Angel Food for Boys & Girls, Volume IV

Angel Food #2

by Gerald T. Brennan

These Angel Food books, filled with Christ-like charm, simplicity, and attractive truths, are here served for the additional delight of the many who have enjoyed other Father Brennan books.   Angel Food for Boys & Girls, Volume IV, includes: "St. Peter Goes Shopping," "The Priest of Times Square," "Jesus' Workshop", and many more.  Each volume also has a topical index relating various subjects in the stories to chapters in the Baltimore Catechism.

128 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1942

About the author

Rev. Fr. Gerald T. Brennan attended Rochester’s St. Andrew’s and St. Bernard’s seminaries and was ordained in 1923. After serving as an assistant for nine years, he became pastor of Mount Carmel Church and later of St. Bridget’s.

He had a wonderful rapport with children, teaching those in his parish schools, as well as hundreds of public'school children. During the weekly children’s Mass at his parish, he preached directly to the children, modeling his homilies on Christ’s example of telling a story and drawing a moral from it.
A friend insisted repeatedly that Fr. Brennan publish the stories from his homilies, and when he finally dared Fr. Brennan to do so, Fr. Brennan accepted the challenge and wrote his first book: Angel Food, a book of stories with practical lessons intended to help priests to teach the Faith to children.
His next book, Angel City, written specifically for children and at the request his friend and his publisher, was so popular that Fr. Brennan received letters from children all over the world, asking him to write more books. And more books followed: The Ghost of Kingdom Come, The Man Who Dared a King, The Good Rad Roy, and others.
Like Christ, who used words and images familiar to his hearers, Fr. Brennan spoke the language of children in his books. Full of simplicity and a sense of wonder, his words continue to bring the Faith alive for today’s young readers.

Reviews

[ShepherdsDelight · Rating 5 out of 5]

85/100 (= 5.0/6) ≈ 5 Stars

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More great stories for quite young children. The balance between the stories and explaining the morals is not always perfect. Some stories are also better than others, but overall a great continuation of the series. We listen to the Librivox audio version in the car. On to the next one!

[Fatima TheGreat · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 ⭐️


This one is definitely not as good as the first volume. It is quite culturally insensitive- which I have to admit made me chuckle a little. The writer is actually attempting to be inclusive, but in doing so uses phrases/descriptions that might be offensive to the cultures he is trying to include. These homilies would definitely not go over very well in modern day. Still- these are some fun bedtime stories that include some good lessons on subjects such as temptation and jealousy. I also liked the lesson on honoring Jesus by dressing your best and being clean and brushing your hair for church. One story is a good reminder that God will not always answer your prayers the way you want- but in a way that is good for you. There were some old-fashioned sections that I did not think were theologically sound- but my kids are old enough to understand that they are meant to be allegorical, and they got a good chuckle out of them. I am not sure I can whole-heartedly recommend this book, as I found several sections/chunks of phrasing problematic. We ended up picking and choose stories to use as fun before bed-time reading/discussion.

Age recommendation: maybe 5+