The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Children’s Books: Tools for Formation

Episode Date: May 12, 2023

What tools are available to parents who want to share the faith with their children? One tool is faith-filled children’s books! Today, Jeff Cavins is joined by children’s book author Claudia McAdam. Together they discuss the benefits of faith-filled children’s books as well as Claudia’s new books: A Miracle for Micah and The Real Presence. Snippet from the Show If parents do not teach their children the truth and beauty of the faith and to help them fall in love with Jesus, they will not find it in the secular world. Email us with comments or questions at [e-mail]. Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 to subscribe and get Jeff’s shownotes delivered straight to your email! Or visit ascensionpress.com/thejeffcavinsshow for full shownotes!

Welcome to the Jeff Kaven Show, where we talk about the Bible, discipleship, and evangelization, putting it all together in living as activated disciples. This is show 323, children's books, tools for formation. Welcome to the show this week. You know the drill. We talk about evangelization. We talk about Bible study, living our lives as disciples, and sometimes we look at the various tools that are available to us, whether they be books, Bibles, or some kind of study. And today, it's children's books. I got a really good guest for you, Claudia McCadam.

She's going to be joining us. She has written some wonderful books for children. And I like to think of children's books as tools for evangelization or tools for formulations. as we are talking about today, and boy, we need tools, don't we? Did you have special, like a special relationship with books when you were growing up? I did, and I can still remember, I could give you a list of the books that had a big impact on me when I was growing up, starting with my side of the mountain, that award-winning epic

of a child, you know, that goes into the Catskill Mountains and lives in the woods in a big tree and then goes into town and gets books and brings them out to the woods and lives off the land. Man, that book really grabbed my attention as a kid. And I still think about that. In fact, I have been buying some of my favorite books as a kid to give to my grandkids. And there's all kinds of other books that had a big impact on me as well. And I'm sure you have a list.

Well, today we're going to be talking to Claudia McAdam about two of the books. that she has published with Ascension Press. One is called the real presence. The other is a miracle for Micah. They deal with the real presence of Jesus, but there is a relationship between the two. Now, the reason that I wanted to bring Claudia to you today is because for a lot of us,

we are a little bit more prepared to share the gospel with fellow adults. or young adults. But a lot of people will say that they don't know exactly how to go about forming children or how do you go about communicating the gospel in a way and at a level that children would understand. And that's why I think people like Claudia McCadam are really, really gems in the body of Christ because not only are they skilled at it, but they are actually doing it. And not all of us can do that. And so what books afford us is the opportunity to take her gifts and then present them to our kids and our grandkids and our nieces and nephews and let her gift

flow into their life. And I'm a big, big supporter of artists, whether they be painters or sculptors or writers. I'm a big, big, big proponent of supporting them. And I think that we should be doing that. You probably have, you know, remember times in the past where I said if you're going to put art on your wall, why not commission an artist? You know, find a Catholic artist and say, we would like some beautiful art in our home rather than just going down to the, you know, to the furniture store and paying $355 for something that has the right colors for the room, support an artist. And in the same way, support authors like Claudia McAdam. And so you're going to going to be in for a retreat. We'll be back with Claudia right after this.

Hi there. I'm Mark Hart. And I'm going to share with you an exciting new series called Venture, the Bible timeline for high school. Now, let's be honest. The Bible is easily the most confusing, most misunderstood book of all time. How do these random time periods, these random people, these random stories all fit together? And what do they mean for me and for my life? In this study, we're going to take a journey through the basic story of scripture from Genesis through Revelation, so that by the end of it, teenagers will understand the big picture of salvation history, because when we come to know the story, we come to know our place in the story. To find out more and get a free preview of this engaging new study, visit ascensionpress.com

backslash venture. As you know, over the last few years, I've been mentioning quite a bit the need to catechize the children and to pass on this great advantage. venture, this story, this narrative to the next generation. And that's probably the number one question that I get when I'm on the road. People are asking, what do we do about our children? What is the future going to look like? And certainly people are saying the country that we're living in right now, America, is not the country that I grew up in. And frankly, people are scared and people are nervous about what the next generation is going to do as far as interacting in the

