Saint Training

Saint Training is a beautifully-written can’t-put-it-down little book about sweet but exuberant Mary Clare OBrian. In this book you travel back in time to 1967 and meet sixth-grader Mary Clare who is working overtime with God as her family faces tough times. Nothing is easy and little Mary Clare is not only praying like crazy, she is writing to a real expert for advice—no not Ann Landers or Dear Abby, but to Sister Monica, Mother Superior of Saint Mary Magdalene Convent. Mary Clare is a smart little girl, the oldest daughter in a very large Catholic family. At school she has to deal with Sister Agony who is watching over her with suspicion—good thing smiling Sister Charlotte is there to cheer her up. Two older OBrian brothers are facing the draft and that is adding more storm clouds at home. Plus, Mom and Dad are not seeing eye-to-eye on how they can solve their financial problems. In a cruel twist, Mary Clares friends are starting to look critically at her because she spends so much time with responsibilities around the house. And on top of everything, her wild curly hair won’t behave itself even after night after night of winding it around soup-can curlers. Mary Clare sacrifices for her family, meets disappointments and victories, and learns a whole lot about life. Saint Training delivers a terrific story for everyone—and Elizabeth Fixmer, painstakingly crafted the book so it can be appreciated by readers as young as the middle grades. Fixmer, who comes from a large Catholic family, was a psychotherapist who worked with children using literature to help them learn to understand themselves and others. All her skills are present here. Although peppered with issues such as the Vietnam War, early feminism, and civil rights, the central theme of the book is about how we all must decide some things for ourselves especially when good people take different sides of an issue. The author is respectful and appreciative of Catholic culture and faith as well as other cultures and faiths. And regardless of the fact that the book touches on serious issues, Saint Training is most of all a fun, funny, touching book that grannies, moms, and daughters can pass around and talk about for hours. If you are one of those people who have a hard time laughing at yourself and cannot read a book that touches on religion without getting your checklist of my dogma out, forget it and just go and get another book you know agrees with everything you do and save everyone the aggravation of hearing how upset you are. This is just not a book about dogma, it is a book about a little girl and how she looks at the world. For most everyone else, this is great book. When you hang-out with Mary Clare, sometimes the trip is fun, sometimes painful, but every step is taken honestly with good humor. This book is published under the Zonderkidz imprint, but it is a book that adults will love as well--not one of those books that people just say adults should love and do not, it is honestly a book that adults will love. If you are an adult who happened to have gone to a Catholic School back in the day, you will love it all the more.