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Sixty Saints: Sixty Saints for Girls
Joan Windham’s Sixty Saints for Girls contains all her stories of girl and woman saints from her other books, with a number of new ones added.The stores are arranged by date, beginning with Our Lady’s mother, St. Anne, and finishing with another Anne, Anne de Guigne (this Anne, who died in 1922, aged 10, has not been canonized, but she was declared Venerable on March 3, 1990 by Pope John Paul II). In between is a lovely mix of saints, young and old, princesses and pilgrims, mothers and grandmothers and a goose-girl and a horse-dealer’s daughter; a girl who was kidnapped by pirates, a veterinarian, and (believe it or not) a ventriloquist! These stories are ideally suited to inspire readers to fall in love with virtue. No child reading them will ever suppose that saints are all cut to one pattern or that holiness is less interesting than bad behavior. Anyone who wants to know what a saint is really like will get a clear and beautiful picture by reading these accounts, and they can be enjoyed over and over again by children of all ages, and by adults alike.
- GenresChristianityReligion
376 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 1979
21 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 5, 2007
I received this book as a Christmas gift one year when I was about 10 or 11, and I read it over and over. I didn't grow up in a particularly religious family, but for some reason this book fascinated me. Windham has a very droll writing style; perhaps that helped.
August 11, 2023
1☆
When I was a kid I read this book and thoroughly enjoyed it. A lot of the stories stuck with me and I even seriously considered picking some of the saints in here as my confirmation Saint
I'm really happy I didn't because it's VERY FICTIONALIZED
I cannot stress this point enough; 80% of this book is made up by the author to- I don't even know, make it more interesting for kids???
Joan Windham has a writing style that is very fantastical so obviously some things have to be stressed and some dialogue has to be made up so the story can work but the things she adds and changes affects the story as a whole.
I haven't read this book since I was maybe 6 or 7, I only picked it up again because I mentioned the story of St Penelope and my parents didn't know her story so I pulled out the book.
WHAT.
So I read 3 stories yesterday and I'm just going to go over how different they are from the true story
PENELOPE- in the story there's a made up fruit woman who tells penelope about Christianity which causes her to convert much to the chagrin of her pagan father. The interesting part of her story happens toward the end when her father decides to tie her up to a horse that will ride into the wild and she'll starve to death. In the book the horse turns around and bites the fathers hand off and he bleeds to death. Then penelope is like "actually no, God can you not do that?" So God puts his hand back and he comes back to life and converts. I just need you to read these laughably inaccurate writings in this book
"He [God] quickly mended her pagan father's hand and he came alive again and all the people cheered"
"Happier and more excited she [penelope] became at last she began to dance around her room. 'I'm a Christian! Hooray! Hooray!" And she began to make a song about it- just as you do"
ACTUAL STORY- in reality Penelopes father got wild horses in an attempt to have her trampled to death only for the horses to turn around and trample the father to death. This makes a lot more sense considering the fact that horses teeth are in no way strong enough to bite off a human hand. While this may not seem like much- the main thing I took away from this story is "Penelope's father got his hand bitten off by a horse" that's the #1 thing I remembered and it's entirely false.
Also can I just point out how Joan says that Penelope was in her room "doing a jigsaw puzzle" ?????? Jigsaw puzzles were invented 1700 years after penelopes story takes place come on now 😭
BEATRICE- Beatrice's story is one of the more accurate stories in this book which is nice because she was also in the running for confirmation Saint for me. The only difference I could find was that some versions of the story include townspeople torturing lucretious to death while these just have him sort of die in a chair so 🤷
URSULA- I hated Ursula's story as a child I'm sorry. Basically what I got from it was that she wanted to be a Saint so she just sailed over to a place where Christians were being persecuted so she could die it was so dumb. The story is pretty much how I remember it only wilder.
Her father wants to marry her to this prince Conan but she doesn't want to be married to a pagan so she's like "Ok I'll do it on 3 conditions, 1- he has to convert, 2- He has to get me 11,000 AND 10 WOMEN and 3- me and my 11,000 AND TEN WOMEN have to sail around"
HE ACTUALLY DOES THAT
WHAT A SIMP
He literally found 11,010 other women couldn't he have married one of them?? They even mention "There were tall girls, short girls, young girls, dark girls, light girls... all of them were young and none of them were ugly" take your pick and know your worth, my guy.
Anyway she takes all the women and the fleet of ships to visit the Holy land and actually converts 11,010 people so that's some cause for sainthood right there I can understand that.
Anyway they go sailing but by mistake end up in Germany. Let me make you familiar with a quote from the beginning; "Ursula was only 15 years ild but she was very clever and knew all about stars and things and how to rule countries" HOW DOES SHE GET LOST AND END UP IN GERMANY THEN???
Either way they "thought that it was rather funny" that they ended up in a country where Christians were being killed.
Ursula gets a dream that she will be martyred after they come back from Rome so when she meets the pope and bishops and stuff she tells them that and they're like "Oh rad we want to be saints too" so they all just head on over to Germany to get martyred because they want to 😭
They get there and these guards are like "We can't have 11,010 christians" so they have their cousin-who just so happens to be the king of the huns- to have his army kill them all but they save Ursula because she's too pretty to be killed and the king of the huns wants to marry her. Look at this interaction;
---------------------------
"No!' Said Ursula. 'I won't Marry a pagan who has just killed all my eleven thousand and ten friends and the pope and the bishops and prince Conan. I couldn't could I?'