culture. And so I'm a big believer in creating material that will help informing children and passing on the faith to them. And today I'm really blessed to have a good friend that I've known for a number of years, and she's been writing now for Ascension and in the area of children's books. And it's interesting because I yesterday actually had, I had coffee with another writer who writes children's books, and I was asking her, what is the key to writing for children? And she said, you know, writing for children is something you have to write, you write to them. And you gather your own experience when you were a child and you communicate the faith to them. And she said something that I thought was very important. They are smarter and more intuitive

than you think they are. And so my guest today is Claudia McCatham, and she is an award-winning author of two dozen. That's 24, if you're listening, 24 books. Most of them are kids and teens. And she has an undergraduate degree in English and a master's degree in Catholic theology. Her books invite young readers to learn and to love and live their faith. Two of her most recent picture books are from Ascension Press. That's the real presence. And more recently, a miracle for Micah. Claudia, it's good to have you on the show. Thank you, Jeff. I love being able to speak with you as always. Yeah, we haven't seen each other in a while, and I think we were going to do this earlier until I slipped on ice and broke the old ribs. So we had to

keep postponing it, but now it's all beautiful. It's spring, and we're ready, we're ready to go. So how are you doing? Doing very well. It was springtime. It's beautiful time, time for children to be making their first Holy Communion, their first reconciliation, so that these books that we're going to discuss fit perfectly into this season of springtime and renewal and first reception of the first sacraments for these young ones. I'm so encouraged by people who write for children as you do. You know, when you look at the area of formation in the Catholic Church today, it is largely for adults. You know, there's a lot of a material that's available to adults out there, but there's not a lot of material for children, and if children's, if they're not going to be

captivated by this incredible story that we have, they're going to look elsewhere. So I appreciate all the work that you have done. What is your history in writing for children? How long you've been doing that? You know, I knew when I was 10 years old that I wanted to be a writer when I grew up, and that was my sole focus all through school, majoring in English. And I began being published before I was out of college. So that's many decades ago. I've been writing for and about children and teens. And in the last many years here, most of my books have been faith-based, Catholic faith-based books for kids. And when you talk about educating and forming our kids, yes, you can do a lot in the way of catechises.

But what I try to write, I try not to be terribly didactic in what I write. I try to tell a good story from which my young readers can draw the truths of our beautiful Catholic. faith from those stories. I mean, St. Ignatius of Loyola, who taught us to use our imaginations when we read sacred scripture, I take my starting point from him and invite my young readers to put on sandals of kids who lived, who could have lived at the time of Jesus, and to walk along with them as they interact with our Lord, and then have my young readers learn along with my main characters about the real presence or about reconciliation in the second book, A Miracle for Micah. So I've been blessed to have my works published by Ascension Press and others, and it's my way of

evangelizing. And I'm so blessed to be able to do that. Well, that's really good. I got to ask you at the beginning of our talk here together, our conversation, people sometimes when they hear about children's books, you know, somebody wrote a children's book. They did a children's audio recording, whatever it might be, they think right away, well, I'm not a child and maybe I don't even have children. Why should I even care? Why should I be listening? But if you really look at it, everybody has some relationship to some child somewhere, don't they? We all were children. So, you know, yes. And you do have relationships. And story is so powerful. I mean, you look at the divine master storyteller himself, our Lord. I mean, he's,

He gathered people around him, and when he launched into a story, we call them parables, such as a man had two sons, and the younger one said, give me what's do me. The people around him, their ears must have pricked up, and they were immediately in that story, putting themselves in the position of that young wayward son or the older jealous son or the bereft father. And by doing that, they identify and learn and grow. And adults reading children's books can have the same experience. And children, for certain, can have those experiences. Before we look at the two books, The Real Presence and A Miracle for Micah, I got to ask you, you know, as a writer, as your mother, you probably have a lot of relatives who have kids.

what do you think that kids today are facing? What is it that is different about the kids today than, say, 30, 40 years ago? Wow. I'm not only a mother. I'm a grandmother of nine. Oh, congratulations. Well, thank you. I get to see that on a daily basis with my grandchildren.

And I just, I feel for the young people of today, the social issues and pressures that they're faced with. and what counterbalances that if we don't do it as parents, grandparents, and educators to teach them the truth and the beauty of our faith and to help those children fall in love with our Lord Jesus Christ, they're not going to find it in the secular world. And, I mean, we don't pray in classrooms, you know, we better not mention the name of God out in public

or for shame on us. You know, there's a lot of challenges that families and children have to go through today that you and I did. didn't, that our children didn't. And it's up to us to try to turn that ship around. Well, I think more than at any other time, it is incumbent upon us as adults, whether we're young adults, or whether we're grandparents or great-grandparents, that we have to take seriously our responsibility to influence the children. I think in the time that you and I grew up, it was sort of just a given that the parents would teach their children and bring them to church,

make sure they were at CCD, and that you could learn from your aunts and uncles. And if you even went to a public school, you probably got a pretty good education, but it just isn't that way anymore. And we have to be very purposeful about this, because if we go by what I would call the eighth sacrament, which is the sacrament of holy osmosis, it's not going to happen. It's just not going to happen with our kids. No, and we are enjoined, as you know, in sacred scripture, to teach our children. the faith. Deuteronomy says that very clearly. I mean, what's incumbent upon us, it's not like,

oh, we just hope they get it somewhere out in the world. No, you have to be purposeful and intentional about it. And being a good parent and being a parent who raises good faith-filled children takes work. And I'm sorry, but if you want to be a good parent, if you want your children to grow up well, you have to invest the time. You can't, there's no way you can get around it. You can't farm that out. You have to do it. And I don't want to be a good parent. I don't want to of that to sound like a horribly boring, tedious job because it's not. It's a joy-filled relationship with your children. Amen. And it's, yeah, it's a wonderful thing to be able to embrace. Right. And I just moments before you and I got together here to talk, my grandson was over and it was able to talk to

him. And now I feel that responsibility and that privilege of being able to influence him. Your latest book is a miracle for Micah. But first let's look at the book previous to that, The Real Presence. What's the premise in your book for children on The Real Presence? I make my main characters about the same age as my young readers. So these are two cousins, a girl and a boy, who live in Copernum at the time of Jesus. And they are arguing all the time. As siblings do, as cousins might, they're battling back and forth as to which of their family's crops is better. Is it the grain grown by Zetekiah's family? or the grapes raised by Abigail's family, and grain or grapes, which is better?

You know, you can get bread, you can get wine out of them. Let's ask Jesus, which he thinks is better. And the two children go to the synagogue in Copernum to ask Jesus this question, but they happen upon the bread of life discourse. And they hear Jesus say, I am the bread of life, and you must eat my body and drink my blood. And they're confused and not understanding exactly what he's saying, and they debate between the two of them.

as to was he just telling a joke? You know, did he really mean to eat his body? How can we do that? And it ends up where they provide the grain and the grapes, the bread and the wine for the last supper, where they come to realize that what Jesus said, he meant, eat my body, drink my blood, and how they witness him transform that bread and wine

into his body and blood. So they want to give him their gifts, their presence, which he gives them his real presence. I like that. You mentioned the Bread of Life discourse, and of course that's John Chapter 6. It's a very, very long, long chapter. And at the time of our discussion right now, we just went through this. We're, you know, in our liturgical readings.

And it's really the, it really is the epicenter of scriptures when we talk about the real presence of Jesus. And, you know, sometimes we have listeners that join us and are not sure about some of these words, but when we say the real presence of Jesus, we're not talking about just being able to see him, but we're talking about how bread and wine in the mass with the words of institution, this is my body, this is my blood. The bread and the wine turn into totally 100%

the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus. This is what the church teaches, but it's not what everyone believes. And that's problematic because there is a big difference between the body of Christ and whole wheat bread. There's a big, big difference between, you know, Manashevich wine and the blood of Christ. So you're talking about the real presence of Jesus. The miracle that happens at every single mass, and we have to have eyes to see, and we have to

have hearts that believe in that. It's the source and summit of our faith, and if we believe in Jesus Christ, we must believe and what he said in that John Chapter 6, Bread of Life discourse. He wasn't fooling around, and he doubled down when people walked away from him because it was too hard for us, they said, and they walked away. He didn't back off and say, well, no, I was just kidding, or let me explain. He doubled down and said, no, this is really what I mean. My body is true.

