It's been two years since the Catholic Schools Textbook Project — producing the first new Catholic history textbooks in 40 years — rolled into classrooms.

Now, with two texts of the planned five-volume series in use in at least one school in all 50 states, the first report cards are coming in. The consensus seems to be: Make room on the honor rolls.

“They're just excellent books with tremendous illustrations,” says Jack Kersting, principal of Trinity Grammar & Prep in Napa, Calif., where both texts are used for grades five through eight. “They're way better than anything else you could use.”

“It really keeps the kids' attention, as opposed to a book that would just cover facts,” says Tina Sabga, who uses both texts to teach history to fifth- and sixth-graders at Spiritus Sanctus Academy in Ann Arbor, Mich. “It really was like a story from beginning to end, like a book that you would want to read.”

“I have taught a lot of years,” says Katherine Hahn, a sixth-grade teacher and assistant principal at Holy Rosary Academy in Anchorage, Alaska. “I have never before had students beg to do history. They would constantly say, ‘Let's do history now!' They were always sorry when we finished history and would groan when it was time to do something else.”

That kind of response has to be heartening to Drs. Michael Van Hecke and Rollin Lasseter. Van Hecke is president of the Catholic Schools Textbook Project and Lasseter, an English professor at the University of Dallas, is general editor.

According to Van Hecke, who is also a teacher and headmaster of St. Augustine Academy in Ventura, Calif., the project aims “to bring Catholic education back into the classroom, to give Catholic teachers Catholic tools.”

It was a simple but nagging question that led Dr. Michael Van Hecke to undertake the formidable challenge of planning, publishing and marketing a new textbook series. ‘I came to the project,' he says, ‘from a simple common-sensical question: Why don't we have material that includes honestly the Church's contribution to history?' For more, go to www.catholictextbook project.com.

Fair, Balanced and a Blast

“I was ecstatic about All Ye Lands, one of the two volumes in use,” Hahn says. “I thought it was done in the manner in which all history texts should be done. You can't get around the fact that Catholicism was a big part of our history — yet in secular textbooks it's omitted completely.”

“All Ye Lands is beautifully written,” Sabga says. “There are different sections in the book highlighted with different saints of the time. It's a very Catholic perspective, but it still covers important information they need to know.”

With this text, she was able to spend “a good deal of time on St. Benedict and his rule,” Sabga says. “I branched off and had students write a paper on his rule and balanced way of life.”

Students' reactions have been equally upbeat. Sean Thornton, who will be going into seventh grade at Trinity Grammar & Prep in the fall, used both texts — the other is From Sea to Shining Sea: The Story of America. They're even more than exciting reading for him.

“I like to read and study history with these books,” Thornton says. “From Sea to Shining Sea has stories of saints and the Catholic Church and how it began in America. I think that's pretty much the most important part of the book.” He was introduced to saints such as Elizabeth Ann Seton.

“They've covered everything you like to see covered,” says principal Kersting, “and they're not trying to make the Catholic Church look better than it is but on the same token not trying to beat it up as other texts do.”

It was a simple but nagging question that led Van Hecke to undertake the formidable challenge of planning, publishing and marketing a new textbook series.

“I came to the project,” he says, “from a simple common-sensical question: Why don't we have material that includes honestly the Church's contribution to history?”

As a teacher, he had found lots of problems with the glitzy secular texts that were long on graphics and short on content. And truth. The first text he was given “lacked plenty in its context — certainly the Church's part in history, which is major. No matter how or what you are, you can't deny the Church's contribution to Western culture.”

He supplemented it with a photocopy of a 50-year-old Catholic history book to properly balance the tale of history through the year. Once he met Lasseter in Texas, they began working on the idea of producing their own books.

“Now eight years and $400,000 later, we have two books done and three in the pipeline,” Van Hecke says.

Both founders agree the project has been worth every ounce of energy and heart they've put into it. Van Hecke tells of a girl in his own school in California. She came up to him and said, “Mr. Van Hecke, I love this book so much that my mom is going to buy it for me for my birthday.”

And the story-telling approach also became paramount for Van Hecke. “The modern textbook is just simply boring,” he says. “It's not inspiring.”

“The best teachers tell stories — especially in history,” Van Hecke says. That's exactly the approach of these texts, which also have their own four-color pictures, maps and graphics.

“You want to give kids stories because one of those stories is going to catch their hearts, inspire them and show them the Church is real and not something you do on Sunday,” Van Hecke says. “It's a way of life and it has been a way of life for great men and women throughout history. And if anybody is honest, they cannot deny the amount of God in the whole process.”

Hahn finds other pluses. She's pleased with the books' sidebars, such as those about saints and literature. “They have a lot of information that would not have fit in exactly with the text,” she says, “but was too important to leave out.”

Van Hecke tells of the time Father Robert Stanion of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal came into the classroom having just read an article in Crisis magazine about the Irish soldiers who fought in Texas. He came into the fifth-grade classroom to talk about how the Church is more important than country, using this story as an example.

“One boy raised his hand,” Van Hecke recalls. “‘Father, we were just reading about that in our history book — here it is!' he said, opening to the page.”

“Here's a priest giving them a neat lesson in Catholic heroism,” Van Hecke points out with delight, “and a fifth-grader ties it back to the history book. It's that ‘awe' moment we get in teaching.”

Just the kind of moment the Catholic Schools Textbook Project hopes to make commonplace in Catholic classrooms across the country.

Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.