Review: Tin Cups and Tinder: A Catholic Boy's Little Book of Fire, Food & Fun

Alice Cantrell does it yet again!  First, she came out with Sewing with St. Anne ... a classic hand- and machine-sewing book for girls that I've used extensively with mine own lovely girls and recommend to others for teaching sewing.  Then a few years later, she wrote Tea and Cake with the Saints: A Catholic Young Lady's Introduction to Hospitality and the Home Arts.  These were both directed at the girls in the family -- sewing and cooking and welcoming others.  The books were replete with great explanations of HOW to do all these wonderful skills.  These were proof that you could teach 21st century girls how to embrace the good, the true and the beautiful.

But what about the boys in the family?

Introducing Tin Cups and Tinder: A Catholic Boy's Little Book of Fire, Food & Fun.  This volume proofs that boys, too, can be taught the good, the true and the beautiful! If attractive pictures/presentation are half-the-battle for hooking a young audience today, than Cantrell has won the war.  The book includes gorgeous pictures of antique camping and outdoor cooking equipment and beautiful pictures of the final products ... if that doesn't get the boys in your house chompin' at the bit to use this book ....

The book begins by explaining cooking in the kitchen as well as cooking outdoors.  She then follows that section with a section of amazing, boy-friendly recipes:  cornbread, pancakes, brownies, and hot chocolate mix to name just a few.  

For more hands-on fun, the boys are taught to sew -- simple hand-stitching that comes in handy for sewing on buttons.  But, Cantrell adds some fun sewing projects:  a pot holder, haversack and a pocket-sized sewing kit.  She also explains WHY boys should sew!  These are projects that teach useful skills while also giving the boys something useful to have. 

The final section deals with book-binding -- making a nature notebook and a portable plant press(to keep in the haversack the boy made in the previous section).  What better way to have boys off couches, away from the video games, and out into God's creation than to have them create their own nature journals?  And the plant press is an ingenious use of out-grown board books.

Scattered throughout this useful book are quotes from male saints as well as biographies of these saints that help guide our young men to His Kingdom.

I can't recommend this book enough -- it's so wonderful to find a useful, beautifully presented, practical guide to life skills for boys.  And it's Catholic to-boot.  What's not to love?  This book needs to be high on every parent's Christmas list for their boys (and girls could get quite a bit of good stuff out of it,too).

 

Feast Day: North American Martyrs

This is one of those not exactly politically-correct feast days since many would say that the eight Jesuit Missionaries slaughtered in the 1640s by indigent Native North Americans was just what they deserved.  That being said, this is a feast day where Catholics honor these self-same men for sacrificing their all to spread the Gospel.

I particularly like St. Isaac Jogues' comments about what (and why) he was doing what he was doing:

My confidence is placed in God who does not need our help for accomplishing his designs. Our single endeavor should be to give ourselves to the work and to be faithful to him, and not to spoil his work by our shortcomings. 

We were lucky, back in the summer of 1999 to see the Shrine of the North American Martyrs ... in Auriesville, NY.  It was a memorable drive from North Carolina, up through the Eastern seasboard states to drop two of our kids at CYO camps in New Hampshire and then on to Nova Scotia for a two-week camping trip with Baby Lego Maniac.  As we drove through rural New York State, the storm clouds dogging our heels, we stopped at a nearly-deserted Shrine which is so low-key and low-budget as to be filled with the aroma of sanctity!  Don't let the simplicity of the site fool you ... this is one very cool spot to rest and pray for all those who gave it up for God!

May the example made by the Eight North American Martyrs -- including St. Isaac Jogues and St. Jean deBrebeuf -- spark a new zeal for spreading the Truth!