He didn't raise his hands in that timeout position saying metaphor, metaphor, guys, come on back. Your next book, the most recent one, is a miracle for months. Micah. How does the premise of that book differ? I'll tell you how it's the same. It starts out in Copernum, the same location, because this was Jesus' headquarters during his ministry, and so many of his miracles happened there. And I've been inspired by pilgrimage that I was able to take to the Holy Land, and I know you go every year, at least once. And that church that is built upon the ruins of St. Peter's house in Copernum,

with the glass floor where you can look down into those ruins and just sitting there thinking the miracles that happened right there that you could you could have witnessed if you had been there. And so this is the setting for a miracle for Micah. Micah is a young boy. His mother sends him to the market in Copernum to buy food for the family. But he has a different idea. He wants to use that money for a treat for himself. So he's going to sneak up onto Peter's rooftop and steal fish and take it home for their meal.

and his younger brother witnesses him do this and is disgusted by it. But Micah is not dissuaded, and Micah sees Jesus heal Peter's mother-in-law. He's peeking through the roof. He sees that happen. He's there when the paralytic is let down through the roof, and Jesus heals him, forgives him of his sins and heals him, and he still isn't dissuaded from stealing. He steals fish and comes down off those stairs off of Peter's rooftop

where Jesus encounters him and says, is this the type of person you want to become? Look what you're doing to me, to Peter, to your brother, who you are an example for, and to yourself. And when Micah realizes his sin, he confesses, apologizes, and Jesus gives him the absolution,

and Micah repents and goes about the rest of his life, even to the point where when he goes to town the next time to buy food on his way home, he's going up this big hill where Jesus is teaching, and there's so many people, Jesus can't feed them all until Micah offers him what he has in his basket, the five loaves and two fish. So there's a great connection between the two books. There is. There is. It's, you know, different characters, but kind of in the same setting, Copernum, and with the same character of Jesus, who is the main character in each of these stories as he should be in each of our lives. Now, who's your target audience? Because when we talk about kids, you know, you have all the way from preschool to, you know,

first, second, third grade, you have all the way up to junior high. So what do we mean by kids here as far as your target audience? Yeah, you know, I consider my books to be family books, shared as a family. And the target reader are probably, you know, first, second, third graders, but younger kids enjoy listening to these stories. And older kids enjoy reading these stories and parents, grandparents, and educators as well. In fact, I have shared these books with middle school classes. And I'll tell you what, those kids are absorbed in the story. They may not want to say, I read a picture book, but they're absorbed in the story and the illustrations. Let me talk a little bit about that. They're both done by Gina Capaldi and award-winning illustrator. And a good illustrator

will deliver the artwork for a book where if you pick up the book and you just look at the pictures, you don't read the words, you can still get a sense of the story. And she's done a marvelous job in both of those books. Yeah. So as far as being a tool for families, I know that you are, you're really not just writing a book, but you also have a discussion and activities guide that are available for the books. And how my parents use that to facilitate discussions and to go deeper into insights? Great question. On my website, which is claudia makeadam.com, I offer discussion and activities guides for all of my picture books and just have to request them.

I'm happy to send you the PDF. And in there are fun things for kids to do, word maze, words search, a coloring page, that type of thing. But there's also discussion questions. So, for example, with Micah, questions like, when Micah saw Jesus healing Peter's mother-in-law, for example, how do you think he felt?

