R is for Rosary – a Catholic Family Alphabet is truly a collaborative effort involving my spiritual companion Sr. Patt, my critique group, art designer Lorien, business partner Debra LaPlante, and the Holy Spirit. Yes, I believe that! I remember how I felt after writing the text on the R page. I reread it and wondered where those words came from. Surely the Holy Spirit guided me. When it came to deciding how to illustrate the book, the Spirit was present again. I had just finished writing about St. Kateri Tekakwitha and was shutting the computer down when my photo library opened up. I clicked on a thumbnail (I have over 20,000 images in my library) and it was the photo of the icon of St. Kateri that I took at the San Carlos Mission on the Apache reservation. It was then that I had the idea to illustrate the book with images of sacred art. And to think that this book would still be packed away in a crate under the table in my office if it wasn’t for the 4th graders at Ss. Simon and Jude. I was visiting the school with my book D is for Desert and they asked if I was working on any new books. When I told them about R is for Rosary, they gasped as if I was writing this book for each one of them. And in a way, I did. I went home that day and started on it. I unpacked my research, wrote (and rewrote) the manuscript, and photographed sacred art wherever I could find it including Ireland. Upon completion, I dedicated the book to the students at Ss. Simon and Jude Cathedral School in Phoenix for inspiring me to finish it.
Each letter in the alphabet represents a facet of the Catholic faith. A rhyme, text and sacred art illustration along with a prayer written by a child complete the page. As Father Herb at Our Lady of Joy Catholic Church said, “R is for Rosary is a treasure for parents and children alike. The format is clear and concise. Every child learns the ABCs but these ABCs are special. This book teaches the gifts of our Catholic Faith to the young and will refresh the understanding of adults.”
Following the alphabet letters is a section called Family Faith Formation with stories about our Holy Father, Pope Francis, and ideas on how families can grow their faith. The book is interactive with places for photos, a family written prayer and even a child’s drawing of heaven.
Fr. Peter Kirwin, O.F.M., the rector at the Church of Our Lady of the Angels at the Franciscan Renewal Center shared this, “Barbara Gowan has brought together a stunning array of beautiful illustrations and meaningful descriptions of essential elements of our Roman Catholic faith in a unique manner to inspire all who read it. Students bring to each letter of the alphabet a prayer to help the reader focus spiritually on its meaning. To enjoy this book is to be filled with joy celebrating the gift of a relationship shared with our loving God and with each other.”
I am available for school visits and family literacy nights focusing on the creation of this book. Students at Ss. Simon & Jude brainstormed ideas for each letter and then learned about the writing process and the sacred art chosen for each topic.
R is for Rosary is the first selection in the Catholic Kids Book Club. Members join for three months at a time and receive a carefully selected book for their child based on the liturgical calendar. The theme of the CKBC is “faith formation through story.” To read reviews of the book selections and to sign up for the CKBC, go to the website www.CatholicKidsBookClub.com. And don’t forget to like Catholic Kids Book Club on Facebook!
CKBC is my latest adventure in literacy. Together with friend and librarian Debra LaPlante, we’ve started a new type of book club. We believe that the family is a child’s first teacher of faith. A natural way to start a child on the journey of faith formation is through story. We’ve selected outstanding picture books as the monthly selections for CKBC. Many will follow the Church calendar in theme. Parent information and ideas for family activities are sent with each book. The first book is R is for Rosary. We hope you will join the Catholic Kids Book Club today and experience the joy of faith formation through story!
Help spread the word about R is for Rosary and the Catholic Kids Book Club. Please share it with your church community. Contact me for a press release for your diocesan newspaper.
The Grand Canyon Reader Award is sponsored by the Arizona Library Association and is the state’s kids’ choice award. Nominated and voted on by Arizona’s children, the award is a special honor for an author. Ten books are in this year’s Nonfiction list. Kids must read or have read to them at least five of the nominees to have the opportunity to vote for their favorite. Competition for me is stiff this year as it is every year! Votes are due by April 1, 2015 so get started reading now. For the list of books in all categories – nonfiction, picture book, intermediate, tween and teen, check out the GCRA website. 
The website also has curriculum ideas, teacher’s guides, bookmarks and voting stickers. Consider inviting me into your class or to visit your school to share my presentation on D is for Desert. Check out the details on my 
When I submit a query to the editor for that issue’s theme, I send an outline, bibliography and suggested article length. Because I enjoy photography, I always try to include pictures that I’ve taken for a photo essay. Honestly, magazines pay more for photos than for words and neither pays well so it’s really an exercise in writing and impacting kids with great information.
You can imagine how thrilled I was when Appleseeds announced an issue dedicated to the rain forest theme. After all, whose family had taken a vacation to the Amazon rain forest? Mine! So it was time to dig out those old slides (way before digital images), journal entries and nature books and reaquaint myself with the 3-toed sloth, 110% humidity, adventures like piranha fishing and canoeing in a dugout. The result was a four-page spread including 18 images in the January 2012 issue. I had to convert my slides into jpegs and convince my now adult daughters that it was OK for the world to see them as pre-teens “roughing it” in the Amazon. A year later, I received a big surprise. McGraw Hill sent me a contract requesting the use of my images for their PARCC testing. I hold the copyright on the photos (magazine owns the words) so now thousands of kids will be reading about my family’s adventure. My check was more than I’ve made on all my published articles – a nice perk of magazine writing.
Our adventures in Wigtown involved hours rummaging through used book stores in search of golf books for Ed, material for Katie’s English lit thesis and folktales for me. I did find a surprise – a Happy Hollisters book just like the ones I received when I was a member of the Book of the Month club as a child.
I parked myself in the front row in the children’s tent and enjoyed inspiring words from award-winning authors about where they get their ideas for their stories. Katherine Applegate wrote The One and Only Ivan in 1st person gorilla! She read an article in the NY Times over 20 years ago about a gorilla in a Tacoma, WA shopping mall. That story is the basis for this Newbery Award winning book. And Katherine recently paired with illustrator G. Brian Karas so watch for the picture book, Ivan: The Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla in October 2014. In the Caldecott winning book Locomotive, author/illustrator Brian Floca tells the story of a steam locomotive similar to the one in a park in his hometown. Lesa Cline-Ransome and her husband, James, write picture book biographies giving them the opportunity to eavesdrop on conversations of famous people. They gave the advice to write about what you know and love and that’s evident in their book Light in the Darkness. Where do they look for ideas? the obituary pages! Richard Peck’s The Mouse with the Question Mark Tail grew out of a trip to London. He saw a mouse darting around an old castle. Why not tell a story from the point of view of the mouse? And so he did. Even Queen Victoria is in the book.
