Today a Coloring Book, Tomorrow a Canvas

Children’s book pick selections to encourage creativity in the budding sacred artists in your domestic church.

Does a budding artist live in your domestic church? Maybe he or she is a musician never without his guitar, a blogger with a knack for verbal persuasion, an actor who stars in the neighborhood talent show — or a painter whose early masterpieces you display on your refrigerator.

Don’t be surprised if even your young children show flashes of true artistic talent. Each of us carries an impulse within to create and to bring beauty into the world. “Every genuine inspiration,” wrote Pope John Paul II in his 1999 Letter to Artists, “contains some tremor of that ‘breath’ with which the Creator spirit suffused the work of creation from the very beginning.”

John Paul II knew that tremor well. The one-time poet, writer and actor referred to the indelible mark the arts made on him when he was growing up. His successor, Pope Benedict XVI, who plays the piano, said the music of Mozart “thoroughly penetrated” his soul when he was young.

Here are some books to nurture the creative spirit in your young ones’ “home studio.”


MARIO’S ANGELS: A STORY ABOUT THE ARTIST GIOTTO

written by Mary Arrigan

illustrated by Gillian McClure

Frances Lincoln Children’s Books, 2006

32 pages, $15.95

Meet Giotto, the father of European painting, as seen through the eyes of a little boy in this fictionalized account. Mario dreams of helping Mister Giotto paint the Nativity fresco for the church. Even more, he wants the artist to paint him in the picture. Mister Giotto politely refuses. It’s only when Father Prior expresses disappointment in the night sky over the stable (“too dull”) that Mario discovers a way to help the 14th-century artist bring life to the famous fresco. Ages 4 to 8.


MICHELANGELO

written and illustrated by Dianne Stanley

HarperCollins, 2003

48 pages, $6.99

One artist stood head and shoulders above all others in the High Renaissance as the master of painting (Sistine Chapel), sculpture (“The Pietà and “David”) and architecture (St. Peter’s Basilica). His name was Michelangelo Buonarroti. From trying his hand at chiseling stone at the age of 6 until his death at 89, Michelangelo never stopped creating. Nearing the end of his life, he dismissed his great works of art as being “of little value” but promised that “they will last for a while.” Little did he know. Ages 9 to 12.


RAPHAEL

written and illustrated by Mike Venezia

Children’s Press, 2001

32 pages, $6.95

Raphael Sanzio (1483-1520) ranks among the most famous Italian artists of the Renaissance. He incorporated the best techniques of da Vinci (composition) and Michelangelo (the natural movement of the human body) and, in the process, created a style all his own. He died quite young, but Raphael inspired his contemporaries and Pope Julius II with his realistic paintings, especially those of the Virgin tenderly holding the beautiful, plump Baby Jesus. A special touch Raphael added to the “Sistine Madonna” — two bored and mischievous cherubs — lives on today in the popular image found on note cards, mugs, puzzles and posters. Ages 9 to 12.


HENRI MATISSE: DRAWING WITH SCISSORS

written by Jane O’Connor

illustrated by Jessie Hartland

Grosset & Dunlap, 2002

32 pages, $5.99

Designed as a young girl’s school report, this book explores the life and works of French artist Henri Matisse (1869-1954). The kid-friendly format succeeds in shortening the distance between the artist and the reader. Unable to stand for long periods, an aging Matisse moved from painting to cutting out and mounting paper shapes (“drawing with scissors”). In his last years, Matisse designed the building, the stained-glass windows and even the vestments for the Dominican nuns’ Chapel of the Rosary in France — his merci to a nun who had once nursed him when he was sick. Ages 4 to 8.


THE SECRET WORLD OF HILDEGARD

written by Jonah Winter

illustrated by Jeanette Winter

Arthur A. Levine Books, 2007

64 pages, $16.99

More than 900 years ago, a German girl named Hildegard imagined a world of colors, light and images invisible to others. So intense were these visions that she suffered greatly. An inner voice told Hildegard, now a Benedictine nun, to tell others what she saw. The clergy, the bishop and Pope Eugene III believed that Hildegard’s mystical dreams were from God. Describing herself as “just a feather on the breath of God,” Hildegard von Bingen wrote books and composed music for her nuns based on her divinely inspired visions. Ages 9 to 12.


J.R.R. TOLKIEN: CREATOR OF LANGUAGES AND LEGENDS

written by Doris Lynch

Children’s Press, 2003

128 pages, $30.50

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” So begins The Hobbit — as well as this biography of the man who created Middle-earth, which is also inhabited by elves, dragons and orcs. Born in South Africa, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien moved to England with his mother, Mabel, and brother after his father died. Mabel instilled in her son a passion for languages, words, folk tales — and the Catholic faith she had come to accept as an adult. All would hold Tolkien in good stead as he married, raised four children (including a son who became a priest), taught languages and literature at Oxford University, and, most famously, wrote fantastical tales guided by a Catholic moral compass. Ages 12 and older.


C.S. LEWIS: CHRISTIAN AND STORYTELLER

written by Beatrice Gormley

Eerdmans, 2005

180 pages, $14

“Parts of me are still 12, and I think other parts were already 50 when I was 12,” the author of The Chronicles of Narnia wrote. With one foot planted in childhood and the other in adulthood, “Jack” Lewis spoke to the imaginations of both children and adults. His love for myth — which Catholic friend J.R.R. Tolkien said expressed truths deeper than fact — allowed millions to step with Lucy through the magical wardrobe into a land of eternal winter, waiting in joyful hope. Today we recognize Lewis, an Anglican, as one of the most influential Christian writers of the 20th century. But this biography reads like a thriller as it traces his journey from atheism to faith. Ages 12 and older.

The Crawford sisters

write from Pittsburgh.