You know, what would you have done if your mother gave you money and you found another way to get food? would you do what you wanted to do or would you do what she asked you to do? So there's ways to get the kids to think a little bit deeper about the story and apply those lessons, if you will, to their own lives. Sure. Now, where can people get a hold of the trailers? You know, normally when I talk to someone about a book, they don't mention trailers,

but you do have a trailer that people can take a look at. Again, at my website, Claudia Macadam.com. I have a book trailer for each of my books, and you can just click on where it's It says book trailer. 90 seconds, you get a little bit about the story. You get to see the illustrations and get an idea of what the book is like. So I love putting those together. It's a lot of fun for me. It's another creative outlet. Now, do you get out and do you speak at churches or conferences and share maybe even workshops about writing? But do you get out and talk to the people about your books and materials? I do. And I do a lot of in-person visits. You know, I've traveled across the country

presenting my books in person in classrooms or to book clubs or even adult groups. And now with the wonders of Zoom and those types of technologies, I can have a school visit across the country right from my home. And all my books are on PowerPoint so I can share the illustrations as I read the books and then we can discuss them as I would with my discussion guides. So I love doing that and I don't charge to do that because this is part of what I feel called to do as part of my evangelization. You know, when you sit down and you're going to write for children, I have, I mentioned

earlier that I actually had coffee with another writer yesterday who writes for children. And the question comes up quite a bit. You know, if somebody's interested in writing for children, which you have written quite a few books, what do you think the key is to communicate with children, particularly in the days that we're living in now, what is the key as far as communicating to them? What do you have to remember when you sit down in front of that computer? You know, people think writing children's books, oh, you know, a children's book is six, seven, eight hundred words.

It's not many words. It's really easy. And the thing is, it's not really easy. And it is a job, and you do have to spend the time doing it. So my advice always is to put yourself in the shoes of your reader. And you tell a story, the adults can't solve whatever the problem is. The kids have to do that themselves. I mean, to tell a good story, you have to be able to do it efficiently in a small word count.

And that's not always easy to do. And it may take several passes to get it publishing ready, so publication ready. So what's next? If you're like me, and someone says to you, what are you working on? I basically say, well, how much time do you have? Because we're always working on something. What's next for you? Well, this has been a very, very busy and blessed period in my life.

In the last two years, I've had seven books published by four different Catholic publishers. Next year, I will have three more books published by two different Catholic publishers, one of which is another book for Ascension Press, another kid's picture book. So I'm in the midst of doing those right now. Oh, that's good. Hey, before we let you go, I want to find out where can people find out all about your books and so forth. Go ahead and give the website, and we'll put that in the show notes as well. Sure.

For the two books we've talked about in particular, and actually, Ascension Press, has another picture book of mine called Louis Lent. It was particular to Lent. But all those books can be found at ascensionpress.com. And information on me and all my books is at Claudia, Mick Adam, that's M-C-A-D-A-M-A-M. dot com. Well, I want to thank you for joining me this week and say hi to your husband, who we actually are friends from way, way back, as you know. And the same to you with Emily. Yeah, thank you so much. My friend, that is Claudia McCaderman, and this is an opportunity for you to work with a writer in evangelization, in formation. You know, when you listen to someone like Claudia talking about

the writing of a book for children, it's so easy to listen on a one-dimensional. level of, well, I don't have children. My children are grown up. But you have to look at children's materials as golden these days and as opportunities to pass on the message, whether it is for first communion or whether it is for first confession or an Easter gift or whatever it might be. But you can give gifts to children and you can be a blessing to them. Maybe grandchildren. That's what we're doing right now. I kind of thought we were all done, you know, with. with kids and then all of a sudden the grandchildren come around and it's like, we're back in the game. This is a lot of fun.

In some ways, it's even a little bit, well, it's different. I was going to say it's more fun, but it's different. So I would really encourage you to use these types of materials as formation and evangelization tools. So that's this week's show. Let me pray for you and pray that God would continue to give you boldness and courage. to live out the life of a disciple and that he would give you that hunger to dig deep into the word of God. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen. Lord, Jesus, we love you.

We thank you, Lord, for this opportunity today to listen to Claudia, talk about really the heart of the message, which is your real presence. Lord, we don't want our children to just grow up and be, quote, unquote, Catholic. We want them to know you. We want them to have a relationship with you as disciples. And we want them, Lord, to believe and to experience the real presence that you have made available to us. And so I pray for all who are listening right now that you would use them and that you would give them opportunities to carry forth materials like Claudia's to have an impact on young children today. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Look forward to talking to you next week.