Topic: Have you noticed the lack of Christian "easter" books out there?

[Thomas]

I was at a Barnes and Nobles Bookstore yesterday to pick up some Christian Books on Holy Week and "Easter" for my Grandchildren's Easter Baskets and found only one book, a rather poorly drawn book on the new Testament story of easter. To put in mildly, I was a little surprised that out of some 50 book titles they had available there was only 1 having to do with the real reason behind Easter. So I decided to look outside the children's and Teens area and found not much more, even in the "Christian" Religous book area.

I went to Barnes and Nobles because I had gone last Sunday to my Parish's bookstore which usally has an abundance of Church books for children but again found little pertaining to Holy Week and Pascha.  What is happening, are we forgetting the need to help our children understand and visualize the facts and spirituality of Holy Week.  So often they are lost in the legnth of the services that they misunderstand the Bridegroom services. Parishes have lost the traditional Children's procession for Lazarus Saturday or their participation up front of the procession on Palm Sunday. My own grandchildren note that they only begin to understand the events of Holy week with the services on Friday at the THE APOKATHELOSIS or The Unnailing from the Cross (Great Friday Vespers) and at the Lamentations Service (GreatSaturday Orthros). They get the taking down of Jesus from the Cross, the visual quality of the hymns of the Lamentations, and of course the light of Pascha during the Rush Service.  How can we deepen this more to bring them closer to our Lord?

Thomas

[pensateomnia]

Not surprising for those corporate book stores. They've always been weak.

Conciliar Press has three children's books on Holy Week, part of the 12 Great Feasts series. One for Friday, one for Saturday, one for Pascha itself.

You can buy them separately, or all three in a bundle for 33% off. Only 10 bucks.

http://www.conciliarpress.com/books/children-s-books/the-three-day-pascha-series-set-of-three-books.html

[Iconodule]

Check out The Easter Story, illustrated by Gennady Spirin. Spirin is an Orthodox Christian and also one of the greatest artists/ illustrators of our time, in my opinion. He draws heavily on the Northern Renaissance for his illustrations (I personally prefer the Northern to the Italian Renaissance). You can order copies here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0805050523/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used