
that reminded me of one of my favorite children's books (in a crazy train of thought).
I found a review and a picture to share.

Book Review from Clown Ministry:

"The Clown of God is a touching story, a children's story, a Christmas story, and a clown ministry story – all at the same time. In a nutshell, an orphaned street urchin goes begging from door to door, juggling for his food. He joins a traveling troupe of entertainers, and gains fame and fortune as a juggler, until he grows old, and again becomes a homeless beggar.

On one cold night, he seeks shelter in a nearby church, and falls asleep. He awakens to the site of the townspeople offering gifts to statues of the baby Jesus and his mother. The crowd leaves, and our juggler approaches, to see that the statues are sad.

He puts on his clown face, and juggles as he never has before, to put a smile on the divine Child's face. He dies of a heart attack in the attempt. The monks in the church, who thought that his performance was sacrilegious, turn to see that the statue of Mary and the baby Jesus are now smiling. The message of the story seems to be that it is not what you can offer the Lord, but the spirit in which you offer it, that really matters."

This is cross posted at Catholic Notebook

America circa 1850 onward

Here are some good ideas as we turn our attention to America circa 1850 onward.

For the younger grades, I really like the Steven Kellogg books, (Pecos Bill, Mike Fink, Paul Bunyan, etc.) as well as the excellent books by the D'Aulaires. In the past, we've enjoyed the detail-rich Holling books, but we've yet to read Tree in the Trail, a cowboy story. Old Sam and Brave Buffalo Fighter will make good reading and these childhood biographies will be wonderful.  Jim Weiss's American Tall Tales will warrant a listen, and then there's that really cool movie, Tall Tale!

H/T to Dawn at Sun and Candlelight.