About the Author:
Joyce Denham is an experienced author of several books for children and adults, taking her inspiration from Celtic Christianity and the lives of the saints. Her lyrical style sings through in stories. Having had a career in teaching, Joyce now lives in Minneapolis and is the Associate Minister in Adult Education and Formation at her church. Born in Alessandria in 1970. She is a graduate of the European Institute of Design in Milan, where she lives and works. She has been a freelance illustrator since 1993, working mainly in childrens books . She is the illustrator of the Usborne Family Bible and the Usborne Shakespeare series. Since 2000, Elena has worked mostly for Usborne Publishing. She has illustrated The Family Bible, The First Christmas, Stories from Shakespeare, Snowy Day, The Gingerbread Man and Lullabies for them. Elena has also illustrated Gib mir Wurzeln for the German publisher Gabriel, and Le Scarpette di Murano for Mpndadori. She has done many book cover illustrations including several for Sperling and Kupfer and Mondolibri in Italy and circa 10 covers for Christrian Focus Publications in Scotland.
From School Library Journal:
Grade 3–6—Denham chronicles the lifelong spiritual journey of Saint Francis of Assisi in the conversational prose of a storyteller. The fictionalized account is divided into brief vignettes, each illuminating a key event in the man's life and illustrating how he modeled the compassionate ideology professed in the venerated Prayer of Saint Francis. The son of a cloth merchant, Francis spent his youth carousing with a gang of young nobles and dreamed of finding glory on the battlefield as a knight. When God spoke to him in a dream, he gave up his military aspirations and became Christ's knight instead, dedicating his life to the poor. The author touches upon the most celebrated episodes in Francis's life, including his sermon to the birds, his taming of the wolf of Gubbio, his creation of the first crèche, and his being marked with the stigmata. The narrative is accompanied by simple cartoon watercolor paintings. Francis is depicted as a shaggy-haired, smiling man clad at first in rich tunics and then in a plain brown robe tied with a length of rope. Denham prefaces the text with the Canticle of the Sun and rounds it out with The Call to Repentance. Young readers may enjoy this abbreviated overview of the saint's life but should rely on a more detailed source for reports.—Linda L. Walkins, Mount Saint Joseph Academy, Brighton, MA
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