'You could quite easily If you stopped being a silly little Christian" said Julien, who liked the devil very much. 'Why don't you worship Satan instead?'"
--------------------------
NO ONE SAYS THAT
This is like those anti-drug PSA's where they have a sketchy guy in a jacket walk over like "Hey wanna do drugs"
Overall this book Is so dumb.
I understand stretching the truth a little bit to make it less graphic or have interesting dialogue to give the saint more personality but this is too far.
The whole point of reading about the Saints is that they're REAL PEOPLE why would I want that to be fictionalized? You just missed the appeal of Saint stories
☆1
I wish my eyes were bitten out by a horse so I wouldn't have to read this anymore
When I was a kid I read this book and thoroughly enjoyed it. A lot of the stories stuck with me and I even seriously considered picking some of the saints in here as my confirmation Saint
I'm really happy I didn't because it's VERY FICTIONALIZED
I cannot stress this point enough; 80% of this book is made up by the author to- I don't even know, make it more interesting for kids???
Joan Windham has a writing style that is very fantastical so obviously some things have to be stressed and some dialogue has to be made up so the story can work but the things she adds and changes affects the story as a whole.
I haven't read this book since I was maybe 6 or 7, I only picked it up again because I mentioned the story of St Penelope and my parents didn't know her story so I pulled out the book.
WHAT.
So I read 3 stories yesterday and I'm just going to go over how different they are from the true story
PENELOPE- in the story there's a made up fruit woman who tells penelope about Christianity which causes her to convert much to the chagrin of her pagan father. The interesting part of her story happens toward the end when her father decides to tie her up to a horse that will ride into the wild and she'll starve to death. In the book the horse turns around and bites the fathers hand off and he bleeds to death. Then penelope is like "actually no, God can you not do that?" So God puts his hand back and he comes back to life and converts. I just need you to read these laughably inaccurate writings in this book
"He [God] quickly mended her pagan father's hand and he came alive again and all the people cheered"
"Happier and more excited she [penelope] became at last she began to dance around her room. 'I'm a Christian! Hooray! Hooray!" And she began to make a song about it- just as you do"
ACTUAL STORY- in reality Penelopes father got wild horses in an attempt to have her trampled to death only for the horses to turn around and trample the father to death. This makes a lot more sense considering the fact that horses teeth are in no way strong enough to bite off a human hand. While this may not seem like much- the main thing I took away from this story is "Penelope's father got his hand bitten off by a horse" that's the #1 thing I remembered and it's entirely false.
Also can I just point out how Joan says that Penelope was in her room "doing a jigsaw puzzle" ?????? Jigsaw puzzles were invented 1700 years after penelopes story takes place come on now 😭
BEATRICE- Beatrice's story is one of the more accurate stories in this book which is nice because she was also in the running for confirmation Saint for me. The only difference I could find was that some versions of the story include townspeople torturing lucretious to death while these just have him sort of die in a chair so 🤷
URSULA- I hated Ursula's story as a child I'm sorry. Basically what I got from it was that she wanted to be a Saint so she just sailed over to a place where Christians were being persecuted so she could die it was so dumb. The story is pretty much how I remember it only wilder.
Her father wants to marry her to this prince Conan but she doesn't want to be married to a pagan so she's like "Ok I'll do it on 3 conditions, 1- he has to convert, 2- He has to get me 11,000 AND 10 WOMEN and 3- me and my 11,000 AND TEN WOMEN have to sail around"
HE ACTUALLY DOES THAT
WHAT A SIMP
He literally found 11,010 other women couldn't he have married one of them?? They even mention "There were tall girls, short girls, young girls, dark girls, light girls... all of them were young and none of them were ugly" take your pick and know your worth, my guy.
Anyway she takes all the women and the fleet of ships to visit the Holy land and actually converts 11,010 people so that's some cause for sainthood right there I can understand that.
Anyway they go sailing but by mistake end up in Germany. Let me make you familiar with a quote from the beginning; "Ursula was only 15 years ild but she was very clever and knew all about stars and things and how to rule countries" HOW DOES SHE GET LOST AND END UP IN GERMANY THEN???
Either way they "thought that it was rather funny" that they ended up in a country where Christians were being killed.
Ursula gets a dream that she will be martyred after they come back from Rome so when she meets the pope and bishops and stuff she tells them that and they're like "Oh rad we want to be saints too" so they all just head on over to Germany to get martyred because they want to 😭
They get there and these guards are like "We can't have 11,010 christians" so they have their cousin-who just so happens to be the king of the huns- to have his army kill them all but they save Ursula because she's too pretty to be killed and the king of the huns wants to marry her. Look at this interaction;
---------------------------
"No!' Said Ursula. 'I won't Marry a pagan who has just killed all my eleven thousand and ten friends and the pope and the bishops and prince Conan. I couldn't could I?'
'You could quite easily If you stopped being a silly little Christian" said Julien, who liked the devil very much. 'Why don't you worship Satan instead?'"
--------------------------
NO ONE SAYS THAT
This is like those anti-drug PSA's where they have a sketchy guy in a jacket walk over like "Hey wanna do drugs"
Overall this book Is so dumb.
I understand stretching the truth a little bit to make it less graphic or have interesting dialogue to give the saint more personality but this is too far.
The whole point of reading about the Saints is that they're REAL PEOPLE why would I want that to be fictionalized? You just missed the appeal of Saint stories
☆1
I wish my eyes were bitten out by a horse so I wouldn't have to read this anymore
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews